20 Pairs of Wildly Different Movies That Are Surprisingly Similar
Here in the age of sequels and franchises, we’ve grown docile and accepting of every movie being the same, but the fact of the matter is that there’s only so many different types of stories. The hero’s journey, man versus whatever — this is high school English class stuff. That means you can walk into the theater psyched for what seems like a totally original film only to go, “Hey, what a second — this is just Star Wars, again,” two-thirds of the way through.
In fact, as Redditor herequeerandgreat recently pointed out, even movies that seem completely different on the surface may have way more in common than you’d expect. They cited The Nightmare Before Christmas and Wreck-It Ralph, which they described as “animated movies about someone who is tired of their station in life and travels to a different world to try to do something different” in which “the hero’s actions cause horrible chaos which the hero must then fix” before going “right back to their old position with a newfound appreciation.”
After they said their piece, they asked r/Movies, “What are two seemingly different movies that are basically the same movie?” and Reddit made connections that exhausted our supply of red string.
Cars/Doc Hollywood
Avatar/Dances With Wolves
Pretty Woman/The Princess Diaries
Point Break/The Fast and the Furious
Three Amigos!/Galaxy Quest
L.A. Confidential/The Wizard of Oz
Batman Begins/American Psycho
Three Days of the Condor/Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Kill Bill/Double Jeopardy
Small Soldiers/M3GAN
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory/Seven
Forrest Gump/Joe Dirt
Ocean’s Eleven/Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea/Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp’s Adventure
Clueless/Mean Girls
The Northman/The Lion King
The Patriot/Braveheart
8 Mile/The Karate Kid
Drive/Baby Driver
Crank/Speed
