History ShowWithinAShow / LiveActionFilms

* In the Adam Sandler movie ''FunnyPeople'', Jason Schwartzman's character acts in a TV comedy series called ''Yo Teach''.
* In ''FindingNeverland'', the main character and several secondary characters are working on ''FindingNeverland''. Also a Type 3 (see below).

* ''HomeAlone'' has the gangster movies ''Angels with Filthy Souls'' and ''Angels with Even Filthier Souls''.

* In ''MulhollandDrive'' they audition for a movie called ''The Sylvia North Story''.
* ''ThePlayer'' depicts "Habeas Corpus" being pitched by writers to a producer, a detailed pitch almost as long as the film clip the audience ultimately sees.

* ''Film/TheHoliday'' features a movie trailer for a fictional film called "Deception" starring James Franco and Lindsay Lohan

* ''Film/Bruno'' has the titular character has the host of "Funkyzeit mit Bruno" before being fired.

* The ''Franchise/{{Scream}}'' series has the ''Stab'' series, which act as ''Scream''[='=]s analogue to itself in terms of their influence. The first ''Stab'', featured in [[Film/{{Scream 2}} the second movie]], is [[PlotParallel based on the events of the first film]] (albeit with some artistic embellishment and [[HotterAndSexier extra titillation]]), is directed by Creator/RobertRodriguez[[note]]Who, in real life, directed ''Film/TheFaculty'', another film written by Kevin Williamson.[[/note]], and stars [[BeverlyHills90210 Tori Spelling]] as Sidney, Luke Wilson as Billy, [[Series/{{Friends}} David Schwimmer]] as Dewey, and Creator/HeatherGraham as Casey. [[Film/{{Scream 3}} The third film]], meanwhile, revolves around the production of ''Stab 3'', which the masked killer is trying to sabotage. By the events of ''Film/{{Scream 4}}'', the ''Stab'' series has become a FranchiseZombie with seven films, having abandoned all pretense of being BasedOnATrueStory after the third (Sidney sued to prevent any further use of the original characters) and gone into straight-out fantasy by the fifth (which included a TimeTravel plot). ''Scream 4'' begins with 2 characters watching ''Stab 7'', which begins with the characters watching ''Stab 6'', just to add to the MindScrew. This also means that for ''Stab 3'', there would have been new actors playing the actors who were in ''Scream 3'', new actors playing Sidney, Gale, and Dewey, and would have been about them trying to make the failed ''Stab 3''. It would have been [[UpToEleven a show within a show within a show]], and couldn't have made much sense.

[[folder:Type 3: FWAF is a plot point]]

* ''Film/{{Matinee}}'' (1993) which counts in all four categories due to being structured around the premiere of the atomic monster movie ''[[BMovie MANT!]]'' in Key West -- during the ''[[ColdWar Cuban Missile Crisis]]!''

* ''Film/TheLastCommand'': Sergius, a former gneral of Russian Empire, is now an extra in a movie about the Revolution.

[[folder:Type 3: FWAF is plot point]]

* ''Film/DayForNight'' (French: ''La Nuit Américaine'') depicts the TroubledProduction of the fictional movie ''Meet Pamela''.

[[folder:Examples of type 1 (characters involved in production]]

[[folder:Examples of type 2 (characters are fans)]]

[[folder:Examples of type 3 (SWAS is plot point]]

[[folder:Examples of type 4 (PlotParallel)]]

!!Examples of type 1 (characters involved in production)

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!!Examples of type 2 (characters are fans)

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!!Examples of type 3 (SWAS is plot point)

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!!Examples of type 4 (PlotParallel)

* ''MoulinRouge'' is a musical movie depicting a stage performance of a movie about a man singing about a man writing the story of his involvement in a musical about a man whose involvement in a musical mirrors the writer's. Honestly.

* Done in ''{{Ararat}}'', a movie about someone making a movie about the Armenian genocide. Most critics and viewers agreed that it represents a rare case of the "movie within a movie" actually being better than the rest of the movie.

* ''InlandEmpire'' centers([[MindScrew ?]]) around the production of the movie ''On High In Blue Tomorrows'', an alleged romance that starts to mess with the main character's mind.[[spoiler: possibly due to a curse]] Certain sections of the film deal with ''Rabbits'', another project by David Lynch. As you'd expect from the man, it isn't cute. The absolutely deranged plot of both the show, the fake movie and the Film as a whole ensures you're not sure what level of reality they're on, and makes it hard to distinguish as types 1,3 or 4.

* ''TopsyTurvy'' is about the writing and production of ''The Mikado''.
* ''TheTrumanShow'' is about the production of a TV show about the life of a man who doesn't realise he's on TV. Whilst he doesn't know, the rest of the "cast" do.

* The kids in ''SonOfRambow'' are remaking ''[[{{Rambo}} First Blood]]''.

* The opening credits of ''ButchCassidyAndTheSundanceKid'' feature a silent film of the Hole-in-the-Wall gang's exploits.

* ''SevenPsychopaths'' is a combination of this and the third category. The main character, Marty, is writing a screenplay called ''Seven Psychopaths''. He and the other two mains spend most of the film discussing the screenplay (and in turn the film they're in), effectively deconstructing their own movie. The problems start when Marty's friend, Billy ([[spoiler:one - in fact ''two'' - of the titular psychopaths]]), takes a little too much control of the plot.

* The opening credits of ''ButchCassidyAndTheSundanceKid'' feature a silent film of the Hole in the Wall gang's exploits.

* The ''Franchise/{{Scream}}'' series has the ''Stab'' series, which act as ''Scream''[='=]s analogue to itself in terms of their influence. The first ''Stab'', featured in [[Film/{{Scream 2}} the second movie]], is [[PlotParallel based on the events of the first film]] (albeit with some artistic embellishment and [[HotterAndSexier extra titillation]]), is directed by Creator/RobertRodriguez[[note]]Who, in real life, directed ''Film/TheFaculty'', another film written by Kevin Williamson.[[/note]], and stars [[BeverlyHills90210 Tori Spelling]] as Sidney, Luke Wilson as Billy, [[Series/{{Friends}} David Schwimmer]] as Dewey, and HeatherGraham as Casey. [[Film/{{Scream 3}} The third film]], meanwhile, revolves around the production of ''Stab 3'', which the masked killer is trying to sabotage. By the events of ''Film/{{Scream 4}}'', the ''Stab'' series has become a FranchiseZombie with seven films, having abandoned all pretense of being BasedOnATrueStory after the third (Sidney sued to prevent any further use of the original characters) and gone into straight-out fantasy by the fifth (which included a TimeTravel plot). ''Scream 4'' begins with 2 characters watching ''Stab 7'', which begins with the characters watching ''Stab 6'', just to add to the MindScrew. This also means that for ''Stab 3'', there would have been new actors playing the actors who were in ''Scream 3'', new actors playing Sidney, Gale, and Dewey, and would have been about them trying to make the failed ''Stab 3''. It would have been [[UpToEleven a show within a show within a show]], and couldn't have made much sense.

* ''Film/SoulsForSale'' is a rather unique instance of this trope. It is a straight type 1, as the heroine is an actress who gets a big part in a movie about a circus. However, additionally to this, the heroine visits the sets of several ''real films'' that were in production at the same time ''Souls for Sale'' was. Among the sets she visits are ''A Woman in Paris'' (where she's an extra directed by Creator/CharlieChaplin himself) and ''Film/{{Greed}}'' (where she fails to get a part in Erich von Stroheim's production).

* ''SherlockJr'' (1924) stars Creator/BusterKeaton, who falls asleep and dreams while working as a theater projectionist -- the movie plays a more upscale version of a real life theft he's wrongly accused of. He walks into the movie through the screen, and plays the brilliant detective he aspires to be.

* ''Salome's Last Dance'' presents the bulk of Oscar Wilde's play ''Theatre/{{Salome}}'' as a production mounted for Wilde himself by the staff of a London brothel, with the wild and woolly goings-on onstage entwining themselves with the offstage relationships between Wilde and two of the actors (one of whom is Lord Alfred Douglas, who's playing ''John the Baptist'' in the show). Also a Type 3.

* ''Salome's Last Dance'' presents the bulk of Oscar Wilde's play ''Theatre/{{Salome}}'' as a production mounted for Wilde himself by the staff of a London brothel, with the wild and wooly goings-on onstage entwining themselves with the offstage relationships between Wilde and two of the actors. Also a Type 3.