In general, when talking about films, people will always talk about actors first and foremost. Also expect a lot of people's admiration to be more for the characters they portray on the screen too. Film Genres will also be discussed. Directors may be referenced too, if the movie was made by someone who has a very distinctive visual style and appears in the media a lot. Other people involved in the film process (script writers, cinematographers, camera men, visual effects artists, choreographers, composers, stuntmen, producers,...) will usually be mentioned only by film critics or hardcore cinephiles.
Film will usually be a synonym for Hollywood pictures only. To the general audience, preferably no works older than a mere thirty years, and strictly box office blockbuster films. British films may get some attention, but film industries of other countries are already more a niche market.
When referring to film awards the only ones everybody knows are the Oscars. The Palme d'Or in Cannes is a close second. The BAFTA Awards in Britain, the Golden Bear of Berlin, the Golden Lion of Venice and the Césars in France are well known too.
When referring to film classics people usually think or black-and-white pictures from the The Golden Age of Hollywood. This will usually be either a Charlie Chaplin film, a Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers picture, King Kong (1933), Citizen Kane and/or Casablanca. If you need an old color movie it will be Gone with the Wind and/or The Wizard of Oz.
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Genres
- Action movies? Anything with Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger or Bruce Willis.
- Typical examples: Terminator, Rambo, Die Hard, Lethal Weapon and Dirty Harry.
- Animal movies? Rin Tin Tin, Lassie.
- Arthouse movies and/or independent movies? Ingmar Bergman (usually The Seventh Seal, Persona (1966)), Jean-Luc Godard (Breathless) and François Truffaut (The 400 Blows). German arthouse is Werner Herzog and Wim Wenders, Italian Pier Paolo Pasolini and Federico Fellini, American David Lynch, Terrence Malick, Jim Jarmusch and Wes Anderson. Also expect everyone who references these to mock these films as if they are boring, difficult, experimental and only enjoyed by snobby film critics and poseurs, usually without having seen any of them in full.
- B-movies? Will be everything in 1950s fashion with men in rubber suits and monsters hanging on wires. If you need one director it will be Roger Corman.
- Bible movies? The Ten Commandments.
- Blaxploitation? Shaft and Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song.
- Bollywood movies? Outside India there aren't any famous stars but Raj Kapoor and even he is only known to very extreme cinephiles or fans of the genre.
- Cannibal Film? Cannibal Holocaust.
- CGI movies? Anything by Pixar and/or Dreamworks. Also note that most people wouldn't consider live-action movies with CGI special effects to be this.
- Children's movies? Also tends to differ from generation to generation, but Walt Disney and Shirley Temple are the typical examples. In the 1980s and 1990s Chris Columbus was the most famous director in this field. Some children movie classics still watched to this day are The Wizard of Oz, Mary Poppins, Harry Potter and Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (and it will always be the original).
- Claymation movies? Anything by Nick Park (Wallace & Gromit).
- Comedians? This tends to differ from generation to generation. Also the most famous ones aren't always neccessarily the most popular or good ones.
- The 1910s to the 1930s? Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold L Loyd, Laurel and Hardy, The Marx Brothers, W. C. Fields.
- The 1940s? Bob Hope, Abbott and Costello, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.
- The 1950s? Jerry Lewis.
- The 1960s? Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther movies.
- The 1970s and 1980s? Mostly Monty Python, Mel Brooks, Police Academy, Saturday Night Live based movies. For intellectuals Woody Allen. Since the 1980s Eddie Murphy.
- The 1990s? Jim Carrey, Mike Myers, and Robin Williams.
- The 2000s? Adam Sandler, Jack Black, and Will Ferrell.
- The 2010s? Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill.
- Concert Film? Woodstock.
- Cult movies? This also varies from generation to generation and depends on whom makes the reference and what his criteria would be. However, the most typical and undeniable iconic example of a Cult Classic will be The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
- Detective films? Sherlock Holmes.
- Disaster movies? The Towering Inferno, Airport,... A 21st century example would be The Day After Tomorrow.
- Epic Movies? Even though the genre has existed since the early 20th century the definition of what it exactly is tends to differ from viewer to viewer. Usually the term is used for movies about some great adventure that usually take more than two hours in length or will need a few sequels to tell everything. Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings are the most typical examples.
- Erotic movies? The Emmanuelle franchise.
- Exploitation movies? Also depends on what specific genre you're talking about, though the general examples will also be horror movies with a sensationalist streak from the 1970s.
- Mondo is unmistakeningly a typical exploitation movie example.
- Film Noir? Anything with Humphrey Bogart and/or Lauren Bacall.
- Also, much like how all comic books are believed to be about superheroes by the general public, all noirs are believed to be about private eyes untangling a Kudzu Plot.note In reality, just as many if not more pillars of the genre are told from the criminal's POV; a few extra-strict fans have gone so far as to claim that a detective protagonist automatically disqualifies a story from the noir genre, as they're too (in personality and ideals if not actual abilities) similar to superheroes to build a properly ambiguous atmosphere.
- Film Serials? Flash Gordon (serial), The Phantom (1943), The Green Hornet Serials.
- French New Wave? Anything by François Truffaut, Alain Resnais, Jean-Luc Godard.
- Found Footage movies? The Blair Witch Project.
- Gangster movies? From the 1920s until the 1950s: anything with Edward G. Robinson, Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney. Since the 1970s The Godfather has become the gangster movie to compare all other gangster movies ever since with. Goodfellas is the most recent example of a frequently referenced gangster movie.
- German Expressionism: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Nosferatu, M and Metropolis.
- Giallo? Anything by Dario Argento, Mario Bava and/or Lucio Fulci.
- Glamour? Usually movies from the 1920s until the 1950s, starring Greta Garbo, Clark Gable, Marlene Dietrich, Cary Grant, Jean Harlow, Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Fred Astaire, Vivien Leigh, Ginger Rogers, Grace Kelly.
- Horror movies? Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), Psycho, Night of the Living Dead (1968) (Dawn of the Dead (1978) is certainly popular in its own right, but it hasn't quite achieved the legendary status of its predecessor) The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Exorcist, Halloween, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street are the most iconic examples. Horror pictures that use monsters (King Kong, Godzilla), real life horrors (Silence of the Lambs, Jaws), stuff that you don't really see most of the time (The Shining, Paranormal Activity) science fiction horror (Alien) are usually not seen as the most typical examples of a standard horror movie. A fantastical creature in a Gothic setting seems to be most people's idea of horror.
- Dracula and Frankenstein are the most commonly cited examples of Universal Horror, alongside The Phantom of the Opera (1925), The Wolf Man (1941), Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Invisible Man (1933) and The Mummy (1932) (although that last example is often conflated with The Mummy's Hand).
- Friday The 13th, Halloween, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and A Nightmare On Elm Street are also pretty much the go-to examples for Slasher Movies.
- Horror comedies? Ghostbusters (1984), Evil Dead 2, An American Werewolf in London, and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.
- Hammer Horror? Horror of Dracula and The Curse of Frankenstein.
- Torture Porn? Saw. Hostel and The Devil's Rejects as well, albeit to a lesser extent.
- J-horror? The Ring and The Grudge.
- Religious Horror? The Exorcist, The Omen, and Rosemary's Baby.
- Horror movie actors? Bela Lugosi, Jamie Lee Curtis, Vincent Price, Lon Chaney Sr, Lon Chaney Jr., Boris Karloff, Christopher Lee, and Peter Cushing.
- Horror movie directors? John Carpenter, George Romero, James Wan, and Wes Craven. Following his death, Tobe Hooper has gotten some appreciation as well, although not to the extent of the others mentioned here.
- Kaiju movies? Godzilla. For specialists: Mothra, Rodan and Gamera.
- Martial arts films will always star Bruce Lee or someone who resembles him.
- Specific examples? Enter the Dragon and The 36th Chamber of Shaolin.
- Monster movies? King Kong or Godzilla (which explains why King Kong vs. Godzilla is the highest-grossing film in the latter's franchise).
- Musicals? Oklahoma!, Singin' in the Rain, West Side Story and The Sound of Music are the most often cited examples. The only musical actors that apparently exist are Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Gene Kelly and Liza Minnelli. Directors and choreographers are even more difficult to namedrop: Busby Berkeley will be the sole one. For an eccentric musical: The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
- Nazisploitation? Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS.
- Neo-realistic films? Bicycle Thieves.
- Pirate movies? In the old days anything with Errol Flynn. Since the 2000s, Pirates of the Caribbean.
- Porn movies? Deep Throat, Debbie Does Dallas, Behind The Green Door. They tend to get confused with erotic movies, though. The Italian Stallion might get mentioned because of Sylvester Stallone.
- Porn actors? Linda Lovelace, John Holmes, Traci Lords, Jenna Jameson, Lolo Ferrari (if you need one with huge breasts) and Ron Jeremy. At all other times references to specific pornographic films will typically be limited to Parallel Porn Titles (whether real or fictional). And, oh yeah, all porn movies referenced will be heterosexual porn.
- Propaganda films? Triumph of the Will and Battleship Potemkin.
- Puppet movies? The Muppets. In Eastern Europe Jan Švankmajer.
- Revenge movies? Dirty Harry, Death Wish, Kill Bill are the most famous examples.
- Road Trip Plot? Bonnie and Clyde, Badlands, Thelma & Louise.
- Rock 'n' Roll movies? Jailhouse Rock, The Girl Can't Help It and A Hard Day's Night. Throw in Tommy and Pink Floyd: The Wall too.
- Romance movies? Gone with the Wind, Casablanca, West Side Story (1961), Love Story, Pretty Woman, Titanic. Also note that in most of these examples the romances end tragically. In the 1930s anything directed by Ernst Lubitsch. In the 1950s and 1960s anything starring Doris Day and Rock Hudson. In the 1990s anything starring Julia Roberts.
- Samurai movies? Anything by Akira Kurosawa, but specifically Rashomon and The Seven Samurai.
- Science fiction movies?
- Fun SF? The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), Back to the Future, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Star Wars, Star Trek.
- Horror SF? Alien, War of the Worlds
- Intellectual/thought provoking SF? 2001: A Space Odyssey is all you need.
- Screwball Comedies? Anything with Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant.
- Silent movies? Will typically be thought of as slapstick movies with Charlie Chaplin and Pie in the Face gags.
- A slasher film? Anything starring Jason Voorhees. Or Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers. Except Jason will frequently have a chainsaw.
- Slapstick movies? Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy and The Three Stooges. If you're a bit more specialized you'll probably reference Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, The Marx Brothers and W. C. Fields too.
- So Bad, It's Good movies? Anything by Ed Wood, especially Plan 9 from Outer Space. Other campy cult movies haven't quite penetrated pop culture on the same levels, except for Manos: The Hands of Fate IF people have watched the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode. A more modern example is The Room (2003).
- Spaghetti Westerns? Anything by Sergio Leone except his last film..
- Spectacle films? Cecil B. DeMille (for the first half of the 20th century), Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, James Cameron and Michael Bay (more modern variants).
- Spy movies? James Bond.
- Swashbuckler films? Anything starring Douglas Fairbanks or Errol Flynn.
- Stoner Flick? Pick any Cheech & Chong movie.
- Sword and Sandal? Ben-Hur (1959), Spartacus and Cleopatra.
- Teen movies/ Coming of Age films? The Wild One, Rebel Without a Cause. They mostly seem associated with The '50s, nevertheless. Examples from the 1980s are works by John Hughes. There aren't any real stars too, because they quickly outgrow the genre that launches their career. The only exception would be James Dean, who was killed by a car accident very quickly.
- All teen comedies were by John Hughes. (Amy Heckerling might get a mention if the reference is a little more "indie.") Plus, you would have a hard time finding a casual John Hughes fan who could remember any members of his repertory of teen actors other than Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, Ally Sheedy, Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Jon Cryer, or Andrew McCarthy, even though there were many, many more. (And no, knowing the name of a character, such as "Long Duk Dong," doesn't count; the person has to know the name of the actor.) And that doesn't even include young actors who became famous outside of Hughes's works, and are associated with him only due to Retroactive Recognition (Robert Downey Jr., for example). Lampshaded by the 1997 book Pretty in Pink (about 1980s teen movies), which ended with an appendix listing many of the unsung Brat Packers that was wittily titled "Don't You Forget About Me."
- Thrillers? Anything by Alfred Hitchcock.
- War movies? Typically only set during the American Civil War and World War II for some tales of glory and heroism, or in the Vietnam War for War Is Hell. World War I whenever featured generally goes into the latter category.
- Typical examples of war movies: The Longest Day, In Which We Serve, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Patton, Apocalypse Now, Platoon (and to a lesser extent its sequels), and Saving Private Ryan.
- Westerns? The Great Train Robbery (1903), Stagecoach, Shane, The Searchers, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (and maybe its prequels), Once Upon a Time in the West and Unforgiven are the most frequent cited examples. Western film directors are only John Ford and Sergio Leone. Western actors are typically John Wayne, Roy Rogers, Lee Van Cleef and Clint Eastwood. You're bound to hear some Ennio Morricone Pastiche music in parodies.
- Zombie movies? Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1978) to name the most iconic ones.
Actors
- Whenever an actor is referenced they will always be the A-list stars from Hollywood.
- Abbott and Costello: They are mostly remembered for their Who's On First? sketch. Modern audiences may be surprised to learn that they also appeared in a lot of movies.
- Woody Allen: Nervous, talks about life, death, psychiatry, women, sex. Point of reference is Annie Hall and Manhattan.
- Julie Andrews: Point of reference Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music. Will be squeakingly clean and talk and sing in The Queen's Latin.
- Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers: All they did in their movies was tap dance with each other in a large white ball room.
- Lauren Bacall: Point of reference is The Big Sleep and/or Key Largo. Has a Smoking Is Glamorous scene.
- Josephine Baker: Dances around in the nude, wearing a banana skirt.
- Brigitte Bardot: Only movie referenced is And God Created Woman. Pouts her lips.
- Humphrey Bogart: Will be smoking, wearing a hat and rain coat and usually dialogue from Casablanca is referenced.
- Helena Bonham Carter: Only in Tim Burton movies when she's not Bellatrix Lestrange.
- Marlon Brando. Only points of reference are The Wild One, On the Waterfront, A Street Car Named Desire, The Godfather and Apocalypse Now. Will mumble his dialogue and be shown as enormously obese, even though his body weight only got worse after The Godfather. Usually goes on how he could have been a contender or making offers nobody can refuse.
- Charles Bronson: Only appeared in vigilante movies like Death Wish.
- Nicolas Cage: Has at least one scene in which he is Chewing the Scenery, shouting lines and eye bulging.
- Jim Carrey: It's rather sad that he is still most associated with making silly faces and the three films that turned him into an A-lister in 1994 (Ace Ventura, The Mask, and Dumb and Dumber), despite having a much broader range even before then. In fact, his highest-grossing film as a leading man (Bruce Almighty) was released in 2003.
- Charlie Chaplin: Will always be in the Tramp costume. Will be seen twirling his cane, walking into the sunset, Eating Shoes and running and falling. Only films he made are apparently The Kid, The Gold Rush, City Lights, Modern Times and The Great Dictator.
- Sean Connery: To older people and Bond fans he is basically remembered as James Bond. In references his Scottish accent will be his only unique characteristic.
- Tom Cruise: Points of reference are Top Gun, Risky Business (only for the dance) and Mission: Impossible.
- Peter Cushing: Will be portrayed as Van Helsing and/or Sherlock Holmes.
- Robert De Niro: Is always shown as Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, Jake La Motta in Raging Bull, or a gangster. Only appears in Martin Scorsese movies.
- Leonardo DiCaprio: Point of reference is Titanic.
- Johnny Depp: Only appears in Tim Burton movies, period. Only other point of reference is Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean. Will typically have scenes in which he is acting weird and cute at the same time.
- Marlene Dietrich: The Blue Angel is the only point of reference. Will smoke, wear a high hat and have some bisexual tension with other women.
- Kirk Douglas: Only point of reference is Spartacus.
- Michael Douglas: Wall Street, Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct.
- Robert Downey Jr.: Point of reference is Iron Man.
- Clint Eastwood: Only points of reference are cowboy movies (especially the Dollars trilogy) and Dirty Harry. Will squint his eyes, show a Phallic Weapon and say a Badass Boast, always with a famous line that shows he is pretty pissed off.
- Douglas Fairbanks Sr: Apparently only appeared in swashbuckler films.
- W. C. Fields: Appears in high hat, bulbous nose and has a lot of jokes about alcoholism.
- Errol Flynn: Appears in swashbuckler films. (His son was a Vietnam War photographer, but who ever knew that?)
- Clark Gable: Only point of reference is Gone with the Wind.
- Greta Garbo: Won't smile, but will say that she wants to be alone, always in a heavy Swedish accent.
- Judy Garland: Point of reference is The Wizard of Oz.
- Tom Hanks: Forrest Gump, Philadelphia, Saving Private Ryan, Toy Story, and that's about it. People will probably be amazed if you tell them that he actually started out playing in goofy comedies.
- Audrey Hepburn: Point of reference Breakfast at Tiffany's, My Fair Lady and Roman Holiday.
- Dustin Hoffman: Despite a long career he is still associated with just three roles: The Graduate, Midnight Cowboy and Rain Man.
- Bob Hope: Appeared in Road To... movies, told jokes with a golf club in his hand and played in front of military troops.
- Samuel L. Jackson: Point of reference, Pulp Fiction. Will shout some Badass Boast line and have a Scary Black Man stare, while pointing a gun at somebody.
- Jerry Lewis. Will act goofy in glasses and buck tooth, shout Nice lady! in an equally silly voice. References will be made to the fact that he is revered in France. Only film remembered is The Nutty Professor.
- Buster Keaton: Pokerfaced at all times. If one film is referenced it will be the shot of the building falling down upon him in Steamboat Bill, Jr..
- Laurel and Hardy: Hardy will fall, bump his head, get something on his head, while Laurel looks and watches bewildered, scratching his hair. Expect one scene where Laurel pokes Hardy in the eye and Hardy looking straight in the camera with an exasperated look. Their most famous films are The Music Box, Way Out West and Sons of the Desert.
- Heath Ledger: Only point of reference is The Dark Knight.
- Bruce Lee: Either in a yellow jump suit or bare chested. Will make Funny Bruce Lee Noises and amazing quick kicks.
- Christopher Lee: Will be portrayed as Dracula.
- Peter Lorre: Point of reference is M and The Maltese Falcon, will typically be nervous and squeaky voiced, though more in the style of Mel Blanc's parodies.
- Harold Lloyd: Nowadays he is mostly remembered for one image from one film he made: Safety Last!, in which he is hanging on to a large clock on top of a skyscraper.
- Bela Lugosi: Will be portrayed as Dracula, even though he only played the part twice.
- The Marx Brothers: Groucho will wisecrack and insult Margaret Dumont, Chico plays piano and Harpo plays harp, after that chases women with a cow horn and all of them evoke complete mayhem. Also note that Zeppo is often forgotten or ommitted.
- Malcolm McDowell: A Clockwork Orange is the only point of reference. Everything he did before or after is less well known.
- Marilyn Monroe: Will be reduced to Some Like It Hot and The Seven Year Itch, in which she does the Marilyn Maneuver. Other than that, references to her are likely to be to her "celebrity" status.
- Monty Python: Whenever the name of this comedy group is dropped people will instantly begin quoting scenes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, as if this is the only (good) thing the group ever did. Often you'll encounter so-called fans of Monty Python who actually just mean they like Holy Grail and are even totally unaware that the group also made other films and even had a TV series. Some of them even think Monty Python was a person! Usually John Cleese is the only foremost member everybody can name, except when you're a Python fan, of course.
- Jack Nicholson: Referenced mostly through Chinatown and The Shining.
- Laurence Olivier: Will be seen in a Shakespearean role.
- Joe Pesci: Only did Home Alone and Goodfellas.
- Alan Rickman: Points of reference are Die Hard and Harry Potter.
- Molly Ringwald: Point of reference is The Breakfast Club or other Brat Pack/John Hughes movies.
- Julia Roberts: Stars in romantic movies or movies with weddings or both of these. Point of reference will likely be Pretty Woman.
- Arnold Schwarzenegger: Shows off his muscles, blasts people down with his guns and talks in an awful Austrian accent. Point of reference is Terminator or maybe Conan the Barbarian (1982).
- Peter Sellers: Despite his versatile career to most people he is just Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther.
- Sylvester Stallone: Only points of reference are Rocky, Rambo and quotes that sound brainlessly monosyllabic.
- Sharon Stone: Known for one scene in Basic Instinct that is actually more the result of people's overactive imagination.
- The Three Stooges: Will poke each other in the eye, hit each other on the head and the following lines should be mentioned: "Soitenly", "I was a victim of soicumstance", "Wiseguy, huh?", "Woob Woob Woob", "Nyuk Nyuk Nyuk".
- Elizabeth Taylor: Only point of reference is Cleopatra and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. References may be made to her weddings.
- Shirley Temple: Always referenced as a little girl below the age of 10. Will be singing The Good Ship Lollipop.
- John Travolta: Point of reference is Saturday Night Fever, Grease, or Pulp Fiction. Will talk in a awww jeesh... accent and have a dance scene.
- Rudolph Valentino: Only point of reference is The Sheik. Abducts women and takes them to his tent.
- John Wayne: Either a cowboy or a military sergeant. Will talk in slurry brawl and walk in his characteristically slouchy way. Likely to call everyone "pilgrim" or possibly say "That'll be the day."
- Johnny Weissmuller: Tarzan, including the iconic yell.
- Mae West: Will say Double Entendre one-liners and utter the phrase come up to see me one time at least once.
- Gene Wilder: Only point of reference is Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.
- Robin Williams: Will talk with lips between his teeth. Has either Motor Mouth improvisations or a heartwarming speech about being accepted.
- Bruce Willis: Only point of reference is Die Hard.
- Chevy Chase: Point of reference is National Lampoon's Vacation, Caddyshack or Fletch.
Directors
- Famous film directors?
- From before the 1940s D. W. Griffith or Cecil B. DeMille.
- In the 1940s-1970s Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick.
- From the 1970s onward Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese.
- Since the 1990s Quentin Tarantino, Christopher Nolan, and James Cameron.
- An example of a famous film director whose career has been in the dumps ever since he started? Orson Welles had that fame for his entire career.
- Black film directors? Tyler Perry and Spike Lee.
- Asian film directors? Ang Lee, Zhang Yimou, Akira Kurosawa.
- For examples by country, see below.
- Woody Allen: Makes intellectual romantic comedies set in New York City, with himself in the starring role and references to Ingmar Bergman. When people refer to his films it's usually Annie Hall and/or Manhattan.
- Michael Bay: Makes only special effects blockbusters. Point of reference is Transformers: a franchise everybody hates, yet all go and watch every time a new installment is made, just to bitch about it on Internet forums afterwards.
- Ingmar Bergman: Black-and-white, difficult, boring, subtitled. Only point of reference, especially in spoofs, are The Seventh Seal and Persona (1966). Sometimes Cries and Whispers too.
- Busby Berkeley: Made films that apparently only consist of long shots of groups of dancers performing a Busby Berkeley Number only.
- Mel Brooks: The Producers, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein and Spaceballs. Will typically be remembered for being full of bad taste comedy, farts, tits and very Jewish oriented jokes.
- Luis Buñuel: Un Chien Andalou and only the eye splicing scene.
- Tim Burton: Does a movie feature misfits in grotesque makeup interacting in an Anachronism Stew setting? Tim Burton must have done it.
- Frank Capra: Made only happy feel good movies about ordinary people overcoming their troubles. Typical points of reference are Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and It's a Wonderful Life.
- Francis Ford Coppola: All he ever did in popular culture is direct The Godfather trilogy (or duology) and Apocalypse Now.
- Wes Craven: Nightmare on Elm Street and the Scream series, and not a single PG-rated biopic about a violinist.
- David Cronenberg: Makes bizarre horror movies about icky things.
- Joe Dante: Still only namedropped for Gremlins.
- Sergei Eisenstein: Synoymous with Battleship Potemkin.
- Federico Fellini: La Dolce Vita for the general public, 8½ for film critics. Associated with Grotesque Gallery and catchy music.
- John Ford: Only made westerns. If you have to reference one it will be The Searchers. If How Green Was My Valley is mentioned it's only to talk about the Citizen Kane Oscar snub.
- Jean-Luc Godard: Directed Breathless and Bande à part, that's it.
- D. W. Griffith: Only known nowadays for The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance, though the first one is the most famous for all of the controversy surrounding it.
- Werner Herzog: Made only movies with Klaus Kinski acting weird.
- Alfred Hitchcock: Made only suspense thrillers and the only ones who are always referenced and parodied are Rear Window, North By Northwest, Psycho and The Birds.
- John Hughes: Best known for his teenage coming of age movies, with The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller's Day Off as the most common points of reference.
- Peter Jackson: Only directs J. R. R. Tolkien movies.
- Stanley Kubrick: Reduced to 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange and The Shining. Most self declared Kubrick fans nowadays only refer to these movies, not the less sensational films he made.
- Akira Kurosawa: Rashomon and The Seven Samurai.
- Fritz Lang: Directed M and Metropolis, nothing else.
- Spike Lee: Directs angry black man movies. Point of reference is always reduced to Do the Right Thing.
- Sergio Leone: Only directed spaghetti westerns in the popular consciousness.
- George Lucas: All he ever did was make Star Wars and while fans adore the franchise in almost religious fashion he is nowadays hated for singlehandedly destroying everything what was great about it in the first place.
- David Lynch: Makes weird movies for intellectuals. Point of reference is usually Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks and/or Mulholland Dr..
- Georges Méliès: A Trip to the Moon, which has a scene where the rocket hits the moon's eye.
- Michael Moore: Makes sensational left-wing documentaries that criticize everything right-wing people like, which explains why he is a polarizing figure. The only points of reference are Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11. Typically most people who criticize Moore have only seen one or none of his movies and base their satire or criticism more on the fact that he is obese than anything else.
- Pier Paolo Pasolini: Despite a versatile career with many great and thought provoking movies most people now him solely for Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom and even in that case more for the controversy around it.
- Martin Scorsese: Has made movies in many genres, but is most associated with gangster movies. Whenever Scorsese is referenced it will Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Goodfellas.
- Steven Spielberg: Jaws, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Jurassic Park. Schindler's List if you want to refer to a serious more adult movie.
- Oliver Stone: Makes left-wing conspiracy theory heavy movies about the Sixties and Seventies or that criticize the American government, capitalism and/or the army.
- Quentin Tarantino: Still mostly associated with Pulp Fiction and blood splattering violence, even though this aspect only takes up a small part of his movies and usually happens off screen and/or in a comic book fashion hard to take seriously.
- Paul Verhoeven: Typically people refer more to his Hollywood movies than the ones made in the Netherlands. Most refer to him as someone who just makes action packed violent movies and/or saucy erotic films, typically not looking much deeper into it.
- Lars von Trier: Makes depressing It's Not Porn, It's Art movies, or is it the other way around?
- Orson Welles: Citizen Kane seems to be the only film he ever made in popular culture. All other references are about his voice and/or his weight. Or the fact that he made some TV commercials later in life. Or his part in the radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds (1938) that caused a ruckus.
By country
- Usually the movies where the country itself is very visible in the background.
- American movies? Before the 1970s all American movies seemed to be either Glamour or Western. After that date they have become synonymous with big spectacle blockbuster movies with a lot of gratuitous bullet rains, explosions and badass lines.
- Austrian movies? We only know two Austrian actors: Johnny Weissmuller and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Christoph Waltz also comes to mind and maybe Sybil Danning.
- Australian Movies? Picnic at Hanging Rock, Mad Max, "Crocodile" Dundee,The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
- All Australian films are Australian New Wave.
- Australian Actors? Hugh Jackman, Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger, Nicole Kidman, and Chris and Liam Hemsworth.
- Belgian Films? All Belgian movies are set on a farm. The most famous Belgian movie, however, isn't: Man Bites Dog.
- Belgian directors? The Dardennes.
- Belgian actors? Jean-Claude Van Damme (Audrey Hepburn was born there but isn't Belgian).
- Brazilian film? City of God.
- And for Brazilians, all national movies are either boring drama or low-brow comedies.
- Brazilian actors? Alice Braga
- British Films? Anything starring James Bond, Hammer Horror, Carry On, Harry Potter, Ealing Comedies, Monty Python, and/or Sherlock Holmes. The rest is either a historical costume movie set in a manor or a socially conscious piece about a working class neighbourhood struggling in Thatcherite Britain. You've also got The Full Monty. Many are not aware that a number of popular American films were actually shot in Britain: Star Wars and Batman (1989), to give just two examples.
- British film actors? Charlie Chaplinnote , Alec Guinness, John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier, Michael Caine, Richard Burton (who was Welsh), Hugh Grant, Peter Cushing, Ian McShane, Peter Sellers, Ewan McGregor (who is Scottish), John Cleese, Daniel Day-Lewis, Helen Mirren, Ben Kingsley, Sean Bean, Christopher Lee, Anthony Hopkins, Peter O'Toole, Helena Bonham Carter, Idris Elba, Clive Owen, Jude Law, Tom Hiddleston, Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman and Patrick Stewart. Those who have seen This is Spın̈al Tap often mistakenly believe that Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, and Harry Shearer are British. You might not know Cary Elwes is British if you've seen only Hot Shots!, Liar Liar, or Saw - and neither The Princess Bride nor Robin Hood: Men in Tights.
- British film directors? David Lean, Richard Attenborough, Michael Powell, Danny Boyle, Emeric Pressburger, James Ivory and Mike Leigh.
- Canadian Movies? A Christmas Story, A History of Violence, Juno, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Porky's, Martyrs, Crash and Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS.
- Canadian actors? Ryan Reynolds, Evangeline Lilly, Keanu Reeves, Jay Baruchel, Jim Carrey, Ryan Gosling, Donald and Kiefer Sutherland, Sandra Oh, Rachel McAdams, Elliot Page, Nathan Fillion, Christopher Plummer, Michael Cera, Will Arnett and Seth Rogen (though he's considered to be American). Francophone Canadians are pretty rare to see in popular media aside from maybe Pom Klementieff (who is the daughter of a French-Russian diplomat), although she’s more frequently associated with France.
- Canadian directors? David Cronenberg, James Cameron, Denis Villeneuve, Xavier Dolan, Ivan and Jason Reitman.
- Chinese Films? Martial arts films and/or Wuxia films set in Imperial China.
- Chinese directors? Ang Lee, Zhang Yimou.
- Chinese actors? Jet Li, Ming-Na Wen, Donnie Yen, Zhang Ziyi or anyone listed in the Hong Kong section below.
- Danish films? All Dogme '95 movies. Directed by Lars von Trier or Nicolas Winding Refn.
- Danish actors? Lars and Mads Mikkelsen, Brigitte Nielsen, Connie Nielsen, Viggo Mortensen, and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.
- Dutch Films? All films with gratuitous nudity and lewd acts.
- Dutch actors? Sylvia Kristel, Famke Janssen. Rutger Hauer. Jeroen Krabbé, and Carice Van Houten.
- Dutch film directors? Paul Verhoeven.
- French Films? All Le Film Artistique and/or French New Wave
- French actors? Maurice Chevalier, Brigitte Bardot, Jacques Tati, Jean Gabin, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Alain Delon, Louis de Funès, and Fernandel. Modern day French actors include Gérard Depardieu, Christian Clavier, Catherine Deneuve, Christopher Lambert, Audrey Tautou, Vincent Cassel, Eva Green, Jean Reno, and Marion Cotillard (Mélanie Laurent might get a mention if only as a poor woman's Cotillard).
- French film directors? Marcel Carné, François Truffaut, Jean Renoir, Alain Resnais, Jean-Luc Godard, Louis Malle, Jacques Tati, Claude Sautet, Jean-Jacques Annaud, Luc Besson, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Gaspar Noé (though he's Argentinian, his movies are considered French Films), Jan Kounen.
- German Films? German Expressionism or arthouse. The most famous German films worldwide are The Blue Angel, Das Boot, Run Lola Run and Downfall (and that is only for the Hitler Rants meme).
- German film actors? Marlene Dietrich and Klaus Kinski. Older film fans may remember Emil Jannings. Diane Kruger, Daniel Brühl and Michael Fassbender are modern-day representatives of the nation (and Christoph Waltz is just as likely to be associated with Germany as with Austria). Within German borders, the definitive modern-day German actor is Til Schweiger.
- German film directors? Fritz Lang, Josef von Sternberg, F. W. Murnau, Werner Herzog, Wolfgang Petersen.
- Greek movies? Zorba the Greek and Z.
- Greek directors? Elia Kazan and Costa-Gavras. But for mid-2010s, Yorgos Lanthimos and his fellow Greek Weird Wave filmmakers.
- Greek actors? Nia Vardalos, with John Aniston only known as Jennifer's dad.
- Hong Kong Films? Anything starring Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Sonny Chiba, or Chow Yun-fat, and maybe Stephen Chow or Donnie Yen. Director is likely going to be John Woo.
- Indian movies? Bollywood Movies. Period. If you have to namedrop one example: Sholay. If you need a non-Bollywood example: Pather Panchali, Slumdog Millionaire, or Life of Pi, though even those will often be grouped in the Bollywood movies.
- Indian actors? Raj Kapoor, Amitabh Bachcan, Priyanka Chopra, Salman Khan, or Irrfan Khan. Dalip Singh Rana has showed up in some pretty big American movies, but of course he's better known as pro wrestler The Great Khali.
- Indian film directors? Satiyajit Ray.
- Irish actors? Liam Neeson, Colin Farrell, Pierce Brosnan, Cillian Murphy and Brendan Gleeson. Modern viewers are more likely to know the likes of Saoirse Ronan, Jack Gleeson, Aidan Gillen and Domhnall Gleeson. Older generations will be familiar with Maureen O'Hara.
- Israeli actors? Natalie Portman (though she's lived most of her life in America) and Gal Gadot. Maybe Oded Fehr, Ayelet Zurer, Alona Tal, and Odeya Rush will come to mind. Other than that, nothing.
- Italian Films? Either neo-realistic, Spaghetti Western or Giallo.
- Italian directors? Michelangelo Antonioni, Dario Argento, Sergio Leone, Federico Fellini, Roberto Rossellini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Vittorio De Sica.
- Italian actors? Monica Bellucci, Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni, Roberto Benigni, Terence Hill, or Isabella Rossellini.
- Jamaican movies? The Harder They Come.
- Japanese movies? Samurai films, Anime, Kaiju and since the 1980s Japanese horror and science fiction have also gained notoriety.
- Japanese actors? Toshiro Mifune, Sonny Chiba, or more recently Ken Watanabe. Hiroyuki Sanada might get a mention given his work in Western film and television.
- Japanese animators? Osamu Tezuka and Hayao Miyazaki.
- Japanese film directors? Akira Kurosawa, Yasujiro Ozu and Takashi Miike, to a lesser extent.
- Korean movies? Oldboy, Snowpiercer, Parasite (2019) (primarily because of its Best Picture Oscar win), and Pulgasari (at least for North Korea).
- Korean directors? Bong Joon-ho and Park Chan-wook.
- Korean actors? Byun Hyung-Lee.
- Mexican movies? All films starring El Santo. More recently, Pan's Labyrinth
- Mexican directors? Robert Rodriguez (though he is American by nationality), Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuarón, and Alejandro González Iñárritu.
- Actors? Salma Hayek, Gael García Bernal, Diego Luna and Ricardo Montalban.
- New Zealand actors? Russell Crowe, Anna Paquin, Lucy Lawless, Temuera Morrison and Sam Neill.
- Directors? Peter Jackson and Taika Waititi.
- Film? The Piano.
- All you need to know about Kiwis is in Utu.
- Polish films?
- Polish directors? Roman Polański, Agnieszka Holland, Andrzej Wajda, and Krzysztof Kieślowski.
- Portuguese films? People may have heard of director Manoel de Oliveira because he kept making movies into his 100's, but are unlikely to have actually seen anything he made.
- Puerto Rican actors? Benicio del Toro and Rita Moreno.
- Russian movies? All propaganda pieces, directed by Sergei Eisenstein.
- Russian actors? Yul Brynner.
- Scottish actors? Sean Connery and maybe Ian McDiarmid (at least if you watch Star Wars). For modern day examples, we have Ewan McGregor, James McAvoy, Gerard Butler and Richard Madden (though he's frequently typecast as Englishmen or fantasy equivalents thereof).
- Serbian films? A Serbian Film, unfortunately.
- Serbian film directors? Emir Kusturica.
- South African films? District 9.
- South African directors? Neill Blomkamp and Gavin Hood.
- South African actors? Charlize Theron, Sharlto Copley and Embeth Davidtz.
- Spanish films? [REC].
- Spanish film actors? Penélope Cruz, Javier Bardem and Antonio Banderas.
- Spanish film directors? Pedro Almodóvar, Luis Buñuel.
- In Spain itself, it is common to say (especially among the right-wing) that Spanish films are all about "whores, fags and the Civil War". The first two are an unsubtle jab at Almodóvar.
- Swedish films? Anything by Ingmar Bergman.
- Swedish actors? Greta Garbo, Ingrid Bergman, Max von Sydow, Dolph Lundgren, Peter Stormare, Noomi Rapace, Rebecca Ferguson, Alicia Vikander, Stellan, Alexander and Bill Skarsgård.
- Swiss films? The Wild Geese
- Swiss actors? Ursula Andress and Bruno Ganz (and only because of Hitler Rants).
- Ukranian actors? Mila Kunis, Milla Jovovich, and Olga Kurylenko.
- Vietnamese films? Three Seasons, and only because Harvey Keitel is in it.
Parodies
- If you are going to parody a movie, make sure it is one of these choices: King Kong, Gone with the Wind, Casablanca, The Wizard of Oz, Psycho, James Bond, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Seventh Seal, Star Wars, Saturday Night Fever, Jaws, The Shining, Indiana Jones, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Terminator, Goodfellas, Jurassic Park, Pulp Fiction, Titanic (1997), The Matrix, Harry Potter, and The Dark Knight.
- 95% of James Bond parodies are a parody of the Sean Connery era films. The remaining 5%, at least nowadays, are the Bonds of the nineties and two-thousands; Pierce Brosnan or Daniel Craig. Roger Moore, George Lazenby, and Timothy Dalton? Who are they? (If you grew up at any time between 1975 and 1995, feel free to mentally delete Roger Moore from the above list. He was undoubtedly the most successful James Bond of the late Cold War years.) The one-film Lazenby is ALWAYS mentioned whenever someone wants to sound extremely knowledgeable about the Bond Franchise.
Notable exceptions
- Quentin Tarantino's movies are full of shout outs and homage shots to a few specific movies most people do not even know exist, such as Goke, Body Snatcher From Hell, where he got the idea for the red background during the flight scene in Kill Bill Vol. 1.
Played With
- The indie film Little Miss Sunshine features a Proust scholar as a main character. He talks about Proust during an important character moment.
- Charlie Kaufman likes to include high-brow literary references in his films. In Being John Malkovich, John Cusack performs a puppet adaptation of Alexander Pope's Eloisa to Abelard. Pope's story also provided the title and theme for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
- In The Great Muppet Caper, Animal is described as being upset that he missed the Rembrandt exhibit at the National Gallery. Animal corrects him: "Renoir! Renoir!"
- A rare humorous moment in Se7en, when Brad Pitt's character has never heard of the Marquis de Sade, and mispronounces his name "Shah-day", like the Nigerian singer Sade.
- Lampshaded in Dogma with an appearance by the Metatron, the angel who speaks for God to humans who would be destroyed by the power of God's voice. The heroine attempts to make up for not knowing who he is by mentioning the Ten Plagues, to which the Metatron remarks "You people! If it's not in a Charlton Heston movie, it's not worth knowing, is it?"
- Played with in the 1965 film version of The Loved One, in which Dennis Barlow romances Aimee Thanatogenous by quoting classic poetry to her and claiming it to be his own work.
- Not Okay: In-Universe, Danni names Notre-Dame as the cathedral she visited while in Paris, likely not knowing of any others. As noted, this is one of the things Harper finds suspicious about her story, as Notre-Dame is closed to the public.
