One of the defining traits of this particular character is their movie lore. This character will compare nearly everything to a scene from a movie. While this character might be Genre Savvy (or Wrong Genre Savvy), it's not a requirement.
Additionally, The Movie Buff usually knows all about Oscar nominees, Oscars won, actors, directors, Emmy awards, how a movie was received, who the screenwriter and editors were. Some film geeks may get obsessed with lenses, film cameras, and film editing. They may be a budding film student or media studies student.
This is usually a source of pride for said character but can sometimes be a source of chagrin for the rest of the cast.
Their knowledge is likely to be used for humor more often than it is used as a plot point.
Compare: Saw "Star Wars" Twenty-Seven Times, Unabashed B-Movie Fan. See The Genie Knows Jack Nicholson for characters that know our movies while living in a fantasy setting.
Examples:
- Rabbit Team from Girls und Panzer.
- Togata from Fire Punch is one. She was born before the Ice Witch froze over the world and really loved movies during that time. Due to the mutation she was born with, she has become long-lived and now lives in a world that rarely has electricity, much less any movies. Now, her ultimate goal in life is to turn the conflict between Agni and his targets into one final movie, playing both sides to film the most interesting story she can, even if no one will ever watch it. She is also very knowledgeable about Western movies, name dropping films such as Vanilla Sky.
- The mysterious girl who looks like Agni's dead sister is also a film fan as well. In fact, her whole motivation is to reset the human race and get it back to the point right before the world froze over, just so she can finally watch the final Star Wars movie, which got canceled.
- The Film Freak from the Batman comics.
- Nightcrawler of the X-Men. He learned sword-fighting largely because of his love of Errol Flynn.
- Sword Art Online Abridged:
- Akihiko Kayaba kicks off the series by comparing the players' situation to TRON, but is irritated when they're too young to have seen the film. He eventually resorts to playing a clip from Scanners to make his point about the consequences of their characters' HP hitting zero.
- Guild leader Heathcliff also likes to drop movie quotes like "you can't fight in here, this is the war room!" and "go ahead, make my day." Again, most players don't get them.
- Finally, Kirito is a Pop-Cultured Badass able to quote a variety of TV shows, literature, and even classic movies like Duck Soup. The fact that he's the only one who gets Heathcliff's movie references is what lets him make the connection that he and Kayaba are the same person.
- The Tokimeki PokéLive! and TwinBee version of Shizuku Osaka is also a movie buff just like her canon counterpart.
- Katie Mitchell from The Mitchells vs. the Machines is an aspiring filmmaker who just got accepted to the film school of her dreams, so it's only natural she'd be this. She tends to make references and comparisons to movies, like Mad Max or Dawn of the Dead, and many of her own films' titles are references to other movies (including older or more obscure ones like Being There or Au Hasard Balthazar).
- Scream:
- Randy Meeks in the first two films. His knowledge of the horror genre makes him the series' Meta Guy who comments on how the killer is structuring the killing spree around Slasher Movie cliches.
- The fourth and fifth films respectively introduce Kirby Reed and Mindy Meeks-Martin as Randy's Distaff Counterparts. Mindy, as her name suggests, is Randy's niece.
- The series has also served up villainous examples of this trope. In the second film, Mickey is a horror buff who wants to get caught so that he can get a sensational trial, specifically by telling the court and the Moral Guardians that his love of violent movies made him a killer so that he can get sympathy, 15 Minutes of Fame, and a lenient sentence. In the fifth film, Richie and Amber are Loony Fans of the Stab films (Scream's in-universe version of itself) who want to stage a new killing spree to reinvigorate the franchise.
- One of the unnamed main characters in Good Dick. He even works in a video store and brags about his ability to pick out films for others.
- Scotty the main character of Film Geek, obviously.
- In Juno, Juno and Mark bond over their shared interest in B-movies, including shout-outs to some old-time giallo directors.
- The Catcher in the Rye: In stark contrast to her Hollywood-hating brother, Phoebe Caulfield loves the movies.
- In Gone Girl, Nick Dunn, one of the main characters, is a former movie and TV critic, refers to himself as a "film geek," and bonds with another guy over The Godfather.
- The extremely Genre Savvy Klingon communication officer in the Star Trek novel How Much for Just the Planet? specializes in Hitchcock movies, and is pretty much a walking encyclopedia of same.
- Space Academy has a lot of protagonist, Vance Turbo's, actions motivated by his familiarity with late 20th century Earth science fiction movies.
- Oddly Sheriff Buck from American Gothic (1995) seems to be this. He makes a movie reference in nearly every episode.
- Sammy Feathers of the short-lived Paul Haggis series EZ Streets makes multiple classic movie references.
- Dean from Supernatural. He has a fondness for westerns and horror films. And Star Trek.
- Tony DiNozzo on NCIS (though not so much in the first episodes). He actually knows enough that he goes undercover at one point as a cinema history teacher.
- Remington Steele. Every case he and Laura had could be solved by his remembering the plot of an old movie.
- Abed, the Meta Guy from Community. Naturally, he's a film student. Jeff can also hold his own against Abed's ramblings but doesn't show it off as much.
- In Big Wolf on Campus, Merton J. Dingle makes movie references pretty much Once an Episode.
- Dawson, the title character in Dawson's Creek. He even has a theory that the answers to all of life's questions can be found in Spielberg films.
- Shawn Spencer from Psych to a ridiculous degree. He is constantly comparing situations to movies and TV shows (mostly from The '80s) and casting himself and his friends in the various roles.
- Obligatory Buffy the Vampire Slayer example in Xander and his compulsion for pop culture, Willow gets in on the action, even Buffy and Faith have more knowledge of films and geek culture than they should. But the Trio of Dim take the cake, obsessed with films, games, Star Trek, girls, etc. to the point they put off everyone.
- The eponymous brooding hero of Angel is quite the cinema aficionado himself. He's a fan of Charlton Heston movies, particularly The Ωmega Man. What a surprise. He's also seen enough vampire flicks to formulate opinions on which ones are more accurate (Frank Langella nailed it). Wesley and Gunn also share a love of movies to the point imagining they are some character in some film when a crisis hits, and in a case of Hypocritical Humor, so does Cordelia.
- Both Harvey and Mike on Suits often quote movie lines to each other and in the first season finale, oblique references to Mississippi Burning are a minor plot point. Their boss Jessica isn't far behind. Louis tries to get in on the action once but Mike sort of...ignores him.
- The Flash (2014)'s Cisco Ramon is the go-to guy for nerdy movie references, using them mostly for humor but occasionally for things like explaining time travel theories to Joe West (who starts getting exasperated when he keeps doing it even in serious situations). Dr. Wells, who is Not So Above It All and apparently has regular movie nights with him, is usually the one who finds it the most entertaining and can often be seen smiling in the background whenever Cisco makes references, or even making his own in response.
- Jimmy McGill from Better Call Saul makes movie references in almost every episode of the show.
- On Mad Men, Don Draper will often go to the movies, sometimes to get ideas, sometimes just to be alone, though he has taken other people (he and Lane go to see a monster B-movie, and he takes Bobby to see Planet of the Apes (1968). Peggy, as Don's protégé, ends up doing the same thing.
- Tabby Hayworth from Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin is an aspiring director with her biggest passion being film that she uses an outlet for expression, with Tabby dropping many film references whenever she's talking.
- Hardison from Leverage is such a Star Trek fan that he devises a coded message system for when he and Eliot have to communicate in front of their marks. Eliot rolls his eyes, but it comes in handy later. In "The Cross My Heart Job," the team have to split up in an airport terminal and Eliot is unable to reach Hardison via their usual ear-bud comms. Desperate to warn his friend of danger, he has "Kirk Picard" paged over the loudspeaker.
- Parodied Trope in "Jack Sparrow" by The Lonely Island and Michael Bolton. The band hires Bolton to sing backup on a song they wrote about being In Da Club, but Bolton only wants to sing about movies he loves—he spends most of the song singing about the titular pirate captain from Pirates of the Caribbean, but when he is told to "focus up", Bolton just starts singing about other movies, name-checking Forrest Gump, Erin Brockovich, and Scarface (1983).
Andy Samberg: Turns out Michael Bolton is a major cinephile.
- The Flick: Avery says that cinema is his life and he isn't kidding. He's the kind of film snob that says America hasn't produced a great movie since Pulp Fiction (ironic given how recent that movie is). He sneers with derision when Sam talks about how much he liked Avatar. Avery's a purist who thinks films should only be shown on film rather than digital. And he has an encyclopedic knowledge of films that allows him to play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon with demonic skill.
- Of the Squishmallows, Georgios' bio-entry reads as follows:
"Georgios watches good movies and bad movies with the same enthusiasm! He has a rule to finish every movie he starts even when he feels it's not his speed. Georgios thinks bad movies can be fun in a different way since he learns a lot about storytelling! Meet Georgios tonight at the theater to check out a new flick."
- Metal Gear Solid, which given their head creator, shouldn't at all be surprising.
- Paramedic of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater fame loves trashy B-movies and describes their plots to Snake in ways appropriate for the setting at that point.
- Raiden himself is just as big of a cinema buff, though arguably inclined more towards quality films. This has a somewhat darker connotation when it turns out that one of his tortures as a child was to watch 'Hollywood movies every night... the kind with macho guys and big guns. They called it "image training".'
- Solid Snake has displayed an interest in John Carpenter movies as well as making a joke about Star Wars.
- Strangelove in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker is a huge fan of Stanley Kubrick and frequently references his films in her dialogue and scientific work, even to the extent of naming her own child after a character from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
- We are repeatedly told that Ocelot is a massive fan of Spaghetti Westerns, though the timeline is a little wobbly on this. Word of God says he specifically imported A Fistful of Dollars from Italy to see it before its release elsewhere.
- Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth: The Deuteragonist of the game, Hikari, turns out to be this. She is a film production genius who knows everything about movies and movie production, to the point she can veer off-topic into the subject of movies in normal conversation.
- The main character in Secret of Evermore.
- Agent Francis York Morgan of Deadly Premonition will go off on tangents discussing his favorite movies while driving around in-game. It ranges from reminiscing about Fast Times at Ridgemont High to referencing some seriously obscure B-horror movies.
- Michael DeSanta from Grand Theft Auto V, who is a self-described fan of "Classic Vinewood" and can be seen nerding out over movie quotes whenever he interacts with his directing idol Solomon Richards towards the end of the game. Also, his signature phrase "You forget a thousand things every day. Make sure this is one of them." being from an old movie becomes a minor plot.
- You can select from a number of voices for your avatar in Saints Row: The Third. While most all of them will make references to films and other culture, Female Voice 1 (Caucasian Laura Bailey) has by far the most of them, rattling off one reference to a movie or game after another.
- Shizuku Osaka from Love Live! School Idol Festival ALL STARS is as much of a movie buff as she is one for Theatre.
- In Flowers (2014), Suou and Erika are both literature and film geeks, often quoting modern American cinema classics such as The Shawshank Redemption. In both cases, it's a result of a childhood spent indoors and away from other people.
- In Heart of the Woods, Madison Raines is a film student who dropped out of college midway through her degree to help her best friend Tara with her Vlog Series Taranormal, and enjoys watching movies in her free time. She's watched 2001: A Space Odyssey many times, as Tara points out.
- In Last Chance in Xollywood, Jarl is this and possibly also an Unabashed B-Movie Fan. He wants to get a job in movie making and/or movie directing because he loves movies of all kinds, and throughout the whole game he will reference all kinds of bizarre alien flicks and compare whatever happens while working on Love Dies Screaming to them.
- Virtual Youtuber Korone Inugami from hololive says her hobby is watching movies in her debut, and she's not kidding about that. Korone has incredible knowledge of both eastern and western films and not only has seen hundreds of movies, her memory is fantastic, allowing her to call on them for references or making highly detailed remarks on on the unique qualites of what she has seen at the drop of a hat. While her favorite genre is gory Torture Porn slaughter horror films like Hostel and the Saw series, she'll watch damn near anything from any genre and will frequently use movies as a point of reference for all kinds of conversations and situations during her streams.
- Homestuck:
- Both John Egbert and his Troll counterpart, Karkat enjoy bad movies and romcoms as a guilty pleasure (or in John's case, out of really bad taste), and John especially makes loads of references to them throughout the series.
- In Act 6, Jake English, who loves all movies indiscriminately, to the point that you can't see his bedroom walls under the posters. Must run in the family, given that Jake is an Alternate Universe version of Jade's grandfather, who is actually her (and John's) genetic father.
- Inhuman Relations: Maureen is this, at least when incredibly bad movies are concerned.
- Tyler Dawn from morphE. It's implied that he is only able to cast magic by relating reality to things that he has seen or read in movies or books. When given a death collar he directly referred to it as a "Battle Royale" collar and when their host prepared a magical training class he asked if they would be doing a "Musical training montage against the cupboard spirit".
- Joe of Joe Loves Crappy Movies loves crappy movies.
- The Cinema Snob is a parody of this type of character. He prefers classic movies and art films though. His actor, Brad Jones, is this for exploitation cinema, and over time the Snob has started to reflect this more and more (with Lampshade Hanging, as the Snob would prefer not to have such detailed knowledge of E.T. pornography).
- Oancitizen of Brows Held High, who specializes in arthouse movies but otherwise is quite the enthusiast of pop culture esoterica.
- On Cinema: Gregg thinks of himself as this as he collects a large number of films on VHS and considers himself an expert on film though he is prone to mess up on certain movie facts such as which Star Trek film took place in San Francisco (it was the fourth but Gregg insists it was the second).
- While everyone from RedLetterMedia is one, Jay Bauman stands out for his more intricate knowledge of indie films and arthouse films.
- Family Guy's Carl specializes in action movies and/or hot actresses, and can quote the exact second you need to see.
- Bobby Hill from King of the Hill, much to the ire of his father.
- The Critic: Jay Sherman is one and a film critic.
- Comes into play in the Teen Titans episode...er..."Episode 257-494" where Control Freak traps the group inside a TV dimension and Beast Boy uses his knowledge of entertainment to help save the day.
- Wayne from 6teen is a parody of Jack Black's character in High Fidelity, just with his obsession switched from music to movies.
- Principal Skinner from The Simpsons is revealed to be one in "Any Given Sundance".
- Barack Obama describes himself as such. During his 2008 campaign for the White House, Katie Couric asked Obama what were his favorite movies. He listed Casablanca ("Who doesn't like Casablanca?" he added), Lawrence of Arabia, The Godfather Parts One and Two, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. "I can rattle off a bunch of movies," said Obama, "I'm a movie guy." Has also quoted movies in speeches and debates, and frequently makes lists of movies he enjoys every year.
- Bill Clinton loves movies so much that he regularly had screenings in the White House and even agreed to be interviewed by Roger Ebert to talk about movies. His favorite is High Noon.
- John F. Kennedy was known to be a huge film buff. He famously saw Spartacus in theatres during his presidency because he was excited about it. On learning this, Hollywood started a tradition of sending movie prints directly to the White House, including building a screening room.
- Richard Nixon was also a huge fan of Patton, he also personally presented John Ford with the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award. Indeed, the Nixon administration signed into law a series of tax breaks, including tax shelters, that amounted to a government subsidy for the movie business which ironically led to the highly liberal and politically charged era of the New Hollywood, with many films critical of his administration, including All the President's Men.
- James Gunn likes a lot of films that he used them as influences of his work.
- Quentin Tarantino, oh so much. He has a love of Blaxploitation, Westerns, Revenge Flicks. They've all, one way or another, found a way to influence his work.
- Many influential directors are known to be this, including Edgar Wright, Richard Ayoade, Wes Anderson, Paul Thomas Anderson, Guillermo del Toro, Woody Allen, Richard Linklater, Rian Johnson and many more.
- Martin Scorsese, according to most film historians, has seen every film ever made — Russian, Japanese, Italian, African, Egyptian — from every era and different genres — experimental, documentary, genre, mainstream. He started the Film Foundation and World Cinema Foundation, organizations run by Proud Scholar Race Guy(s) and girls who make sure that films are preserved in old and new media for future organizations.
- The directors of the French New Wave were all enormous movie buffs, something that would go on to be a big influence on that movement's particular style. The most prominent among them, such as François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, and Claude Chabrol, began their careers as film critics for the film journal Cahiers du Cinéma, and their films were filled with references to other movies. In particular, they shared a love of rebellious American films, such as those by Nicholas Ray and Samuel Fuller, misunderstood masters such as Alfred Hitchcock and Howard Hawks, and international standouts, most prominently Jean Renoir.
- On a darker note, Adolf Hitler was also a huge movie buff. He had a private screening room that he regularly attended and obsessed over the national film industry (after his racist policies chased away all the great talent to America and France). His favorites were King Kong (1933), Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Broadway Melody of 1940. He also liked Fritz Lang's Metropolis much to the latter's displeasure.
- Winston Churchill also saw movies during the Blitz. His favorite was the wartime romance, That Hamilton Woman about the Nelson and Emma Hamilton romance, starring Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. Whenever people came to present him urgent war bulletins, Churchill told them that he was watching a movie.
- Websites like Screen Rant are often dedicated to trivia and other important information on movies.
- James Mason was a well-known film buff who participated in many film documentaries about the history of film. It went even further after Mason purchased a house once owned by Buster Keaton; Mason discovered a cache of presumed lost films by Keaton, such as The Boat, and had them transferred to safety stock just in time to preserve them.
- Frank Ocean is known to be a big movie buff, shouting out movie references in his lyrics and releasing his favorite movie list, which included films by Quentin Tarantino, David Lynch, Woody Allen, and Stanley Kubrick. Tarantino himself allowed Frank to compose a song for his movie Django Unchained, although it ended up being unreleased.
- Surprisingly, former porn star Sasha Grey. Her original stage name was named after French stage named actress Anna Karina.
- Hideo Kojima has been an incredibly devout cinephile for virtually his entire life, and his Twitter bio jokes that while most humans are 70% water, "70% of [his] body is made of movies," reportedly trying to watch at least one movie per day. While he got into making video games instead of films, his keen awareness of movies of new and of old has greatly informed much of his cinematic approach to the medium, and in turn some of his eccentricities, from infamously long cutscenes to just directly referencing the films he likes all the time.
- James Rolfe, despite being famous for destroying bad video games as The Angry Video Game Nerd, has stated in interviews that in real life he is far more of a movie nerd; and anyone who watches his movie reviews knows he has massive knowledge and affection for the medium, especially regarding classic black-and-white films and horror films.