Finding Common Ground (Movie Puzzle)

These days, finding things in common is a valuable and underused skill, so we thought we’d try it out on movies. Each of these summaries should apply to two and only two major films (either box-office blockbusters or critical darlings, or both). See if you can guess any of the answers without hints, and then have a look at the answer key, which lists all twenty films — but not in order. All of the films have been out for a while (the most recent are from 2015), but spoiler warning anyway.

A family dispute leads to epic violence. Though some action takes place in Europe, key characters are American. An early sequence takes place in 1945. In a wildly destructive finale in New York City, one man engineers the elimination of all opposition in a single, bold stroke. That man once thought he was too smart to get deeply entangled in this conflict, but ends the film fully dedicated to protecting his own, or when he cannot do that, to seeking just revenge for their deaths. Nevertheless, the larger film franchise will prove this is not a clean victory: the trauma he suffers will have dire consequences for his love life and peace of mind in follow-up films.

Based on a true story and told in flashback with a frame in the present day, this film was considered a creative high point for a well-known director. Its title suggests a crude, lumbering giant. The female lead must eventually escape a relationship of escalating, abusive violence. The male lead is most at home in rowdy watering holes. He is arrested and briefly imprisoned for violating social and sexual norms with a teenage girl. In the final scene, a large, eager audience awaits the lead character, though neither their applause nor the film’s comforting, prominent Bible verse can negate the lead character’s tragic loss.

Bill Gold did the poster for this classic film. Nazi imagery accompanies jaunty, feel-good music. Crooked behavior abounds, even among representatives of the law, though the cynical, antihero protagonist has found some such representatives, and one especially, to be useful allies at times. He has a strong appreciation for one piano piece, but comes to associate it with terrible pain. Still later, though, circumstances force him to endure that pain, which makes him stronger in the end. In the movie’s closing moments, one man is liberated from tyranny, with a beautiful woman in his arms. One could argue that another man would deserve this happy ending more than he does, but if that is an injustice, it may serve a greater justice in the fight against a repressive state.

Changing technology has created a demand for a new kind of impersonator, one who gives voice to a face and body not their own, a body belonging to an exalted community with great agility. Without the efforts of one such impostor, a costly enterprise will fail, endangering many livelihoods. Therefore, the impostor and companions need to relearn how to speak and act properly in their new roles. But after keeping up the act a while, the former impostor finds romance and ends up living as a full member of the community, despite the threat of reprisals. One of the most exhilarating scenes features lovestruck frolicking in the dripping wet outdoors. In part of the soundtrack, the impostor’s lover sings about seeing the impostor in dreams.

Early in the movie, the lead character takes on what turns out to be a wildly dangerous task, in order to help her sister. Show business’ desire for endless spectacle leads to brutal real-life-and-death struggle. Children must navigate a forest where seemingly everything could be a threat. Genetic engineering has run wild, creating a whole new ecosystem of exotic beasts, and one of those engineered animals, related to the birds of our world, is featured in the movie’s logo. Despite the movie’s primarily jungle setting, other high-tech items like holograms occasionally play a role. The male and female lead share their first kiss shortly after she saves his life. They stand together but are uncertain about what to do next in the penultimate sequence. Still, at least her family is home and safe. In the final sequence, an old tyrant surveys a kingdom that is once again under the tyrant’s control — for now.

Fugitive lawbreakers have stowed away on a large vessel, gaining illegal passage to a city that’s a great American center of show business. Now they run around the edges of society, often in disguise, chasing hopes of improving their lot and pursued by a police detective. The best-looking and least morally compromised of the fugitives has musical gifts; the rest of them have broader physical energy. At one point, a character eats a hard-boiled egg in a way that shows casual disrespect for social norms. In their quest, the fugitives befriend/force themselves on a clever insider who appears middle-aged but, like them, is younger at heart than he looks. The fugitives’ actions cost the main character his employer, but he pursues the action until the grand climax, where some pretty words about death precede a chance at a new life and love.

The title mentions a machine with an evocative name. The main character comes from money and acts like it, but is far less stable than most people realize. As a result, the lead’s attempt to develop a young mind has gone horribly wrong, leaving the lead’s peers outraged at the poor decisions involved. A pregnant married couple with farm roots acts as a refuge for the lead for a while, but eventually the ramifications of those decisions can no longer be avoided, and they draw the lead and the husband into battle. In this film, an actor famous for creating authentic characters is playing a World War II veteran who demonstrates that he cannot drink responsibly. The love between a brute and a relatively ordinary woman dies when one of them goes to a higher place where the other cannot follow, ears shut to any cries for reconciliation.

This is a huge science-fiction spectacle from a director known for demanding many takes. Things don’t go as planned aboard a large vessel whose fortunes, as it happens, represent the future of humanity. Passengers die. Long, wordless scenes highlight the ingenuity of the vessel’s design and the harsh, unforgiving environments surrounding it; the camera pays brief attention to other, similar vessels. Just before the crisis hits, a father phones his family. Critics were sharply divided about the film’s quality upon its release, but producers planned to turn it into an ongoing franchise. Those plans, however, bogged down and now seem unlikely. Although set in the future when released, as we move out of the early 21st century, their dates are in the past.

This was a huge, make-or-break gamble for its studio, with notable budget problems that could have sunk it, but those expenses were eclipsed by its massive success. The lead character, an influential member of his community, runs up against a lawman who represents a far higher authority. The crisis point arrives when the lead is unfairly blamed for an accidental, almost fatal spill, costing him his standing. After a long journey, he and the lawman get into a race, using equipment that proves highly dangerous to them both. Although they are bitter enemies for much of the movie, the lawman ultimately helps reunite the lead with his family.

This young filmmaker’s defining magnum opus has groundbreaking visual effects that influenced many later films. A cryptic message from a noted political figure inspires a quest to find out what the name in the message signifies, which in turn kicks off the larger plot. Watching the film today and knowing what we know now, we know the male lead’s hopes of romance are ultimately doomed. Much of the story takes place in a cold monument to power, awe-inspiring but spiritually barren. It all ends in a fire that destroys very important property. The true identity of the dark figure who has hovered over the film remains a mystery, at least to the surviving characters.

Answer Key:

2001: A Space Odyssey

2012

A Clockwork Orange

A Night at the Opera

A Streetcar Named Desire

Avatar

Avengers: Age of Ultron

Ben Hur (the original, not the recent remake)

Blade Runner

Casablanca

Citizen Kane

Jurassic World

Raging Bull

Singin’ in the Rain

Star Wars

The Avengers

The Godfather

The Hunger Games

Titanic

Toy Story