Movie Numerology
The obsessive compulsive in me can’t help but organize things in pointless lists. Ever make a mental note of things that share some obscure relational similarity? I do. I can’t quit. Here’s an example: movies with numerical film titles.
(from Errol Morris’s documentary The Fog of War)
In the interest of keeping this list reasonable, I’m not counting foreign films or sequels. As a general rule, most sequels suck anyway, with few exceptions (the Godfather, Indiana Jones, and original Star Wars trilogies come to mind). Bonus points for titles with two distinct numbers (example: “Nine to Five”). Partial credit for titles with non-whole numbers (example: “Nine and 1/2 Weeks).
For proof of some of these films’ existence, I’ve provided extensive hyperlinked evidence to the great online database of film, Internet Movie Database. This is a fact that only further proves my obsessive compulsiveness, don’t you think?
See the bottom of the page for some final analysis of all this mess.
x < 0
Less than Zero
x = 0
Ground Zero
Zero Effect
0 < x < 1
Love and a .45 Partial credit!
Colt .45 Partial credit!
x = 1
Air Force One
The Man With One Red Shoe
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
One True Thing
One Little Indian
The One and Only
One Crazy Summer
One Fine Day
It Happened One Night
One On One
Six of One Bonus!
x = 2
2 Days in the Valley
Two Girls and a Guy
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
The Man With Two Brains
The Man with Two Faces
x = 3
Three Days of the Condor
The Three Amigos!
Three Kings
The Three Musketeers
3:10 to Yuma Partial credit!
Three Wishes
The Three Faces of Eve
Three O’Clock High
3 < x < 4
Pi Partial credit!
x = 4
Four Rooms
ID4
Four Weddings and a Funeral
Born on the Fourth of July
Four Days in September
The Four Musketeers
x = 5
The Fifth Element
Five Corners
The Five Heartbeats
Nine to Five Bonus!
x = 6
Six Pack
The Sixth Sense
Girl 6
Six Degrees of Separation
Six Hours to Live
Six of a Kind
Six Pack
Six String Samurai
The Sixth Day
6 Days 7 Nights Bonus!
Six of One Bonus!
x = 7
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
6 Days 7 Nights Bonus!
The Seven Year Itch
Series 7: The Contenders
The Magnificent Seven
Se7en
The Seventh Sign
Seven Years in Tibet
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
Seven Faces of Dr. Lao
The Seven-Ups
x = 8
8 Heads in a Duffel Bag
Hard Eight
8MM
Eight Men Out
8 Seconds
8 mile
8 1/2 Partial credit!
x = 9
Love Potion No. 9
Nine to Five Bonus!
The Ninth Gate
Nine Months
Sesion 9
Nine and 1/2 Weeks Partial credit!
x = 10
10 Things I hate about you
The Ten Commandments
Ten Little Indians
x = 11
Ocean’s Eleven
x = 12
12 Angry Men
Twelve Monkeys
The Twelve Chairs
Twelve O’Clock High
x = 13
Apollo 13
Friday the 13th
The Thirteenth Floor
13 Ghosts
The Thirteenth Warrior
Thirteen Days
x = 14
x = 15
Sweet 15
x = 16
Sixteen Candles
16 Days of Glory
x = 17
Stalag 17
x = 18
x = 19
20 < x < 50
Catch-22
28 Days Later…
Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo
Thirty
Miracle on 34th Street
The 39 Steps
Summer of ‘42
48 HRS.
Attack of the 50 Foot Woman
50 < x < 100
52 Pick-Up
54
Car 54, Where Are You?
55 Days at Peking
Passenger 57
Sixty Glorious Years
Buffalo ‘66
Dancer, Texas Pop. 81
Winchester ‘73
100 < x < 500
101 Dalmatians
187
200 Cigarettes
Fahrenheit 451
Five Hundred Acres
633 Squadron
500 < x < 5000
THX 1138
1941
1984
Death Race 2000
2001: A Space Odyssey
2010: The Year We Make Contact
5000 < x < ∞
5,000 Fingers of Dr. T
10,001 Arabian Knights
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Curiously, all of this data roughly fits a normal curve (otherwise known as the “bell curve”):
…where the x-axis represents the number in the movie title, and the y-axis represents the number of instances each number occurs in different movie titles.
