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. ¹Post thumbnail is taken from the opening credits of 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 ²Partial credit! Fractional or irrational numbers
• Colt .45 ³ref: 2

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 ⁴Bonus! Two numbers in a single title.

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 ⁵ref: 2
  Three Wishes
• The Three Faces of Eve
• Three O’Clock High

(3 < x < 4)

• Pi ⁶ref: 2

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 ⁷ref: 4
• Five Easy Pieces

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 ⁸ref: 4
• Six of One ⁹ref: 4

x = 7

• Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
• 6 Days 7 Nights ¹⁰ref: 4
• 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 ¹¹ref: 2

x = 9

• Love Potion No. 9
• Nine to Five ¹²ref: 4
• The Ninth Gate
• Nine Months
• Sesion 9
• Nine and 1/2 Weeks ¹³ref: 2

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

(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

Analysis

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.

Footnotes

• 1
  Post thumbnail is taken from the opening credits of Errol Morris’s documentary The Fog of War
• 2
  Partial credit! Fractional or irrational numbers
• 3
  ref: 2
• 4
  Bonus! Two numbers in a single title.
• 5
  ref: 2
• 6
  ref: 2
• 7
  ref: 4
• 8
  ref: 4
• 9
  ref: 4
• 10
  ref: 4
• 11
  ref: 2
• 12
  ref: 4
• 13
  ref: 2