Better Than It Sounds/Film P

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Pan's Labyrinth: During the Spanish Civil War, a bookish girl with a psychotic army officer for an adoptive father completes three tasks so she can get killed and be reincarnated again as the fairy princess she was in a past life. Oh, and they're the scariest fairies ever.
  • Paranormal Activity: A man and woman argue incessantly because their noisy roommate is obsessed with the woman.
  • The Party: An actor from India gets invited to a Hollywood party by blowing up an expensive fort. The star, director, musician and company worked on another unrelated series of films.
  • The Passion of the Christ: A nice guy shows up and tries to help, but the last half of the movie is him getting tortured to death.
    • Alternatively, the Master of the Universe willingly goes through hell -- literally -- to save a species of utter bastards.
  • Patton: A guy swears a lot, kills a lot of people and has a lot of fun doing so.
  • Paul Blart: Mall Cop: A pair of criminal sociopaths with some very acrobatic henchmen repeatedly attempt to murder a hypoglycemic.
  • Pee-wee's Big Adventure: A slightly creepy SNL-rejected man-child loses his bike to another man-child. He then looks for the bike. Directed by a man whose past works deal with a disturbed, Poe-obsessed kid and a dead dog. For the soundtrack, these two went to the leader of a considerably popular punk-rock-new-wave-comedy troupe and asked him to compose an orchestrated score despite his total lack of experience in that area. The main character went on to host a children's show with a talking house and the rocker went on to compose film scores for a living.
    • Alternatively, a mentally questionable man has his bike stolen by a more financially stable mentally questionable man. After pursuing his rival in a murderous rampage, he travels with an assortment of unsavory people to retrieve his beloved bicycle after receiving a tip-off from a dodgy fortune teller.
  • The Perfect Storm: Danny Ocean vs. the ocean. Based on a True Story.
  • The Phantom of the Opera: A neurotic ballet dancer takes singing lessons from a serial killer who lives behind her dressing-room mirror.
  • Phase IV: Two men study ants in Arizona.
  • Phenomena: On the advice of Donald Pleasence and his chimp, Jennifer Connelly creates an army of bugs to drive a five year-old Serial Killer away from Richard Wagner's house.
  • Philadelphia: A lawyer gets fired for being sick and enlists the help of another lawyer who thinks he might get cooties from the sick guy.
  • The Philadelphia Story: Arrogant divorced heiress gets remarried. Ex-husband brings paparazzi into the house for the preparations. Hilarity Ensues.
  • Phone Booth: A Jerkass in New York gets into a phone booth and can't get out.
  • Picnic at Hanging Rock: Exactly What It Says on the Tin. Schoolgirls go on a picnic, and a handful wander off to climb a rock. Not actually a true story.
  • The Pink Panther series: Nine films, all but one of which have the same director, chronicle the adventures of an inept French policeman who wasn't even the star of the first film but became the star anyway and who, among other things, gets framed for robbing a diamond he didn't steal; solves a murder mystery only because more people die as he finds the murderer(s); calls his Chinese servant "Yellow"; and constantly annoys his psychopathic boss, who just wants to kill him. People usually watch the films just to see the animated credits.
  • Pink Floyd the Wall: Bad stuff happens to a guy throughout his life, so one day he decides to socially isolate himself from human civilization.
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl: A blacksmith's rich girlfriend gets kidnapped by zombie pirates, and he goes to rescue her with the help of another pirate who is not a zombie but wears eyeliner. And it's based on a theme park ride.
      • Alternatively: A politician's daughter steals gold and is mistaken for a gold-thief's daughter by gold-thieves, who want to kill her, so they can die. Her stalker fails to save her with the help of a guy his dad knew from work, but the gold thieves don't kill the politician's daughter, because she's not a gold thief's daughter. Everyone who isn't a gold-thief fights everyone who is until the gold-thieves go to jail or die.
    • Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest: In the sequel, the pirate tricks the blacksmith into serving a man with a Scots accent and a Welsh name with an octopus for a head who lives in a Dutch submarine and plays the organ.
    • Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End: The pirate, the blacksmith, the girlfriend and others hold a Xanatos Roulette contest and try to one-up each other. A Gambit Pileup ensures.
    • Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides: Pirate tries reconnecting with an old flame, who only thinks about her father.
  • Planet of the Apes: Man's travel takes longer than expected, and after his arrival he ends up captured and put on trial by hostiles. The trial covers politics and philosophy, including human nature.
    • Beneath the Planet of the Apes: Guy goes after the above man, also gets lost but manages to find him after being captured by a different set of hostiles. When both hostile groups find each other... the consequences are catastrophic.
    • Escape from the Planet of the Apes: A few of the first group of hostiles manage to get to the lost men's homeland.
    • Conquest of the Planet of the Apes: Horseback rider decides to take over a city after his employer is driven to suicide.
    • Planet of the Apes (2001): Guy goes to rescue his pet and gets lost. This causes evolution to get fast enough to kill his workmates.
    • Rise of the Planet of the Apes: After getting inhumane treatment in prison, misunderstood savant breaks half a city so he and his friends can play in a forest.
  • Pleasantville: A brother and sister get way too into a sitcom from The Fifties.
  • Pocahontas: Native American woman who enjoys extreme sports falls in love with Mel Gibson.
    • Pocahontas II: After Mel Gibson fakes his death, the Native American woman goes on a goodwill tour to England and falls in love with a tobacco salesman.
  • Pokémon the First Movie: A human/flying cat hybrid goes nuts and tries to take over the world.
  • Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea: Reclusive father imprisons daughter. Earth is wiped out when she escapes.
    • Alternatively: A young girl has magical abilities to transform items, call floods and run on water. Nobody cares.
  • The Poseidon Adventure: Cruiseship ends up upside down. A group of people decide to get to the top. Adventure ensues.
    • Poseidon: Same thing as above, but instead of an All-Star Cast, a B-Star Cast.
  • The Postman: A man puts on a postman's jacket, altering the course of history for the better.
  • Pour la Suite de Monde: A bunch of Quebecois catch a beluga whale, and take it to New York. Not based on a true story so much as actually a true story.
  • Precious: Teenage girl fights with mother over pregnancy, then writes about it in her diary.
  • Predator: Man with peculiar accent survives hunting trip gone horribly right. Also, features two state governors.
    • Predator 2: A big game hunter, whose vocabulary consists of "want some candy?", "shit happens" and "motherfucker," fights Latino gangsters and cops. It can only be stopped by that black dude from Lethal Weapon.
    • Predators: Some people and a big game hunter get roped into a hunting trip.
  • Primer: An out of order plot with lots of Techno Babble.
  • The Prestige: Wolverine hires David Bowie to build a teleporter so he can frame Batman for murder.
  • The Princess and the Frog: A slacker prince finds himself with a bizarre skin condition after getting his fortune told. To combat this situation, he teams up with a workaholic black chick, a reclusive jazz enthusiast, and a redneck who's in love with a star.
  • The Princess Bride: A farm hand becomes a pirate and his girlfriend becomes a princess and then he kidnaps her and dies. Then, with the help of a hungover fencer and a stupid giant, he kidnaps her again after coming back to life. Whilst all this is going on, a grandfather tells his grandson a story.
    • Alternately: Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles. It doesn't sound too bad.
    • Alternately: Some plonker reads a kissing book to his grandson.
      • Extra-Alternately: Lieutenant Columbo reads a kissing book to his sick, baseball-playing grandson. True love is declared.
  • The Producers: Two hard-on-their-luck guys attempt to make the worst play in history. They fail. Spectacularly.
  • The Proposition: A petty criminal decides which of his brothers he likes better. IN AUSTRALIA!.
  • Psycho: Woman is killed by man in drag, who also has an Oedipus complex.
  • Pulp Fiction: A couple of hit-men discuss everything from hamburgers to theology. One retires, the other dies, and their boss is anally raped.
    • Alternately: A hitman stabs a woman in the heart to save her, three preppies get killed by Bible quotes and miracles, the sole survivor of that accidentally gets shot in the head when a car hits a bump [1], and a quest to get donuts, a toilet, and a watch hidden up Christopher Walken's ass for two years ends in murder and anal rape.
  • Puss in Boots: Two pariahs reform their partnership to kidnap a bird.
  1. ↑ Hey, the car didn't hit no motherfuckin' bump!
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