Some drastically different movies have noticeably similar plots, intriguing or annoying fans and critics alike. In some cases, the very different approaches to a story demonstrate its versatility. Live-action remakes of classic fairy tales have been on the rise in the past decade, yet directors and writers create completely different atmospheres for the same story. There is still variety among movies with similar plots because each creative will see the story and what it can be differently.
On the other hand, some movie pairs are so alike in concept and story that it is difficult to believe that one did not copy the other, especially if they come out within a year of each other. They might still have distinct aesthetics, likely due to a particular studio’s style. However, some movies with the same plots are years and genres apart, because strong storylines and tropes will inevitably be reused in new ways.
10 Armageddon & Deep Impact
Both movies are about an incoming comet that will destroy Earth.
Deep Impact and Armageddon both came out in 1998 and are both about humanity preparing for its possible extinction. In Deep Impact, a high school student and an astronomer discover that a meteorite is on a collision course with Earth, dooming the human race. A joint US-Russian crew of astronauts is tasked with blowing up the asteroid before it hits Earth, while those on the surface prepare for the worst.
Armageddon has essentially the same plot, with the added complication that the rescue team needs to drill into the comet and detonate a nuclear weapon from within. NASA trains a team of deep-core drillers to be astronauts, although people have often pointed out that they should have trained experienced astronauts to do the drilling. Deep Impact and Armageddon’s main differences are the approaches the government and NASA take to the same impending crisis, with Armageddon’s being decidedly less practical. Additionally, the movies end in drastically different ways, with different effects on the overall tone of each.
9 Antz & A Bug’s Life
Both movies are about a colony of ants, focusing on a worker ant and a princess.
Antz and A Bug’s Life are also movies with identical starting points from 1998. Yet they have different plots, aesthetics, and tones. Antz focuses on conflict within an anthropomorphized ant colony, while A Bug’s Life is concerned with external threats from other bugs. In Antz, worker ant Z and Princess Bala are both miserable in the colony’s stratified social system and plan to run away together. In A Bug’s Life, the central ant colony is oppressed by a gang of grasshoppers and must gather food for them. The main contrast is the movie’s conflict coming from within the colony vs. outside of it.
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8 Finding Nemo & Shark Tale
Both movies are about talking fish and feature vegetarian sharks.
Finding Nemo’s release in 2003 was swiftly followed by Shark Tale in 2004. The similar basic concept of talking fish did not go unnoticed. However, DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg defended the latter movie, insisting that “any similarities are mere coincidence.”Finding Nemo and Shark Tale could not be more different in style and tone, with Shark Tale being decidedly more modern and more mature. Shark Tale’s plot is concerned with debt, false celebrities, and gangsters, with Robert De Niro voicing the head of the shark version of the Corleones. The movie is also overwhelmed with classic pop songs and obvious celebrity references.
7 Inception & Paprika
Both movies are about infiltrating people’s dreams, blurring the lines between dreams and reality.
Despite Christopher Nolan being celebrated for his 2010 sci-fi thriller Inception, people have noticed and critiqued its similarities to 2006’s Paprika. In Paprika, a device allowing the user to enter people’s dreams is stolen. Three scientists, a police officer, and the young therapist Paprika set out to find the thief while the thief launches attacks on their minds.
Inception is also about people infiltrating others’ dreams and planting ideas that will affect what they do in the real world, even convincing someone that the real world is the dream in the most extreme cases. Both movies are psychological thrillers that blur the boundaries between dreams and reality. However, Paprika’s animated medium possibly lends itself better to the surrealist nature of the story than Inception’s serious live-action fight sequences, involving complicated sets and choreography.
6 Madagascar & The Wild
Both movies are about zoo animals who go to the wild.
Maybe DreamWorks copied Finding Nemo, but then Disney set out to make a movie very similar to Madagascar. 2005’s Madagascar and 2006’s The Wild are both about animals escaping the New York Central Park Zoo and ending up in “the wild.”Madagascar’s animal designs are more cartoon-like while Disney, for once, favors gritty and realistic renderings. The movies have completely different tones, despite almost identical plots of the animals being forced to face the harsh realities of having to survive without the zoo staff catering to them.
5 Snow White And The Huntsman & Mirror Mirror
Both movies are live-action retellings of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Following the success of Disney’s live-action Alice in Wonderland,two different live-action retellings of Snow White hit theaters in 2012. Snow White and the Huntsman was a dark and gritty adaptation, while Mirror Mirror was comedic and colorful. The movies take different approaches to every pillar plot element, from the magic mirror to the poison apple to “true love’s kiss,” Huntsman being serious and Mirror being goofy. This pair of movies ironically came out before 2014’s Maleficent truly kicked off the Disney live-action remake trend.
4 The Matrix & The Lego Movie
Both movies are about a chosen one and a “false” reality.
Both The Matrix and The Lego Movie center on a “chosen one” plot and reveal a world within a world. The Lego world in The Lego Movie is arguably not a false reality because the Lego people cannot live full lives in the real world – but then some people in the Matrix movies consider their lives within The Matrix to be just as fulfilling and are unable to handle the harsh real world. Yet both movies depict scenarios where the circumstances of people’s lives are created and affected by an external force.
Despite completely different settings, mediums, and intended audiences, The Lego Movie and The Matrix oddly both deconstruct the very nature of the “chosen one” trope itself. The Matrix franchise is continuously ambiguous about what Neo being the One actually means, and how much of what Neo does is because of destiny or free will. In contrast, The Lego Movie very directly states that “the prophecy” is fake and that anyone could have been “the special.”
3 Matilda & Carrie
Both movies are about a young girl with telekinetic powers.
In Matilda, a neglected but brilliant elementary-school-age girl discovers that she has telekinetic abilities. In Carrie, an abused teenage girl discovers the same. Both movies are based on books. Yet Matilda finds support in her friends and kind teacher and ultimately overthrows the school’s evil headmistress. She is also able to escape her unhappy home life when Miss Honey adopts her.
In contrast, Carrie is a social outcast and never has any alternative to living with her abusive mother. For Carrie, things reach a breaking point on Prom night, and she unleashes destruction upon her peers. However, Matilda’s cheery tone and happy ending are not enough to cover up darker storylines of abuse and murder. In a different scenario, Matilda could have become Carrie.
2 Finding Nemo & Taken
Both movies are about a father rescuing his kidnapped child.
While Marlin sets out to cross the ocean with Dory in tow to find his son, in Taken, a retired CIA agent travels across Europe to rescue his daughter after she is kidnapped by human traffickers. Finding Nemo and Taken both depict fathers who have a strained relationship with their only child, which inevitably improves after they survive a life-or-death situation, and the child learns to appreciate their parent more. Both movies also focus on the fathers undertaking a long journey to find their child, despite the obvious difference that one of them is a clownfish and the other a human CIA operative.
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1 Avatar & Pocahontas
Both movies are romantic adaptations of the history of colonialism.
Pocahontas is a highly romanticized version of the Indigenous American woman Pocahontas meeting John Smith when he and other English colonizers arrive in what would become Virginia. Disney disregards the true story of Pocahontas in favor of a problematic romance. However, this plot was still reused in James Cameron’s Avatar. Like Pocahontas, Avatar follows a colonizer who falls in love with a woman from the threatened population and tries to protect her people. Avatar arguably better depicts the destruction of colonialism, but its portrayal of the Na’vi has been criticized. This demonstrates how some plots should be questioned more before they are used again in another movie.
