Coming up with a good movie title is hard. There have been plenty of great ones, plenty of terrible ones, and more than a few that are completely unintelligible until you’ve actually sat down and watched the movie. There are even multiple titles that have been reused more than once, to the confusion of many. It’s a complicated process, but there’s one foolproof way to set your movie apart from the rest: just throw the director’s name in there.
We’ve all seen movie posters with the classic “[Famous Director]’s [Title of Movie]” format, and even title cards within the movie that put the director’s name over the name of the film. (John Carpenter loves doing this.) But rarely are those treated as the actual, official, full titles of those movies—unless they are. Including the director’s name is a practice that has existed for decades, and while it’s still uncommon, it does happen. Maybe the movie shares a title with another, more well-known movie. Maybe the director is so famous that’s the best way to drum up interest in the picture. Maybe the director is actually in the movie itself.
Whatever the reason, there are more than a few examples of this phenomenon—enough to make a whole list! We scoured the archives of Hollywood to find the best examples of this and to explore all the reasons why a simple title just wasn’t enough for these films. In fact, maybe we’ll start doing this, too. ScreenCrush’s 10 Movies with the Director’s Name in the Title is long, but it has a certain ring to it.
10 Movies with the Director’s Name in the Title
Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is just one part of a long, confusing naming tradition.
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Gallery Credit: Emma Stefansky
