Movies with grammatical errors in their titles

One of the most influential French filmmakers, Jean-Luc Godard, once said: “Cinema is the most beautiful fraud in the world.” Agreed, films can be such a sweet deception, comforting us, delivering personal emotional gain. The following article, however, does not call out only to movie lovers, but rather to grammar lovers, only to combine the two.

Movies have their flaws, their weaknesses, their unexpectedly charming moments, bitter or sweet, yet powerful lessons… they make us laugh, they make us cry, they annoy us and make us roll our eyes.

And then there are movie titles. Some make us wonder (Phffft, 1954), some make us say: “Can you repeat that?” (Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx, 1970), some make no sense (Half Past Dead, 2002), some suggest boredom (The Secret Lives Of Dentists, 2003), and some also have grammatical mistakes.

The Nines

The following compilation looks into nine movie titles that give proper English grammar the cold shoulder. The reasons are most likely purely artistic and artistic freedom is more than appreciated, but there’s just something about certain errors that burst the bubble to the film. By the way, The Nines just so happens to be a science fiction psychological thriller from 2007 that stars Ryan Reynolds, and there’s nothing wrong with grammar here.

1. Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989)

The movie in which a scientist father accidentally shrinks his teenage daughter and son should properly be called “Honey, I Shrank the Kids" or "Honey, I Have Shrunk the Kids". If we use the past participle, i.e. “shrunk”, we need to add the auxiliary word “have”. Or simply use the present simple to refer to a completed action in a time before now.

2. Can't Hardly Wait (1998)

The American teen romantic comedy follows a group of teenagers graduating from high school who gather at a party and make plans for the future. It stars Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jason Segel and Seth Green, and invokes a nostalgic feel reminiscent of the popular movie genre of the 1990s. Even if this is not your choice of a genre, it still makes a fun teenage little movie. Be a fan of movies or not, you should never be a fan of a double negative! If "can't" and "hardly" are used together, the title translates to: “I do not find it hard to wait.” Proper options are: “I Can't Wait” or “I Can Hardly Wait”.

3. The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)

The Pursuit of Happyness, the title of the 2006 American biographical drama starring Will Smith as a homeless salesman, is obviously spelled wrong. The correct title would be “The Pursuit of Happiness”. This little “mishap” comes from a mural that the main character sees outside of his son’s school, where the word “happiness” is spelled with a “y”.

4. Two Weeks Notice (2002)

In this prototype romantic comedy starring Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock an apostrophe was forgotten! What grammatical rudeness! The correct title would be: “Two Weeks' Notice”, with the apostrophe indicating the possessive form of the plural “weeks”.

5. She Hate Me (2004)

Here, they forgot about the subject verb agreement. “She” is third-person singular and requires a singular present tense verb: “She Hates Me." This was very likely done on purpose, but they still shouldn’t get away with it. She Hate Me is a comedy drama directed by Spike Lee, whose rich body of work looks into the African American experience, racial stereotypes, urban crime and poverty, and other political issues.

6. Biutiful (2010)

Correct spelling was pushed aside in this psychological drama directed, produced and co-written by the Mexican filmmaker, the mind behind some cinematic masterpieces, Alejandro González Iñárritu, and starring the fantastic Javier Bardem as a man dying of cancer trying to make peace with the world. The correct spelling of the title would, of course, be: “Beautiful”. The creators of the movie knew that, but rather went for a creative choice, so maybe we could let this one slip.

7. Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Maybe we could let this one slip as well. After all, it does star Brad Pitt. Although the directors of the movie intended to spell the title as it is, both words are spelt incorrectly, and the grammatically correct title would be: “Inglorious Bastards”.

8. Eight Legged Freaks (2002)

If you had to guess, would you say the movie is about freaks with eight legs or eight freaks who have legs? Well, the spider on the poster of the 2002 comedy horror suggests the latter, so it should be: “Eight-legged Freaks”. Without a hyphen, the movie is about eight freaks and not about gigantic spiders attacking the people of a mining town in Arizona, after a barrel containing toxic waste is accidentally released into a reservoir. What a plot! On the plus side, it stars Scarlett Johansson. Though this might not be a plus for her.

9. 30 Minutes or Less (2011)

The action comedy about two criminals on the run who kidnap a pizza delivery guy should in the name of proper grammar actually be: “30 Minutes or Fewer”. The rule about fewer and less to be remembered is that fewer should be used with nouns for countable objects and concepts, as in “fewer options” and “fewer accidents”; whereas less is used to refer to grammatically singular nouns or to mass nouns, as in ”less time” and “less milk”.

Not another movie list

Ardent film fans have likely guessed the reference of the subheading to the 2001 American teen parody film Not Another Teen Movie, which in turn references popular teenage and college-age films from the 1980s and 1990s, such as 10 Things I Hate About You, Can't Hardly Wait (which is also on our list of grammar mishaps), Pretty in Pink, American Pie, Cruel Intentions, American Beauty.

For sure, our movie list is not exhaustive and there are surely some other cinematographic creations out there whose titles defy the test of grammar.

You’re welcome to challenge the list with even more examples.