Have you seen Steven Spielberg’s The Teeth from the Sea? How about the Academy Award-winning film One Night, Big Belly? Chances are you know these two movies better by their original English titles: Jaws and Juno, respectively.
Somewhere in the world, these and the other film titles on the following list got lost in translation. They range from misleading and plot-revealing to mildly inappropriate and 100% LOL-worthy. Enjoy!
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Airplane: The Unbelievable Trip In A Wacky Airplane (Germany)
American Pie: American Virgin Man (China)
Animal House: I Think I’m Kicked by a Horse (Germany)
Annie Hall: The Urban Neurotic (Germany)
Army of Darkness: Captain Supermarket (Japan)
As Good As It Gets: Mr. Cat Poop (China)
Austin Powers: Trump Card Big Spy (China)
Bad Santa: Santa Is A Pervert (Czech Republic)
Being John Malkovich: The Hole Of Malkovich (Japan)
Big Momma’s House: The Cop In Drag (Finland)
Boogie Nights: His Great Device Makes Him Famous (China)
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs: Cloudy With a Chance of Falafel (Israel)
Deep Impact: Earth And Comet Collide (China)
Die Hard: Die Slowly (Germany) / Skyscraper Attack (Portugal)
Die Hard 2: Airport Attack (Portugal)
Die Hard With A Vengeance: Die Slowly, Now More Than Ever (Germany)
Dirty Harry: Inspector Harry (France)
Dodgeball: Full Of the Nuts (Germany)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: Forget Me Not (Germany) / If You Leave Me, I Delete You (Italy)
Fargo: Mysterious Murder in Snowy Cream (China)
Free Willy: A Very Powerful Whale Runs To Heaven (China)
George of the Jungle: The Jungle Died Laughing (Israel)
Get Smart: Is the Spy Capable Or Not (Taiwan)
Grease: Vaseline (Argentina)
Happy Feet: Breaking the Ice (Spain)
Home Alone: Mom, I Missed the Plane (France)
Hot Shots!: Warm Shots (Czech Republic)
Jaws: The Teeth From the Sea (France)
Juno: Juno: Grow, Run and Stumble (Mexico)
Knocked Up: One Night, Big Belly (China) / The Date That Screwed Me (Israel) / Slightly Pregnant (Peru) / Slightly Serious (Portugal)
Leon: This Hit Man Is Not as Cold as He Thought (China)
Liar Liar: Trump Card Big Liar (China)
Lost In Translation: Lost In Tokyo (Israel) / Meetings and Failures in Meetings (Portugal)
Mr. Holland’s Opus: The Sunny Classroom (Japan)
Risky Business: Just Send Him To University Unqualified (China)
Superbad: Super Horny (Israel)
Thelma and Louise: An Unexpected End (Mexico)
The Cable Guy: Trump Card Specialist (China)
The Dark Knight: Night of the Knight (Spain)
The Full Monty: Six Naked Pigs (China)
The Horse Whisperer: Held by Wind in Montana (Japan)
The Naked Gun: The Gun Died Laughing (Israel)
The Parent Trap: A Twin Seldom Comes Alone (Germany)
Vertigo: Vertigo: From Out of the Kingdom of the Dead (Germany)
When Harry Met Sally: Hum Tum (India)
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We’d be lying if we claimed to have firsthand knowledge of all of these titles. We owe this lost-in-translation roundup to the following sources: Den of Geek, Madmind, The Curious Diary of Mr. Jam and JAM! Movies.
Have a title to add? Disagree with one (or more) of the translations above? Don’t be shy; let us know here!
Ha! Ha! I subscribe to LoveFilm (a DVD delivery service) and the films are listed in German so I often I have quite to spend a bit of time trying to figure out what movie I want to see. Involves 3 windows open at the same time: their website / Google + Google translator / YouTube to find a trailer… ah, life in foreign soil
ahahah, so many good ones. I appreciate the no frills directness of the teen movies (American Pie = American Virgin Man; Superbad = Super Horny). Ah, what a reputation we are maintaining abroad!
This is one of my favorite topics of conversation! And to prove it, here are some priceless examples from Spain.
The head-scratchers:
Die Hard > The Crystal Jungle
The simply poetic ones:
Miller’s Crossing > Death Among the Flowers
The ones that give you “a hint” of what’s coming:
Jaws > Shark
Rosemary’s Baby > The Devil’s Seed
The Shawshank Redemption > Life Sentence
Daylight > Panic in the Tunnel
Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle > Two Very Stoned Guys
… and on and on. I’ll just skype my brother and get more jewels like these.
Very nice collection. Thanks for this useful information