35 DVD Covers that Misrepresent the Movie

Batman: The Movie

This is the special edition of the 1966 Batman movie. You know, the campy one based on the old Adam West TV show. It’s not even close to as dark and gritty as this cover makes it out to be, as you can see below.

Chocolat

If you only saw this DVD cover and were a huge Johnny Depp fan (who isn't?!), you’d have no idea and be very disappointed that he is largely absent for the majority of the film. He doesn’t even appear until about an hour in.

Troll 2

Odds are you’ve heard of this film. “Worst movie ever made” may have been tossed around with it. So obviously, the effects on this cover are way better than anything in the actual movie, and nothing even resembling this monster shows up. Oh well, we don’t watch this one for the effects anyway. We watch for the stellar acting (see below).

Cujo

“Cujo” is the story of a dog that is bitten by a rabid bat, contracting rabies and going on a killing spree. This dog. We don’t know what that thing on the cover is, or why they picked a sky blue background to make it look like some sort of Disney film.

12 Monkeys

Bruce Willis is not some sort of bionic man in this movie. The red beacon in his eye on the DVD cover is actually the symbol of the 12 Monkeys in the film, but it never glows or is in his or anyone else’s eye at any point in the film.

Real Time

It may look like your run-of-the-mill dollar store bin buddy flick, but it’s much more nuanced than that if you give it a chance. Not much of a comedy at all, this is the story of a down-on-his-luck gambler given one hour to do anything he wants by a hitman before he is to kill him. Well executed with quality performances by both leads, you are in for a pleasant surprise if you don't judge this one by its cover. They just HAD to put that stupid clock around his neck, didn’t they?

Drugstore Cowboy

The title of the film plays up the plot much more than this schmaltzy cover, which makes the movie look more like a rom-com than a film about drug addicts who rob pharmacies and hospitals to support their habits. But using this still of Heather Graham as the cover image probably wouldn’t have sold as well.

The Accidental Spy

Who are these people? Because other than Jackie Chan, no one from the cover appears in this movie. Not that they’re exactly recognizable faces anyway.

All I Want for Christmas

This is a family film about two children whose only wish is for their parents to get back together. At no point do they kidnap, tie up or hang Santa from the ceiling. Santa is only briefly in it. And as mentioned, their Christmas list isn’t even close to that long.

The King of Comedy

Ahh, this looks like a delightful romp. FALSE. While there are humorous parts, this is a Scorsese film. Expect dark twists and a lot of drama as this story follows a young comic determined to make it big at any cost, even if it means stalking and kidnapping his late night talk show idol in order to acquire a guest spot on his show.

A Bronx Tale

The synopsis on the cover is very misleading. De Niro (left) and Palminteri (right) both play father figures to the title character, pictured running from an explosion which never happens, whom the story actually revolves around. While De Niro and Palminteri’s characters do have a bit of a feud with each other, it is hardly the “battle” the cover makes it out to be, as the two only share two scenes with each other the entire movie.

Spanking the Monkey

This looks and sounds like a teen sex flick, but it’s actually a film about a mother and son who develop an incestuous relationship while she is laid up with a broken leg and he is forced to be her caretaker. Did anyone else start to feel very unclean all of a sudden?

Lawn Dogs

You’d assume that some sort of sexual encounter takes place between the two characters pictured. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth, as the story revolves around a secret friendship that develops between a 20-something lower class man and a 10-year-old upper class girl (not pictured) and the fallout of said friendship.

Kramer vs. Kramer

The cover of this DVD makes it seem like a cute family film. In actuality, it’s a bit more complicated than that, revolving around the mother character splitting town at the very beginning, leaving the workaholic father to raise the son he barely knows. Once they’ve finally bonded, the mother returns to claim her son, and a bitter custody battle ensues. Look, it’s a great film, but the cover doesn’t quite sell it right.

Amelia

This cover wants you to believe the film is some sort of love story. However, Hilary Swank’s Amelia Earhart specifically says in the movie that she’s not romantically inclined or interested in monogamy. This is proven by the fact that even though she is married to Richard Gere’s character, she is canoodling with Ewan McGregor’s character the whole time. “A love without limits. A life without fear,” must be referring to airplanes.

Caligula

Look at that lineup of stars. And it’s a period piece to boot. This has classic written all over it. Whoa! Full penetration...we did not see that one coming at all. They probably should have gone with this cover instead.

Carousel

Well, it’s a musical. So far, so good. The musical is about a wife beater who dies during a robbery attempt by falling on his own knife, all while his wife is pregnant with their only child. Takes a pretty hard right turn there.

The Forbidden Kingdom

Get it? Their names both start with the same letter! J! It’s funny that they wouldn’t put the actual protagonist of the film on the cover, though (but alas, his name is Michael Angarano, not Jichael Jangarano). That fact aside, this movie is actually more of a family film than the martial arts spectacle you would assume it to be, due to the “Js” on the cover being a little old.

King Kong (1976)

Just about everything is wrong here. The entire cover is over-exaggerated to the max. King King is not that big in the film, he never grabs a jet airplane in his hand (and look at the size of the plane compared to the woman), and there aren’t even planes in the actual scene represented. Just helicopters.

Night of the Lepus

If you didn’t know that Lepus is the constellation also known as “The Hare,” would you assume based on this cover that this is a film about killer rabbits? Thought not.

The Little Shop of Horrors

Yes, that’s a young Jack Nicholson. No, he’s not in the film for more than two minutes.

Love Happy

Putting Groucho Marx and Marilyn Monroe as the leads on the cover would be all well and good if Groucho wasn’t more or less the narrator and Marilyn was onscreen for more than a minute.

The Cave

The story follows nine explorers as they are picked off by human-sized aquatic monsters in a cave. The cave itself isn’t a giant monster nor is there a giant monster at all. So if giant monsters are your bread and butter for some odd reason, take a hike, buddy!

Man's Best Friend

The titular dog in this film is genetically enhanced with the abilities of other animals, but much like our issue with “12 Monkeys,” he’s not a cyborg of any kind.

The Plague Dogs

Another film about animals, this one is mostly just funny because it closely resembles the cover of Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco. All that's missing is a sassy cat (like Sassy the Cat from "Homeward Bound"). However, it's still more grisly than you might expect, as it is about two dogs that escape an animal research facility and are being hunted down as possible carriers of the bubonic plague. Oh, and it's also by the same director of the film next on our list...

Watership Down

What appears to be one of the cutesiest covers on this list is actually one of the most disturbing. Putting it lightly, the film centers on a group of rabbits fleeing to a new home, with much bloodshed and death along the way as they face the very realistic hazards of nature. The rabbits are attacked and killed by dogs, birds and even other rabbits -- and not offscreen. "Black Hawk Down" is more uplifting.

Air America

Just a couple of crazy flyboys played by Mel Gibson and Robert Downey, Jr. yucking it up, right? Nope. It's actually a movie set during the Vietnam War about opium trade, anti-war politics and crooked generals, all based on true events.

Reign of Fire

All the action on this cover is seen only through newspaper clippings in the film.

My Sister's Keeper

Looks cheery, doesn't it? It's not. Well, unless you consider the following plot to be uplifting, you sick freak: Anna Fitzgerald seeks medical emancipation from her parents, who conceived her via in vitro fertilization in order to harvest what they needed from her to keep their older daughter Kate, suffering from leukemia, alive until Anna can inevitably donate one of her kidney’s to her dying sister. Nevermind -- that's pretty light-hearted stuff after all!

Serenity

“Serenity” (and the TV series it’s based on, “Firefly”) is essentially a western set in space. You wouldn’t get that vibe from this awful, fluorescent, poorly photoshopped cover, though. Fans hated it so much that they started a petition on writer/director Joss Whedon’s official site to get it changed before its release. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. Do yourself a favor and get the collector’s edition DVD instead. The cover portrays the style and vibe of the movie much better, so you won’t think you’re about to watch “Speed Racer” or something.

Stand and Deliver

The issue here is that Lou Diamond Philips isn’t the main character of this film. He is merely one of the students of Edward James Olmos’ character, who is the focus of this movie. The story is about a high school teacher who inspires his troubled students to learn Calculus, not brood at a desk.

The Third Man

We’d say “spoiler alert,” but if you’ve already looked at the cover prior to watching this film, there’s no point. If they are going to put Orson Welles on the cover, they might as well change the name to “The Third Act” while they’re at it, because that’s how long you have to wait before his first appearance. And with good reason; he’s supposedly dead until that point. Way to ruin the surprise, DVD cover designer jerk. Joseph Cotten is the actual star.

Once

This is a hilarious case of before and after. The movie poster art (on the left) was edited (poorly) for God knows why to make these two look like a couple. In actuality, while they are close in the film, they never get to this “hand holding” stage. And come on! Look at how much they changed the original screencap from the movie to the DVD cover on the right. New legs, new clothes, no hat, new scarf, new body. Even a different guitar case for crying out loud! The star of the film, Glen Hansard, said the creators of the new cover seemingly “don’t give a f**k.” Agreed.