Most people expect some sort of believability in storytelling. However, they also want to focus just on the tales.

For movies, that is no different. But they do often have unrealistic elements in order to avoid detracting from the plots.

Some even have unrealistic premises altogether. That is what this post is about.

Below are my top picks.

1: The Cat in the Hat (2003)

Based on the picture book by Dr. Seuss, two kids meet an anthropomorphic cat in a tall hat. He promises fun, but it leads to crazy events.

In the film, the children have a babysitter, although she falls asleep. But in the book, it seems that they’re home unsupervised. It sounds kind of unbelievable. However, it was written and published in the mid-20th century. Back then, child protection laws were not as strict. Plus, kids had more freedom and could be unsupervised more often.

Anyway, in both adaptations, the fact that the children let the cat stay in their house after he entered unannounced is kind of unrealistic. And they didn’t know him.

If some stranger showed up at my house unannounced (unless they were delivering something or in immediate danger), I would call the cops on them for trespassing.

2: Matilda (1996)

This was also based off of a book – a chapter book by Roald Dahl.

It focuses on a little girl who is smart and loves to read. But her family is impatient with that and makes fun of her for it.

If that’s not bad enough, her school has a mean and scary principal, Miss Trunchbull. She even punishes a kid by making him eat an entire cake in one sitting. Not only that, she also has a punishment approach similar to an iron maiden.

Even though Matilda’s intelligence level can be possible with real kids her age, the fact that her school hired a principal like Miss Trunchbull is hard to believe – unless it’s supposed to be set decades before the 80s, when the book was published.

3: Stuart Little (1999)

A couple promises to adopt a younger brother for their son, George. But instead of adopting a human child, they adopt a talking anthropomorphic mouse from a local orphanage in New York City.

Although the movie was good, I will admit that Eleanor and Fredrick Little’s reaction to seeing Stuart was hard to accept. They reacted like they’ve seen talking animals before.

Another aspect of this film that’s unrealistic is 90s New York City having an orphanage. Orphanages were gone from the United States by the 70s.

4: Billy Madison (1995)

A man named Billy is often wild and out of control. It makes his father mad.

His dad tries to find someone untrustworthy to run his business. But Billy begs him not to. His father then confesses that he didn’t graduate from high school properly. All his grades were bribed.

Billy ends up making a deal with his dad – if he can repeats grades 1 through 12 with 2 weeks per grade, he can take over the company.

The movie is funny and insane things happen as well. But having a grown adult go back to K – 12 school with kids wouldn’t be allowed in real life. If an adult felt like finishing their formal education, such as if they dropped out of high school, they would need to take a different route.

Conclusion

Even though these films have unrealistic premises, they remain memorable. And there are probably more unrealistic movies out there that I’m not aware of.

Assuming you are an adult or older kid reading this, I hope you know that these concepts listed could not happen in real life. Yet, I also hope that you enjoyed this post.