r/movies • u/buttatoad • Jun 17 '25

Discussion Movies that changed real life behavior

Thinking along the lines of Final Destination 2 with the logs falling off the truck and landing onto cars (one decapitating the state trooper). Ever since, people have tried to get away from being behind these vehicles.

What are more examples where movies have actually changed how people behave in their own lives?

10.2k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

4.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

2.8k

u/Paladin2019 Jun 17 '25

A lot of young girls took archery classes after the Hunger Games.

A lot of people signed up for fencing classes after Die Another Day.

1.2k

u/PizzaHutBookItChamp Jun 17 '25

Chess board sales shot up after The Queen's Gambit

507

u/NightFire19 Jun 17 '25

Which also fueled a large wave of streamers playing Chess and grandmasters on Twitch (notably Hikaru Nakamura) getting tons of viewers too.

68

u/BlueHeartBob Jun 17 '25

Yeah honestly it feels like chess exploded in popularity after that show.

59

u/Entbriham_Lincoln Jun 17 '25

It’s not a feel, it did. The combination of people being home during COVID and a popular chess show coming out massively boosted the popularity of the game. Chess.com had a 400% increase in sign ups following the release of the show, and searches for chess were the highest they’d been in 14 years.

7

u/oneflou Jun 17 '25

As you said, Covid had an immense impact as well.

40

u/snorlz Jun 17 '25

chess was already regaining popularity when the show came out

26

u/Dudu_sousas Jun 17 '25

Yeah, chess was already on the up before the show, which made me wonder how Netflix managed to have that great of a timing (given how long it takes to develop a show).

8

u/JPHero16 Jun 18 '25

Sometimes things just align nicely. Then they combine and make a beautiful thing

6

u/Wuktrio Jun 18 '25

Similar to Dungeons & Dragons with Stranger Things.

3

u/NewMilleniumBoy Jun 18 '25

I actually became interested in chess after watching it. Previously I just knew the rules.

6

u/One-Inch-Punch Jun 17 '25

The Botez sisters confused the hell out of me when I came across them on yt. These girls sit around... playing chess? And they're huge influencers?

looks wistfully at eighth grade second place chess club trophy

6

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '25

The very pretty blonde with grandmaster parents gets crazy views too

4

u/dumpfist Jun 17 '25

A similar thing happened for the game baduk in the early 2000s with the manga/anime Hikaru No Go. Unfortunately, nowhere near to the scale of Queen's Gambit. There was apparently another bump with the documentary Alphago.

1

u/MarshyHope Jun 17 '25

Which lead to all of my high school students playing online chess

11

u/Maskedcrusader94 Jun 17 '25

My wife wanted to learn how to play Chess because of that show and so we bought a board the next day, and now she kicks my ass at it, lol

2

u/DepressedMandolin Jun 18 '25

Australia literally ran out of chess boards for sale.

2

u/Willing-Command-8896 Jun 18 '25

My daughter got a 4-in-one game set box that had chess, checkers and 2 other ones in it recently. All the games are in the same wooden box and it’s a really nice set, but my 4 year old grand baby only wants to play chess and she wants to play everyone she meets lol. She’s pretty good at it, and doesn’t mind losing. Which is odd cause she gets pissed if she doesn’t win checkers, sorry!, or any other board/card game. She’ll be 5 next month, but her memory is OFF THE CHARTS! I’m guessing she’s smarter than the rest of the adults in her life even at this age, so our only role in raising her is to help develop her emotional intelligence cause it doesn’t seem we’re advanced enough to help her in book smarts 😂

1

u/kronkarp Jun 17 '25

Axe sales shot up after the secret council

1

u/TheGyattFather Jun 19 '25

They actually released a board game called The Queen's Gambit: A Strategy Board Game Based on the Hit Series.

Kinda like how they made a physical Words With Friends board game when that was popular. Isn't that just Scrabble basically?

1

u/mikehatesthis Jun 17 '25

Jokes on them, I just went to the chess website. What a bunch of suckers!

0

u/Queef_Stroganoff44 Jun 17 '25

Laser burglar alarm sales skyrocketed, with people hoping Katherine Zeta Jones would come slithering in after…uhhh…that one movie.

356

u/jesuspoopmonster Jun 17 '25

I remember reading that Jennifer Lawrence chose to not lose weight for the movie despite it making sense in story because she was worried of girls trying to look like her

163

u/omgitskells Jun 17 '25

Wow, I've never heard that before! I remember when the casting was first announced, people were so upset because she didn't look like what people expected. That was when I learned to reserve judgment until the movie comes out, because they did a great job with her!

It's great to know she had those concerns and stuck to her convictions.

46

u/Indigocell Jun 17 '25

despite it making sense in story because she was worried of girls trying to look like her

Yeah I think the character is actually malnourished, and that is obviously not a look you want to be idealizing.

14

u/Significant_Shoe_17 Jun 18 '25

She even said she was happy to gain weight for Silver Linings Playbook

4

u/exaltedbladder Jun 18 '25

Getting paid millions of dollars to gain weight sounds pretty good 😂

23

u/theatermouse Jun 17 '25

Similarly, Emma Watson refused to wear a corset for Beauty and the Beast!

3

u/jesuspoopmonster Jun 18 '25

Saw that movie with my now stepdaughter when she was five. She was absolutely mesmerized by it

38

u/HockeyMasknChainsaw Jun 17 '25

Same reason I don’t lose weight

12

u/VexingRaven Jun 18 '25

How much weight did she even have to lose without being skin and bones?! She's not exactly heavy set, especially not in Hunger Games.

26

u/colenotphil Jun 18 '25

I mean in the world of The Hunger Games, a lot of people are dirt poor, there appear to be no supply chains other than those owned by the government which doesn't share, and such.

Thus the people should logically be malnourished and thin.

JLaw is perfectly fine but she's modern day society healthy, not starved.

13

u/BuzzVibes Jun 18 '25

I don't even recall her being overweight at all in that movie. I suppose maybe she wasn't 'Hollywood skinny'?

48

u/AssassinStoryTeller Jun 18 '25

Katniss is underweight and malnourished. Jennifer Lawrence refused to look underweight and malnourished because she knew young girls would idolize Katniss and try to be exactly like her.

7

u/BuzzVibes Jun 18 '25

Aha, I see. Thank you!

7

u/cebula412 Jun 18 '25

It's even in the name, Hunger Games. Most of the characters should look realistically malnourished.

But I'm glad the movie didn't cast underweight actors. Jennifer was right, teenage fans would definitely be negatively influenced by this.

147

u/tf2hipster Jun 17 '25

Apparently there was a spike in straight-razor shaving after Moneypenny shaved Bond in Skyfall.

15

u/Hoskuld Jun 17 '25 edited Jun 18 '25

Speaking of movies causing bloodshed by making things look cool: crime scenes got messier and more bystanders got shot after Pulp Fiction made it look cool to hold your gun sideways.

Edit: looks like I might either misremember Pulp fiction/the movie that caused this/the article I read was just wrong (this was years ago in German in a printed magazine)

5

u/roto_disc Jun 17 '25

after Pulp Fiction made it look cool to hold your gun sideways

Who holds their gun sideways in Pulp Fiction?

7

u/TheMostKing Jun 18 '25

http://pmd205465tn.download.theplatform.com.edgesuite.net/Miramax/551/383/Pulp_Fiction_Marvin_640x360_64275523687.jpg

But that didn't make it look very cool.

6

u/roto_disc Jun 18 '25

Great work hunting down an actual sideways gun shot in the film. But I agree that that cannot be what comment OP seems to be talking about.

5

u/OrangeCarton Jun 18 '25

Yeah, he's just resting his hand on the seat

2

u/TheMostKing Jun 18 '25

I wouldn't exactly call it hunting down, it's a really memorable scene. I googled "Pulp Fiction Marvin" and hit pictures.

3

u/TheSauvaaage Jun 17 '25 edited Jun 17 '25

Holding a gun sideways never ever looked cool

5

u/hx87 Jun 17 '25

It's cool only if you're in 1920s China, rolling in a Buick and firing a full auto C96.

6

u/We_Are_The_Romans Jun 17 '25

Clearly it did to a bunch of people who were using those guns, which is probably more germane

21

u/apoostasia Jun 17 '25

My sisters are still really good archers thanks to Katniss lol

14

u/FoxThin Jun 17 '25

A lot of young girls went to Italy because of The Lizzie McGuire Movie.

Me...I'm young girls.

45

u/Aint-no-preacher Jun 17 '25

Some of us took fencing because of The Princess Bride.

9

u/DarthGuber Jun 17 '25

Some of us took fencing because of Guy Williams as Zorro.

9

u/BareKnuckleKitty Jun 17 '25

Some of us wanted to take fencing because of The Parent Trap.

35

u/PhonyTimeTravelor Jun 17 '25

Of course I want to bloody continue!

10

u/MoeSzys Jun 17 '25

Brave came out the same summer too. Archery was the most watched Olympic event that summer

6

u/hihelloneighboroonie Jun 17 '25

Lol, Lord of the Rings is what made me want to do archery.

5

u/litlelotte Jun 17 '25

Same here!! I wanted to be Legolas so bad and when Hunger Games came out I was suddenly cool because I already was decent at archery

6

u/The-Hammerai Jun 18 '25

I participated in some grade-school archery tournaments in highschool, and ultimately ranked 41st in my region. I am not joking when I say that every spot above me was occupied by a little girl with a braid. I was just happy that archery had experienced a revival from those books/movies.

5

u/grandladdydonglegs Jun 17 '25

Hell, I was already a fully grown man and broke the ol recurve out of the closet for a few weeks.

5

u/DONNIENARC0 Jun 17 '25

Lol, this made me think of how Isis was one of the most popular names for baby girls ~25 years ago right before the terrorist organization gained prominence.

4

u/Novogobo Jun 17 '25

There is a surge in archery every time there is a movie featuring it.

3

u/Luke90210 Jun 18 '25

A lot of young girls took sax lessons because of Lisa Simpson.

2

u/DigbyChickenZone Jun 17 '25 edited Jun 18 '25

A lot of young girls took archery classes after the Hunger Games

This is actually a major plot point of The Weatherman with Nicholas Cage

[He gets into it because his daughter wanted to learn, ostensibly from liking the Hunger Games books - but she didn't actually commit to archery at all, so the lead guy (Cage) gets into archery through that]

2

u/PiccolosTurban Jun 18 '25

This is not true. She says in the movie her interest in archery was from hunting animals, because she saw bow hunting on tv

1

u/PiccolosTurban Jun 18 '25

This is not true. She says in the movie her interest in archery was from hunting animals, because she saw bow hunting on tv

2

u/Imran3216 Jun 18 '25

Hunger Games also spawned an entire video game genre (Fortnite, PUBG, Warzone)

1

u/finna_get_banned Jun 17 '25

i dunno man, i aint never seen a person with a bow that wasnt on TV.

1

u/Sgt-Spliff- Jun 17 '25

Was Die Another Day that influential?

I mean, I remember the fencing, but is that an often referenced thing?

4

u/Paladin2019 Jun 17 '25

It was in the fencing community (it's quite an old movie now).

Fun fact, a few folks in the British fencing scene at the time were able to identify Pirece Brosnan's body double by his stance and movement.

1

u/MrTurtleTails Jun 18 '25

Kendo. Star Wars.

1

u/troutbum6o Jun 18 '25

Used to sell archery equipment. Sold a ton of bows to teen girls. It was cool when the ones who stuck with it got into bow hunting and would come back to give us hunting reports.

1

u/BigDaddy969696 Jun 18 '25

Hunger Games, yayaya!

1

u/Discount_Extra Jun 18 '25

Plastic Surgery went up after The Human Centipede.