Myths and LegendsWhat's fact? What's just an old wives' tale? Read up on these persistent, sometimes creepy, totally believable urban legends to separate truth from myth.
Updated October 15, 2020 115.5K votes 21.6K voters 1.4M views
Over 21.6K Ranker voters have come together to rank this list of 13 Movie Myths That Are Making Us All Dumber
Voting Rules
Vote up the movie myths Hollywood had you believing for years.
For all the pitfalls and problems with the movie industry, it is undoubtedly true that films provide plenty of benefits. A little bit of movie magic is enough to entertain millions of people and sometimes even teach them a thing or two about the way the world works. Unfortunately, there are plenty of suggested "facts" that aren't necessarily true. After seeing these types of movie myths several times in countless different films, people began to accept them without ever questioning just how truthful they actually are.
Like horrible true things left out of biopics, these false facts movies perpetuate are skewing audiences's perception of reality. Maybe filmmakers are also blissfully unaware or maybe they are purposefully ignoring scientific fact that could potentially ruin a movie's plot. In either case, some of the myths from movies people believe are certainly not helping us to become smarter as a species, so hopefully, this article can help enlighten you just a little bit.
Myth: It’s one of the biggest staples in Hollywood that a person who has been arrested is entitled to one phone call of their choosing. It happens time and time again in almost any police drama or criminal film, with examples ranging from The Matrixto Kingsman: The Secret Service. In each movie, the arrested person asks for and receives their seemingly mandatory call.
Fact: The only problem is that this idea has been made up by the film industry. While anyone who has been arrested does have the right to speak to their attorney, phone calls are a privilege that can be given or taken away at any time. Basically, there is a lot of different rules and regulations around phone calls that vary from state to state and country to country.
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9,818 VOTES
A Defibrillator Will Restart A Person’s Heart
Photo: MGM
Myth: Defibrillators have taken on very different jobs in movies as compared to their real-life counterparts. Films such as Casino Royale and Inception show the electric paddles essentially bringing people back to life – the electric shock working to restart the victim’s heart.
Fact: However, that is exactly the opposite of what real-life defibrillators do. They are made to stop the heart after it has suffered from a dysfunctional rhythm, allowing doctors to perform CPR to get it working correctly again.
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7,898 VOTES
It Only Takes Seconds To Knock Someone Out With A Rag Soaked In Chloroform
Photo: Universal Pictures
Myth: The chloroform rag has become to go to weapon for anyone who wants to incapacitate a person in a non-lethal manner. According to movies such as Billion Dollar Brain, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, and P2,it is possible to knock somebody out in seconds by holding the cloth over their mouths.
Fact: In truth, knocking people out using drugs and other toxins is a very difficult process. Too much of a certain material will be harmful and too little will cause no effect. That’s why hospitals use anesthetists when putting people under. While chloroform could be used to knock somebody unconscious, it would take a lot longer than it does in the movies.
7,898 votes
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7,888 VOTES
You Have To Wait 24 Hours To Report Someone Missing
Myth: Almost any time a person goes missing in any movie, the concerned family members and friends are told by police that they must wait 24 hours before filing the appropriate report.
Fact: Not only is this simply not true, it is also a pretty dangerous myth to spread around. Police and other experts stress how important it is to start searches and file a missing person’s report as quickly as possible. This gives the police the best chance of finding them. Any delay could not only hamper an investigation but lead to harm coming to the missing person.
Government websites even specifically point out that you don’t have to wait any length of time before contacting the police.
Myth: Practically every James Bondfilm – or any movie that features guns – will show that silencers eliminate practically all of the sound from a gun. With a silencer on, it is possible to fire a shot without anyone in the immediate vicinity to know what has happened.
Fact: The thing is, silencers are not even a thing. What the movies are actually showing a called suppressors, a tool primarily designed to reduce the sound of a gun for ear protection and to make it more difficult to identify the location of the gunfire. Even with a suppressor fitted, guns can still produce a sound of more than 100 decibels, enough to alert everyone nearby.
7,580 votes
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6,903 VOTES
It's Cool To Pull Out A Grenade Pin With Your Teeth
Myth: If action movies have taught us anything, it is that pulling out the pin of a grenade using just your teeth is just about the coolest thing a person can do. Numerous heroes from movies like Starship Troopers, Terminator,andG. I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra have done exactly that to great effect.
Fact: Unfortunately, doing that with a real grenade would most likely lead to teeth being pulled out completely. Pins are designed to be difficult to pull out to avoid any accidents where they can explode by mistake, meaning you would have to pull really hard with your teeth to get it out of the grenade.
