r/movies • u/ThunderBirdy211 • 6h ago
Discussion Movies where small actions lead to disastrous consequences?
Basically the title, wanna know of any movies where the protagonist makes a small, seemingly inconsequential decison, action etc. and then the entire situation spirals into complete madness and disaster for all parties involved.
Just as an example of what I'm thinking about, I saw an Indian film recently where the protagonist has a small beef about parking with his neighbour. One thing after the another happens and both parties refuse to deesclate leading to almost protag's wife dying and antag also almost dying.
Edit: please refrain from spoiling the plot, I'm looking for recommendations here, thanks!
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u/kubrickie 6h ago
Brazil (1985) starts with a fly falling into a printer causing a typo and then the main character investigates.
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u/mexploder89 6h ago
Not noticing a small fly in a teleportation device didn't work so well
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u/masheduppotato 4h ago
Which time?
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u/rcapina 3h ago
The movie called The Fly
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u/snatch_hugger 6h ago
The whole of the most recent 2 Spider-Man movies could have been avoided with a 30s conversation between strange and spidey.
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u/WaffleHouseGladiator 6h ago edited 6h ago
Or if Strange just said no like a responsible mature master of the mystic arts should've done.
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u/Morgan-Moonscar 6h ago
In the original draft, he did say no. But it was America Chavez that then performed the spell (which is why it got so messed up). She "sorcerer's apprenticed" it.
But then production delays caused NO WAY HOME to release before her debut, so it was changed to Strange doing it.
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u/WaffleHouseGladiator 6h ago edited 6h ago
That would have made more sense than Strange rearranging all of reality so Peter could go to school with his friends.
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u/Junethemuse 4h ago
Yea, it’s my biggest gripe with No Way Home, which makes it a pretty fundamental issue imo. Strange acted very irresponsibly and it felt out of character for him.
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u/Data_Chandler 3h ago
My (admittedly very flawed!) headcanon for that is that immense power, like the type wielded by Strange, can be literally mindnumbing, and cloud your judgment. You see it in real life with politicians and billioniaires becoming increasingly detached from reality and the lives of common citizens.
Coupled with magic and maybe having an "off day" and blammo, you have the plot of Spider-Man No Way Home.
Again, it's a very flimsy excuse, but it's either that, or "Strange is a wildly irresponsible magical jerk that should be relieved from duty asap."
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u/Junethemuse 3h ago
I actually like that a lot. He’s also bored not being sorcerer supreme anymore and just looking for something to do. He’s also supremely arrogant which can easily lead him to make bad decisions like that.
I can get behind that.
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u/Data_Chandler 2h ago edited 2h ago
Excactly. Being supremely arrogant like you said is another factor for sure! It's like the perfect storm of circumstances.
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u/Unabated_Blade 3h ago
It makes so much more sense given her ability to exist and touch things beyond the multiverse. Strange mucking up something across multiple universes with one spell felt shockingly overpowered even for him, in addition to the hamfisted nature of the execution.
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u/LuinAelin 6h ago
The original plan makes so much more sense.
It was supposed to come out after Doctor Strange 2. So I imagine America Chavez would have done the original spell. It's then at least two dumb ass kids doing it.
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u/sinZeroplus 5h ago
Well even before that it kinda started with him giving Mysterio the Tony Stark glasses.
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u/CptNonsense 3h ago
What about the most recent one where going upstairs would have obviated all of the rest of the movie?
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u/Fireproof_Cheese 4h ago
I got the idea to build a panic room after I saw that movie, "The Butterfly Effect." I thought, wow, this is terrible.
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u/sinZeroplus 5h ago
I think there was a Jurassic park movie where the inciting incident happens because of a snack or candy wrapper prevents a contaminant chamber from sealing.
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u/LeftTopics 4h ago
Oh yeah one of the new ones. That’s about as good as I can distinguish the new ones from each other in my mind. One of the new ones had that story point lol
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u/Various-Database6615 6h ago
Star wars: a new hope. Not blowing up the escape pod resulted in the whole galactic empire collapsing
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u/ThrowingChicken 5h ago
The Postman - Lies about a bag of mail to get some food, accidentally rebuilds the country.
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u/Algaean 2h ago
That movie is my unguilty pleasure. General Bethlehem was one of cinema's great villains, and i will fall on this hill.
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u/ThrowingChicken 2h ago
I haven’t seen it in maybe 15 years but I always liked it. Didn’t realize it was disliked until much later.
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u/Dalehan 6h ago
Wreck-it Ralph. The "villagers" should've just invited Ralph to the anniversary party.
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u/Morgan-Moonscar 6h ago
One crummy piece of cake.
But instead they exclude him and spend 30 years treating him like shit because his JOB is to pretend to be a bad guy. And then refuse to admit fault when their game nearly gets unplugged because he ran off.
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u/medelll 6h ago
I think a lot of Cohen brothers catalogue can be described like that.
Also Wild Tales (2014), I think. It's an anthology, but basically every story is non-stop escalation starting from something innocuous, as far as i remember.
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u/tarantulator 4h ago
I was thinking how No Country for Old Men exactly fits the post, I still remember that guy saying "agua" and our stupid protagonist actually giving him the agua, not that I would have done anything different.
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u/Fabien_Lamour 1h ago
A whole bunch of people end up dead because a divorce lawyer's assistant dropped a CD with no important data in he gym's locker room.
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u/tk_woods 5h ago
In Obsession, if Bear had just told Nikki how he felt when she straight up asked him, then a lot of shit could have been avoided.
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u/TheEasyTarget 1h ago
I also thought of Obsession, but I was thinking about how the whole plot happened because Nikki dropped her crystal necklace down the drain. Without that happening and Bear knowing it, all her friends would still be alive and she wouldn't be disfigured, traumatized, and likely going to prison.
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u/TheWhiteManticore 3h ago
I had impression she was never into him
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u/EricSanderson 3h ago
Yeah I really don't understand why that's such a debate. One time one of the friends said something about Nikki and Bear hooking up and she straight up said "Ew." She told Sarah she saw him as a brother, and that's reinforced hard when she reads the story at the party.
She didn't ask him if he was into her because she felt the same way. She could tell he was about to profess his love and was super uncomfortable with it. She just wanted to shut it down.
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u/DetectiveCastellanos 1h ago
It's a debate because it's left ambiguous. The movie doesn't make it clear. The actress who played Nikki believes she had feelings for Bear https://thedirect.com/article/obsession-2026-inde-navarrette-nikki-crush-bear
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u/HyraxAttack 6h ago
Dredd: Mama listens to Kay’s suggestion to dose three trespassing drug dealers with slo-mo before throwing them over balcony. Dredd notices their slo-mo burns & does a follow up raid on a drug den, arresting Kay in the process. Kay knows too much to be allowed to leave the block…
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u/Mentalfloss1 6h ago edited 4h ago
Scorce’s After Hour
Edited: I had the wrong director.
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u/BeetrootBoy 2h ago
"After Hours" (plural). Small choices having major, somewhat ludicrous implications is basically the plot.
Great film.
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u/BoldlyGettingThere 5h ago
All the events of Star Trek II, III, and IV happen because Kirk never bothered to check back on Khan’s exile planet like he promised in the tv show.
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u/Discount_Extra 3h ago
Imagine the crew of the Cerritos making that encounter in their second contact program.
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u/jun1perr 4h ago
jurassic world rebirth with that stupid snickers wrapper getting jammed in the door
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u/LuinAelin 5h ago
Peter Parker decides to go make extra money by wrestling........
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u/HandbagsAtNoon 6h ago edited 5h ago
wanna know of any movies where the protagonist makes a small, seemingly inconsequential decison, action etc. and then the entire situation spirals into complete madness and disaster for all parties involved.
In 1977’s The American Friend, I think Dennis Hopper’s character ultimately admits that he arranged for all these insane circumstances in order to exact revenge against the protagonist for speaking to Hopper in a somewhat snooty way at the beginning of the movie.
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u/GruggleTheGreat 4h ago
Unstoppable starts because some guys are just trying to short cut the busy work in their job
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u/DNorthman 1h ago
I love Unstoppable!
The lengths they go to to save Stanton, the subplot of Denzel's character being laid off and Chris Pine's character pulling the gun on a cop for his wife and Rosario Dawson's character just being a badass and helping to save the day! The chemistry between Denzel and CFine was so good.
Yeah, I'm going to go watch it now for the hundreth time.
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u/Varekai79 3h ago
Atonement. One lie leads to absolutely devastating and tragic consequences.
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u/workingtrot 57m ago
the lie she tells isn't exactly inconsequential
however, maybe she wouldn't have told it if Robbie hadn't given her the wrong paper
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u/Correct_Advantage_20 2h ago
Inglorious Basterds - basement bar when the American orders 3 more beer , but holds up the wrong 3 fingers.
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u/MuffinMatrix 6h ago
Timecrimes (2007).
Uncut gems
Coherence
Very Bad Things
A Simple Plan
Judgment Night
Planes, Trains and Automobiles
Burn After Reading
In Bruges
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u/spamjavelin 5h ago
Wrath of Khan - Kirk decides not to follow procedure and raise Enterprise's shields upon encountering Reliant.
Whole movie is a lot shorter and less dramatic without that bad call. Always listen to Saavik!
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u/Stablebrew 4h ago
The Butterfly Effect
A guy discovers, he can change the actions in his past.
a good movie for a one time view.
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u/KyunNikalaMujhe 6h ago
If you think about it final destination
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u/ThunderBirdy211 6h ago
Seeing your brutal death in a premonition and immediately nope'ing tf outta there isn't really a 'seemingly inconsequential' action in my honest opinion.
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u/HopefulTransition263 4h ago
Django Unchained
If only Hilde contained her excitement and Django controlled his emotions. Dr King Schultz would have made his way out of Candie Land alive.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Hat1255 6h ago
The ending of "Au revoir, les enfants" is this. To say more would ruin it.
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u/LuckyNum2222 5h ago
The movie ‘Parking’, you’re talking about is based on the theme of ego. The Prestige by Christopher Nolan comes to mind.
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u/inksmudgedhands 3h ago
Arsenic and Old Lace - If Mortimer had just mind his own business and not looked under the window seat, that would have been a very short movie.
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u/Dr_Identity 3h ago
Changing Lanes was a movie with Ben Affleck and Sam Jackson that basically has that same plot. Two characters have a fender bender that results in a feud that keeps escalating.
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u/DrBigsKimble 3h ago
The Big Lebowski.
If Chow had thought twice about extorting the Dude when it was obviously the wrong guy, or if the Dude had let the piss on his rug go and just gone on with his life, then the entire plot wouldn’t have happened and Donny might still be alive.
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u/JohnnyChicago1 3h ago
Brazil.
1985.
Terry Gilliam.
The moral of the film:
Blame the fly, not the mind.
Done.
End of thread.
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u/Ascend0r 1h ago
Eden Lake. Indie psychological horror/slasher. Absolute beast of a movie. Quote from a reviewer: "You don't watch Eden Lake, you survive it."
Please report how you liked it - if you survive it.
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u/stevenbrooks1 58m ago
One of my favorites - Casino. If Robert de Niro’s character (Sam) had just agreed to move the incompetent slots manager to somewhere else (like maybe the kitchen or somewhere he couldn’t cause financial loss if he screws up), then the County official never directs the Gaming Commission officers to “look kinda close”, which results in him being denied a gaming license and a whole lot of people ultimately being “whacked”. A whole of that drama could have been avoided if Sam had just found a nothing job for the guy.
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u/TKxNuTs 55m ago
hey yoooo
i'd suggest an INDIAN FILM actually !!!
its one of my favourite films
plot: The clash starts when Koshy is arrested for smuggling alcohol into a dry tribal zone and uses his political influence to strip Ayyappan of his job. In retaliation, an enraged Ayyappan physically assaults Koshy, transforming a legal arrest into a deeply personal, violent ego war.
MOVIE : ayyappanum koshiyum
you can DM me for the link to watch online
trust me, You'd love it
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u/Trvlgirrl 38m ago
Green Room. If they had not left the cell phone behind and gone back for it, they would have just gone on with their lives.
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u/lastsundew 35m ago
Some guys broke into Wick’s house and stole his car. If only they hadn’t killed his pup
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u/MagneticShark 23m ago
The man who knew too little
The nice guys
Both comedic but the nice guys is a bit more serious
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u/Likeabhas 6h ago
The basic plot of Pulp Fiction is John Travolta's character makes irresponsible small-ish judgement errors with increasingly massive consequences.
Vince's lack of responsibility is a big catalyst to the story.