Pun Based Title / Live-Action Films

• Law Abiding Citizen: The dash is missing from "Law-Abiding" to show that it's the law abiding the citizen, not the other way around.
• The 2014 film Sex Ed staring Haley Joel Osment as a young middle school sex ed teacher named, well... Ed.
• The 1981 and 2009 movie title My Bloody Valentine is a pun on the famous song "My Funny Valentine".
• The title of the 1974 movie Black Christmas (1974), despite some accusations of racism (directed more towards the 2006 remake), is a pun on the ultrafamous Christmas song ' White Christmas'.
• Blades of Glory = blaze of glory.
• Joy Ride:
  • Joy Ride 2: Dead Ahead: Murderous trucker ties it all together.
  • Joy Ride 3: Roadkill: Again, The Big Bad is a murderous trucker who kills people on the road.
• Legally Blonde is a pun on "legally blind," as well as "legally bound."
• Made of Honor = maid of honor.
• The Santa Clause is a pun on the word "clause", something that Bernard had to make clear to Scott while explaining the titular clause.
• Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel = The Sequel.
• Grosse Pointe Blank: the city of Grosse Pointe + point blank (also, the protagonist's surname is Blank).
• Poetic Justice. Her name is Justice, and she's a poet.
• Shaun of the Dead = Dawn Of The Dead. Ditto Juan of the Dead.
• The Three Stooges films were heavy with punny titles, sometimes riffing off songs - "Beer Barrel Polecats", "I'll Never Heil Again" - sometimes movies, as the tear-jerker "Valiant is the Word for Carrie" becomes "Violent is the Word for Curly".
• Shanghai Noon based on High Noon.
• Your Highness: The main character is both a prince and a stoner.
• Chopping Mall
• Die-ner (Get It?)
• Hide and Go Shriek ("hide and go seek")
• The King's Speech: It's about the king's speech (as in his voice), but also the speech he gives on the radio. It also references "the King's Speech," a term for Received Pronunciation and general "Good English."
• Santa's Slay = Santa's Sleigh.
• Two Arabian Knights (1927), featuring two American soldiers engaging in various wacky hijinks, is a pun on Arabian Nights.
• Sullivan's Travels is a pun on Gulliver's Travels.
• Piranha 3DD, owing to the remake's sequel being Hotter and Sexier.
• Several Die Hard sequels, with the fourth one being titled Live Free or Die Hard after the motto of the state of New Hampshire "Live Free or Die", and the fifth one being titled A Good Day to Die Hard, after a quote from Sioux leader Crazy Horse, which was used in a few Westerns, and was also the Klingon proverb.
• Face/Off refers both to the fact that Archer and Castor's faces are removed and switched, and that they are moving towards an eventual face off against each other.
• It's My Party and I'll Die If I Want To = The Lesley Gore song "It's My Party and I'll Cry If I Want To."
• Singles concerns a bunch of young people set against the Seattle grunge scene. The name refers to the fact that the characters are unmarried and to the single releases that the bands are trying to promote.
• Bruce Almighty gains one in the Italian dub, where it is changed to "Una Settimana Da Dio". Literally "A Week From God" (referring to the fact Bruce gets his powers from God, although for longer than a week), the "Da Dio" part has more colloquial connotations as "to die/kill for", as in how Bruce's first week as God is non-stop fun.
• Hong Kong translators don't love this trope. They married it and had a million kids. It may actually be rarer for an HK title that isn't a pun, although particularly huge blockbusters tend not to have punny names. This is in contrast of mainland Chinese translators, who are infamous for coming up with exact and occasionally hilariously flat translations (there was no exact word for "humour" in Chinese before it was phonically translated).
  • Pixels: A truly magnificent congregate of jokes in one short title, 屈機起格命. Strictly speaking, there is only one pun: 格 is pronounced exactly the same as 革, and 革命 means "revolution" (and 起革命 means "starting a revolution", but this is used more and more in non-serious contexts in modern times), while 起格 means "pixelated".
  • Tangled: 魔髮奇緣. Also a case of Translation Matchmaking with Enchanted. 法, the second half of 魔法 (magic) is pronounced the same as 髮 (hair).
  • Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: 傲慢與屍變, compared to Pride and Prejudice's 傲慢與偏見. 屍變 (zombification) rhymes with 偏見 (prejudice).
  • Inside Out: 玩轉腦朋友. 腦 (brain) is pronounced very similar to 老 (old), which is often combined with 朋友 as "old friend".
  • Jupiter Ascending: 木昇戰紀. 昇 (ascend) is pronounced same as 星 as in 木星 (Jupiter; literally "Wood Star").
  • Room (which apparently only got a Chinese translation upon being made into a film): 抖室. It's a pun based on 斗室 (small room), the point of the story, and that 斗 sounds the same as 抖 (shiver).
  • Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse: 戇Scout打爆喪屍城. "Scout" here sounds similar to a swear word for "penis", which combines with 戇 to mean "idiot".
  • Daddy's Home: 左一爸又一爸. Double dose: 爸 (dad) = 巴 (slap), and while spoken out loud it sounds like describing someone being slapped from both left and right, 右 (right) has been replaced by the same-sounding 又 (another).
  • The Intern: 見習冇限耆. It means "there is no limited period on internship", with the 期 (period) swapped out for the identically-sounding 耆 (elderly).
  • Suicide Squad (2016): 自殺特攻‬：超能暴隊. 部隊 (troops/unit) has 暴 (violence) swapped in.
• Grim Prairie Tales: "Grimm fairy tales"
• Knight and Day
• The Knight Before Christmas is a film about a time travelling 14th Century knight who ends up spending the holidays with and falling in love with a science teacher in 2019. The title is a play on words of Clement Clarke Moore's famous poem 'Twas the Night Before Christmas.
• Hostel: The title refers to the setting of the movie but is also a homophone of "hostile," which certainly describes the action of the film.
• Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead: It is a Portmantitle of poultry and Poltergeist.
• A Night to Dismember: A Night to Remember
• The Gingerdead Man: "The Gingerbread Man"
• Satan's Little Helper: "Santa's Little Helper"
• Howling II: Stirba: Werewolf Bitch: The subtitle. A female canine is, of course, termed a bitch, or it can just be taken that she's an awful person.
• The Gore Gore Girls: "The Go Go Girls"+"Gore".
• Gory Gory Hallelujah: "Glory Glory Hallelujah"+"Gory".
• Plan B: In Spanish, "bi" is pronounced the same as the letter B, so Bruno's "plan B" to get his girlfriend back by seducing her new boyfriend isn't just a backup plan but also a "plan Bi" based on taking advantage of the boyfriend's reputed bisexuality. Unfortunately, the pun gets Lost in Translation in English where "bi" is pronounced like "bye" instead.
• How to Get Ahead in Advertising has a Fun with Homophones kinda pun. To get ahead and to get a head. Dennis wants to get ahead in his career (he works in advertising) but instead, he gets a head: a boil shaped like his head grows on his shoulder.
• Sister Act. The term was originally a vaudeville expression for a performance by two or more biological sisters (for some reason "brother act" never caught on the same way). The movie repurposes the term to refer to nuns, but the play on words went right over most viewers' heads since the vaudeville era was a distant memory by the 90's when the movie came out.
• Transylvania 6-5000: The film's title is a pun based on the Glenn Miller song "Pennsylvania 6-5000". A 1963 Bugs Bunny animated short used the same title.
• The Grapes of Death is a bilingual example: the English title is a pun on The Grapes of Wrath, referring to the film's vineyard setting, while the French title (Les Raisins de la Mort) sounds similar to "raison de la mort" ("cause of death").
• The Art of the Steal is a play on the title of Donald Trump's memoir The Art of the Deal.
• Mandroid: Man + Android = Mandroid.
• The Big Bad of Kamen Rider Zero-One: REAL×TIME sets a one-hour countdown before the world ends. The plot of the movie is also resolved in just a bit over an hour, with the timer showing up occasionally. In other words... the movie is moving in ''REAL×TIME''.
• Love Bites is based on a saying synonymous with Love Hurts and one of the couples is a vampire. (The phrase is also British English for what Americans call a "hickey".)
• Stop! Look! And Laugh!: The title is a play on the phrase "stop, look and listen".
• Creature from the Black Lagoon: The film's title is a play on the novel The Blue Lagoon.
• The Last Sharknado: It's About Time: The film's title refers to the fact that the film features time-travel, though can also be read that it's the last film in the series, and it's about time.
• Violent Night is a play on "Silent Night".
• Isn't It Shocking?: The deaths are both surprising and caused by electrical shock.
• In Studio 666, a fictionalized version of the Foo Fighters try to record an album in a mansion that turns out to have a demonic presence: Thus, the title combines the name of the recording studio the band own in real life, Studio 606, with the Number of the Beast.
• Mutiny on the Buses is a cross between Mutiny on the Bounty and On the Buses.

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