Some movies are hard to watch because of what happens on screen. Others are hard to watch because of what happened off-screen. From beloved childhood classics to Hollywood blockbusters, here are 25 movies with behind-the-scenes stories that are even darker than people realize.
Underwater Traps and Near-Drownings
Isla Fisher's water tank scene in Now You See Me is genuinely hard to watch once you learn what's actually happening. While filming the escape sequence, Fisher was reportedly trapped underwater when part of the chain got stuck. When she started banging on the glass, the crew initially thought she was just acting and dismissed her panic, as the whole scene was intended to look like a stunt gone wrong.
Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio's experience on The Abyss has become almost as well-known as the movie itself, thanks to a near-drowning incident for Harris and Mastrantonio's CPR scene. She was required to be soaked, freezing, physically handled, and repeatedly slapped and compressed for take after take.
Career-Altering Injuries
Dylan O'Brien's accident on Maze Runner: The Death Cure became much bigger than a typical on-set injury because it completely shut down production and changed the trajectory of his career for a long time. In 2016, O'Brien was seriously injured during a stunt where he was strapped into a harness on a moving vehicle, and then a snafu pulled him off unexpectedly, leading to him slamming into a second vehicle. He then suffered a concussion, facial fracture, lacerations, and brain trauma. Filming was halted for months, with O'Brien completely withdrawing from the public eye while recovering.
Daniel Radcliffe's longtime stunt double, David Holmes, suffered a life-changing injury while rehearsing a stunt for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1. Holmes had body-doubled for Radcliffe across the franchise, but during a flying sequence rehearsal, he was pulled backward at high speed, slammed into a wall, and broke his neck. He was left paralyzed from the chest down and spent months in the hospital. Years later, Radcliffe helped tell his story in the documentary David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived.
Psychological and Physical Trauma
Shelley Duvall's performance in The Shining feels even more intense once you learn how grueling the production was for her. Duvall later said the role took a serious physical and emotional toll, especially because she had to spend so much of the movie crying for hours, screaming, and looking terrified. The famous scene with the baseball bat reportedly required 127 takes, making the strain of filming almost as infamous as the movie itself.
Maria Schneider's experience filming Last Tango In Paris is still one of the most disturbing stories in movie history, thanks to what was later revealed to have happened behind the scenes. Schneider said she knew there would be a simulated rape scene, but she was not told beforehand about the use of butter, which became the scene's most infamous detail. Director Bernardo Bertolucci later admitted that he and Marlon Brando intentionally withheld that from her because he wanted her real reaction on camera, sparking a major debate over whether this was method acting or straight-up illegal.
Classic Films with Troubled Productions
The Wizard of Oz is a classic childhood comfort film, but its production history is bleak even by old-Hollywood standards: the fake snow in the poppy field scene has long been reported to have been made from asbestos; Buddy Ebsen (the original Tin Man) had to leave the movie after being hospitalized from the aluminum makeup; Margaret Hamilton suffered serious burns when the Wicked Witch's fiery exit went wrong; and Judy Garland was only 16 years old during filming when she was slapped by the director for laughing during scenes, was given diet pills, shots of adrenaline to stay awake, barbiturates to sleep, and, according to claims from her ex-husband Sid Luft, some of the Munchkin actors sexually harassed her on set.
The Twilight Zone: The Movie helicopter accident remains one of the worst on-set tragedies Hollywood has ever seen. Vic Morrow and child actors Myca Dinh Le and Renee Shin-Yi Chen were filming a nighttime war scene involving explosions and a low-flying helicopter when the helicopter crashed and killed all three of them. The two children had reportedly been hired in violation of child labor rules, and the disaster led to years of legal fallout and major industry safety changes.
Severe Injuries and Fatalities
George Clooney's injury on Syriana was much more serious than a normal on-set accident. While filming a torture scene, Clooney suffered a spinal injury that reportedly caused spinal fluid to leak from his nose, leaving him in excruciating pain. The injury was so severe that he later said he considered suicide while recovering, making the finished film feel even heavier than a thriller.
Tippi Hedren's attic scene in The Birds became infamous because she said it was much more brutal than anyone watching the movie would realize. Hedren later said she had expected mechanical birds to be used, but instead spent days filming with real birds being thrown at her and attached to her clothing. One bird reportedly came dangerously close to her eye, and she described the whole sequence as deeply exhausting and traumatic.
Burns and Bodily Harm
Channing Tatum's injury on The Eagle is one of those stories that will make you wince just hearing it. While filming in freezing water, crew members were supposed to mix boiling water with cold river water before pouring it down Tatum's wetsuit to warm him up. According to Tatum, the water was not diluted properly, and boiling water badly burned him in an extremely sensitive area.
Linda Blair's work on The Exorcist allegedly left her with lifelong injuries. Blair was only a teenager when she played Regan, and one of the most famous stories is when the mechanical bed rig used for her violent thrashing scenes malfunctioned and shook her way too hard, severely injuring her back. Blair revealed that the injury "was far more serious than I ever imagined and really affected my health negatively for a long time."
Disturbing Props and Real Skeletons
JoBeth Williams' swimming-pool scene in Poltergeist is already creepy, but the backstory makes it so much worse. In the scene, Williams is tossed into a muddy pool full of skeletons, which she assumed were fake at the time. It was later reported that the production had actually used real human skeletons as props.
Uma Thurman's car crash on the set of Kill Bill became one of the most infamous behind-the-scenes stories when actual footage surfaced. Fifteen years after the incident, director Quentin Tarantino gave Thurman the footage, which she posted on Instagram. In the footage, she crashed into a tree while filming a driving scene and later admitted she had not wanted to drive the car herself in the first place, but she was dismissed by Tarantino, who did not like hearing the word "no."
Animal-Related Dangers
Roar has one of the most chaotic production histories of any movie because it was filmed with real big cats and apparently very little common sense. The movie starred Tippi Hedren, Melanie Griffith, and Noel Marshall alongside lions, tigers, and other animals. Reports say dozens of cast and crew members were injured, with Griffith needing facial reconstruction after a lioness injured her face. The movie has been considered one of the most dangerous films ever made.
Kate Winslet's experience filming Titanic sounds a lot less romantic than the finished movie looks. She spent long stretches filming underwater and didn't wear a wetsuit for some scenes. She has come out and revealed that she caught hypothermia from this. To add to the wildness of it all, a large portion of the cast and crew were mysteriously poisoned with clam chowder that had been laced with the drug PCP for lunch.
Tragic Deaths and Curses
Judith Barsi's voice work in The Land Before Time and All Dogs Go To Heaven is devastating in hindsight, given what happened to her in real life. Barsi voiced Ducky and Anne-Marie, but she was fatally shot by her father in a double murder-suicide when she was only 10 years old, before the films were even released. The father then set their Los Angeles house on fire, causing Barsi, her mother, and her father to die. This occurred after years of severe physical and psychological abuse, but the tipping point was when her mother was attempting to leave him and start a new life with Barsi.
Tom Cruise reportedly came dangerously close to being decapitated while filming The Last Samurai. During a sword-fighting scene with Hiroyuki Sanada, the actors were riding mechanical horses that were supposed to stop at a certain point, but the equipment allegedly malfunctioned. Luckily, Sanada reacted quickly enough to stop his katana before it hit Cruise's neck.
Radiation and Health Scares
The Conqueror has one of Hollywood's most unsettling stories. The John Wayne film was shot in Utah, downwind of a Nevada nuclear testing site. This caused an alarming number of cast and crew members to later develop cancer. Though the connection has long been debated, the movie's reputation has been haunted by this very likely possibility.
Michael J. Fox's hanging scene in Back to the Future Part III reportedly went far beyond what anyone intended. The scene required Fox to look like he was being hanged, but he later wrote that he couldn't get the swinging effect to look realistic enough, so he tried it without a box under him, only to miscalculate his hand placement under the rope. Fox found himself actually being hanged with the rope cutting off his carotid artery, causing him to pass out. Since he was supposed to appear to be choking, people did not immediately realize that anything was wrong.
Extreme Physical Demands
Jim Caviezel's shoot for The Passion Of The Christ became infamous for its grueling physical demands. Caviezel has said he dealt with hypothermia, pneumonia, a dislocated shoulder, and even got struck by lightning while playing Jesus. The role apparently took such a toll on his body that he later said he needed two heart surgeries.
The Omen became surrounded by so many alleged disasters that many believe it is cursed. According to various accounts, planes carrying Gregory Peck and screenwriter David Seltzer were struck by lightning. Peck also allegedly canceled a private jet that later crashed. Producer Harvey Bernhard reportedly had lightning narrowly miss him on set. The animal scenes added even more nightmare fuel as trained Rottweilers allegedly got out of control during filming, and an animal handler was later killed by a tiger. Special effects artist John Richardson, who designed the film's decapitation scene, later got into a car crash that killed his girlfriend, Liz Moore. These accounts are described as eerily similar to the movie.
Posthumous and Unfinished Films
Bruce Lee's death before Game Of Death could even finish filming set an eerie precedent, but what happened next made everything even more unsettling. Years later, the film was completed using doubles, old footage, and workarounds, with the finished version reportedly including imagery from Lee's real funeral, including shots of him in an open casket.
Joe Pilato's death scene in Day Of The Dead was meant to be grotesque, but the behind-the-scenes version sounds even nastier. The production reportedly used real animal guts and blood for the gore, but the pig intestines spoiled after a refrigeration issue. Pilato was allegedly left performing the scene while surrounded by the smell, and the movie's underground shelter filming conditions reportedly made the entire shoot even more miserable.
Lastly, The Adventures Of Milo And Otis sounds like one of the sweetest children's movies ever made, which is exactly why the rumors attached to it are that much more disturbing. For years, the film has been followed by allegations that animals were harmed during production, including claims about kittens being killed, injured, bound, dropped from heights, attacked by other animals, or forced into dangerous scenes. Other allegations involved harm to pigs' eyes and deer's hooves. Even though these claims remain unproven, the movie's reputation has remained clouded by suspicion all these years later.
