10 Movies Within Movies That Deserve A Standalone Release

Ever since the release of Buster Keaton’s 1924 Sherlock Jr, directors have enjoyed themselves with the concept of movies within movies. This is a way for filmmakers to showcase some of their more oddball ideas, prove they're in on the joke and expand their universes in meaningful ways while they're at it.

The fans can't get enough of these either since they heighten the sense of immersion and are never long enough to outstay their welcome.

We've seen some cracking examples over the years, from parodies that made everyone laugh more than most of the fodder that passes for comedy these days, to faux gangster movies you can use to get one over on the pizza delivery man.

Some movies such as Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's Grindhouse, and ensemble comedy Tropic Thunder, have used the concept of films within films to great effect, but it's not often that they go on to receive a standalone release.

Machete is a rare example of a movie within a movie that did, and there's a good case for a few other great examples that deserve to follow in its footsteps...

Home Alone's Angels With Filthy Souls is probably the most useful in-movie film of all time. How many other flicks have helped children score free pizza?

While the snippet fans got to see suggests Angels includes every cliche in the mobster's handbook, it's a quotable classic with lines like "he's upstairs takin' a bath".

It also has enough grit to strike fear into the hearts of two hardened (albeit incompetent) criminals and a nine-year-old boy, and everyone knows how desensitised they are these days.

Hollywood, throw your money behind a full version of Angels posthaste, and you can keep the change, you filthy animals.