10 Movie Conspiracy Theories You Won't Believe Exist

For some, movies aren’t just a source of entertainment but nefarious, Machiavellian tools wielded by the powers that be that persuade us sheeple to think a certain way or a smokescreen covering up something far more fishy.

Just as governmental goings-on, from JFK’s assassination to Area 51, have been a target for the tinfoil hat brigade the entertainment industry has too proven to be fertile ground for the concoction of crazy conspiracies. Nowadays, if the internet is to be believed, there’s a conspiracy theory behind pretty much every part of the film industry.

Just lurk in the deepest, darkest corners of the web for a spell and before long you’ll find all manner of bizarre and heinous ‘truths’ about what your favourite movies are really hiding, from propaganda and espionage to ritual sacrifices and mob hits.

So tighten your tinfoil hat and suspend your disbelief, because down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole we go.

There’s many a conspiracy theory surrounding the life and works of director Stanley Kubrick, but one of the most pervasive is that he helped NASA fake the 1969 Apollo 11 Moon landing. Legend has it that Kubrick’s epic sci-fi 2001: A Space Odyssey was actually a cover for a research and development project instigated by NASA so that the director could practice creating convincingly accurate space scenes for the faked landing footage.

Why was it necessary to fake the Moon landing, I hear you cry? Well, during the Space Race between the USA and Soviet Union the Russians were inching ahead of the Yanks having already successfully landed an unmanned spacecraft on the surface of the Moon in 1959 and sent the first man into space, Yuri Gagarin, less than two years later. America was losing face and needed to get a man to the Moon first, but that was a risky and expensive endeavour. Luckily, the USA had something that the Russians didn’t – a glittering film industry and the talents of a certain Stanley Kubrick.

Evidence to support the wacky theory comes courtesy of filmmaker and conspiracy hunter Jay Weidner who points out the similarities between 2001: A Space Odyssey and NASA’s Moon landing footage in his documentary series Kubrick’s Odyssey. Kubrick was a pioneer of a visual effect known as front screen projection which was used in some of 2001’s most iconic moments, including the opening ‘Dawn of Man’ sequence and in space walk scenes. Apparently, the likeness between such scenes and NASA’s lunar footage is too great to be coincidental.

That’s quite a stretch of the imagination as it is, but the Kubrick theories don’t end there.