Favorite Life Mulligan or Life Do-Over Movie
by urbanemovies | created - 09 Oct 2016 | updated - 10 Feb 2023 | PublicNATIONAL MULLIGAN DAY is celebrated annually on October 17th.
Movies with a life mulligan themed plot share the same premise, but each is uniquely interesting and worth watching. The main characters in life mulligan themed movies are dissatisfied with their lives. However, they get the unique gift to see how things would be if their lives had turned out differently. Although the premise is the same, the paths and plot devices used to achieve the awakening and the actual life mulligan vary. In the end, they return to their original lives knowing the grass isn't always greener and are much happier for it.
Which of these select movies whose plots have a life mulligan or life do-over theme is your favorite one?
Discuss the topic here.
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1. It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
PG | 130 min | Drama, Family, Fantasy
An angel is sent from Heaven to help a desperately frustrated businessman by showing him what life would have been like if he had never existed.
Director: Frank Capra | Stars: James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore, Thomas Mitchell
Votes: 499,463
2. Groundhog Day (1993)
PG | 101 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
A narcissistic, self-centered weatherman finds himself in a time loop on Groundhog Day.
Director: Harold Ramis | Stars: Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell, Chris Elliott, Stephen Tobolowsky
Votes: 685,555 | Gross: $70.91M
3. Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)
PG-13 | 103 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
Peggy Sue faints at a high school reunion. When she wakes up, she finds herself in her own past, just before she finished school.
Director: Francis Ford Coppola | Stars: Kathleen Turner, Nicolas Cage, Barry Miller, Catherine Hicks
Votes: 40,841 | Gross: $41.38M
4. Big (1988)
PG | 104 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
After wishing to be made big, a teenage boy wakes the next morning to find himself mysteriously in the body of an adult.
Director: Penny Marshall | Stars: Tom Hanks, Elizabeth Perkins, Robert Loggia, John Heard
Votes: 240,158 | Gross: $114.97M
5. 13 Going on 30 (2004)
PG-13 | 98 min | Comedy, Fantasy, Romance
Unpopular schoolgirl Jenna Rink makes an unusual wish on her birthday. Miraculously, her wish comes true and the 13-year-old Jenna wakes up the next day as a 30-year-old woman.
Director: Gary Winick | Stars: Jennifer Garner, Mark Ruffalo, Judy Greer, Andy Serkis
Votes: 217,153 | Gross: $57.23M
6. Last Holiday (1950)
Not Rated | 88 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
When a lonely, unappreciated farm-equipment salesman discovers he has only a few weeks to live, he withdraws his savings for a final holiday at a "posh" resort.
Director: Henry Cass | Stars: Alec Guinness, Beatrice Campbell, Kay Walsh, Grégoire Aslan
Votes: 2,120
7. Stranger Than Fiction (2006)
PG-13 | 113 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
I.R.S. auditor Harold Crick suddenly finds his mundane Chicago life to be the subject of narration only he can hear: narration that begins to affect his entire existence, from his work to his love life to his death.
Director: Marc Forster | Stars: Will Ferrell, Emma Thompson, Dustin Hoffman, Queen Latifah
Votes: 236,524 | Gross: $40.14M
8. Mr. Destiny (1990)
PG-13 | 116 min | Comedy, Fantasy, Romance
Unhappy Larry Burrows sees what his life could have been like if he had made that winning home run as a teenager.
Director: James Orr | Stars: Jim Belushi, Linda Hamilton, Michael Caine, Jon Lovitz
Votes: 13,275 | Gross: $15.38M
9. 17 Again (2009)
PG-13 | 102 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
Mike O'Donnell is ungrateful for how his life turned out. He gets a chance to rewrite his life when he tried to save a janitor near a bridge and jumped after him into a time vortex.
Director: Burr Steers | Stars: Zac Efron, Matthew Perry, Leslie Mann, Thomas Lennon
Votes: 216,500 | Gross: $64.17M
10. The Family Man (2000)
PG-13 | 125 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
A fast-lane investment broker, offered the opportunity to see how the other half lives, wakes up to find that his sports car and girlfriend have become a mini-van and wife.
Director: Brett Ratner | Stars: Nicolas Cage, Téa Leoni, Don Cheadle, Jeremy Piven
Votes: 119,437 | Gross: $75.79M
11. Last Holiday (2006)
PG-13 | 112 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Upon learning of a terminal illness, a shy woman decides to sell all her possessions and live it up at a posh Central European hotel.
Director: Wayne Wang | Stars: Queen Latifah, LL Cool J, Timothy Hutton, Giancarlo Esposito
Votes: 36,279 | Gross: $38.36M
12. The Do-Over (2016)
TV-MA | 108 min | Action, Adventure, Comedy
Two down-on-their-luck guys decide to fake their own deaths and start over with new identities, only to find the people they're pretending to be are in even deeper trouble.
Director: Steven Brill | Stars: Adam Sandler, David Spade, Paula Patton, Kathryn Hahn
Votes: 51,425
13. Black Knight (2001)
PG-13 | 95 min | Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy
Martin Lawrence plays Jamal, an employee in Medieval World amusement park. After sustaining a blow to the head, he awakens to find himself in 14th century England.
Director: Gil Junger | Stars: Martin Lawrence, Marsha Thomason, Tom Wilkinson, Vincent Regan
Votes: 43,323 | Gross: $33.42M
14. Click (2006)
PG-13 | 107 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
A workaholic architect finds a universal remote that allows him to fast-forward and rewind to different parts of his life. Complications arise when the remote starts to overrule his choices.
Director: Frank Coraci | Stars: Adam Sandler, Kate Beckinsale, Christopher Walken, David Hasselhoff
Votes: 356,972 | Gross: $137.36M
15. About Time (I) (2013)
R | 123 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
At the age of 21, Tim discovers he can travel in time and change what happens and has happened in his own life. His decision to make his world a better place by getting a girlfriend turns out not to be as easy as you might think.
Director: Richard Curtis | Stars: Domhnall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams, Bill Nighy, Lydia Wilson
Votes: 386,218 | Gross: $15.32M
16. The Change-Up (2011)
R | 112 min | Comedy, Fantasy
Dave is a married man with three kids and a loving wife, and Mitch is a single man who is at the prime of his sexual life. One fateful night while Mitch and Dave are peeing in a fountain, lightning strikes and they switch bodies.
Director: David Dobkin | Stars: Jason Bateman, Ryan Reynolds, Olivia Wilde, Leslie Mann
Votes: 195,699 | Gross: $37.24M
17. When We First Met (2018)
TV-14 | 97 min | Comedy, Fantasy, Romance
Noah meets Avery at a Halloween party and falls in love but gets friend-zoned. 3 years later, she's engaged to someone else. Noah returns in a time machine to fix things.
Director: Ari Sandel | Stars: Adam Devine, Alexandra Daddario, Shelley Hennig, Andrew Bachelor
Votes: 53,957
18. Joe Dirt 2: Beautiful Loser (2015 Video)
Not Rated | 107 min | Comedy
When happy family man Joe Dirt gets himself transported to the recent past, he begins an epic journey to return to his loved ones in the present.
Director: Fred Wolf | Stars: David Spade, Brittany Daniel, Christopher Walken, Adam Beach
Votes: 6,276
19. The Kid (2000)
PG | 104 min | Comedy, Family, Fantasy
An unhappy, disliked image consultant gets a second shot at life when he is mysteriously confronted by an eight-year-old version of himself.
Director: Jon Turteltaub | Stars: Bruce Willis, Spencer Breslin, Emily Mortimer, Lily Tomlin
Votes: 44,422 | Gross: $69.69M
20. Hot Tub Time Machine (2010)
R | 99 min | Comedy, Sci-Fi
A malfunctioning time machine at a ski resort takes a man back to 1986 with his two friends and nephew, where they must relive a fateful night and not change anything to make sure the nephew is born.
Director: Steve Pink | Stars: John Cusack, Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson, Clark Duke
Votes: 186,598 | Gross: $50.29M
21. Hot Tub Time Machine 2 (2015)
R | 93 min | Comedy, Mystery, Sci-Fi
When Lou's shot in the groin, Nick and Jacob drag him in the Hot Tub Time Machine to go back in time and save Lou. The three end up 10 years in the future, where they need to go to find the shooter.
Director: Steve Pink | Stars: Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson, Clark Duke, Adam Scott
Votes: 41,679 | Gross: $12.28M
22. A Christmas Carol (2009)
PG | 96 min | Animation, Adventure, Comedy
An animated retelling of Charles Dickens' classic novel about a Victorian-era miser taken on a journey of self-redemption, courtesy of several mysterious Christmas apparitions.
Director: Robert Zemeckis | Stars: Jim Carrey, Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Steve Valentine
Votes: 129,580 | Gross: $137.86M
23. The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
G | 85 min | Comedy, Drama, Family
The Muppets present their own touching rendition of Charles Dickens' classic tale.
Director: Brian Henson | Stars: Michael Caine, Dave Goelz, Steve Whitmire, Jerry Nelson
Votes: 70,665 | Gross: $27.28M
24. A Christmas Carol (1951)
TV-PG | 86 min | Drama, Family, Fantasy
Ebenezer Scrooge, a curmudgeonly, miserly businessman, has no time for sentimentality and largely views Christmas as a waste of time. However, this Christmas Eve, he will be visited by three spirits who will show him the error of his ways.
Director: Brian Desmond Hurst | Stars: Alastair Sim, Jack Warner, Kathleen Harrison, Mervyn Johns
Votes: 25,731
25. Freaky Friday (1976)
G | 98 min | Comedy, Family, Fantasy
A mother and daughter find their personalities switched and have to live each other's lives on one strange Friday.
Director: Gary Nelson | Stars: Barbara Harris, Jodie Foster, John Astin, Patsy Kelly
Votes: 14,096 | Gross: $25.94M
26. Freaky Friday (2003)
PG | 97 min | Comedy, Family, Fantasy
An overworked mother and her daughter did not get along. When they switch bodies, each is forced to adapt to the other's life for one freaky Friday.
Director: Mark Waters | Stars: Jamie Lee Curtis, Lindsay Lohan, Mark Harmon, Harold Gould
Votes: 152,682 | Gross: $110.23M
27. Freaky Friday (2018 TV Movie)
TV-G | 90 min | Comedy, Fantasy, Musical
A musical about what happens when a mom and daughter argue, get their bodies magically switched, and must make it through the day being the other at high school or preparing for the next-day wedding--while hoping to switch back.
Director: Steve Carr | Stars: Cozi Zuehlsdorff, Heidi Blickenstaff, Jason Maybaum, Alex Désert
Votes: 1,693
28. Soul (2020)
PG | 100 min | Animation, Adventure, Comedy
Joe is a middle-school band teacher whose life hasn't quite gone the way he expected. His true passion is jazz. But when he travels to another realm to help someone find their passion, he soon discovers what it means to have soul.
Directors: Pete Docter, Kemp Powers | Stars: Jamie Foxx, Tina Fey, Graham Norton, Rachel House
Votes: 380,228
Added 10 February 2023
29. Bedazzled (2000)
PG-13 | 93 min | Comedy, Fantasy
Hopeless dweeb Elliot Richards is granted seven wishes by the Devil to snare Allison, the girl of his dreams, in exchange for his soul.
Director: Harold Ramis | Stars: Brendan Fraser, Elizabeth Hurley, Frances O'Connor, Miriam Shor
Votes: 112,290 | Gross: $37.88M
Added 10 February 2023
30. Bedazzled (1967)
Approved | 103 min | Comedy, Fantasy, Romance
A hapless loser sells his soul to the Devil in exchange for seven wishes, but has trouble winning over the girl of his dreams.
Director: Stanley Donen | Stars: Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Eleanor Bron, Raquel Welch
Votes: 9,822
Added 10 February 2023
31. Touchback (2011)
PG-13 | 118 min | Drama, Family, Fantasy
A man looks back 15 years to the injury that ended his career as a promising high-school football player.
Director: Don Handfield | Stars: Brian Presley, Kurt Russell, Melanie Lynskey, Marc Blucas
Votes: 4,469 | Gross: $0.20M
Added 10 February 2023
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