Suggesting that people sometimes treat pop culture knowledge as some sort of game of one-upmanship—though that can’t possibly be true—a recent survey by the British video rental service LOVEFiLM finds that plenty of people lie about having seen films they haven’t actually seen. Not surprisingly, many of the films named are classic films that they should see rather than simply lying about, and as such they are only hurting themselves. Here are the top 10 movies that made the list, ranked by the percentage of respondents who named it. From now on, if someone tells you they’re familiar with them, you should probably thrust a finger in their face and call them a liar, just to be safe:
The Godfather (30 percent)
Casablanca (13 percent)
Taxi Driver (11 percent)
2001: A Space Odyssey (9 percent)
Reservoir Dogs (8 percent)
This Is Spinal Tap (7 percent)
Apocalypse Now ( 6 percent)
Blade Runner (5 percent)
Goodfellas (5 percent)
The Great Escape (4 percent)
While all of these films are obvious must-sees, the fact that such a large percentage of the public lies about having seen The Godfather is especially tragic—much like that scene where The Godfather wakes up to find that his pet horse has been killed, because people found out it had been sleeping with fish.