Inception
Inception was a movie that definitely needed to be watched a second (or third) time to fully understand it. Even after a couple of times, the end is such a cliffhanger that you are left in confusion, wondering. Inception is about a man who figured out how to control dreams so that a specific idea could be placed into someone's head. The hard part was making sure that the person believed they had come up with the idea themselves, otherwise they would not listen to it. This involved a team of people who would travel into the dreams to complete their "missions". The idea of "inception" is a mind game because the dreamer's mind is being manipulated without them even knowing it. They wake up with an idea that they believe they have dreamt, but really it has been planted there.
Pinocchio
Pinnochio is a puppet who wants more than anything to be a real boy. He is told that he can accomplish this by proving himself "brave, truthful, and unselfish". The problem is, he doesn't understand the concept of a conscience and he lies to the the Blue Fairy. As we all know, his nose proceeds to grow and grow as he keeps spewing out more lies. She teaches him about the negative consequences of lying. With Jiminy Cricket as his conscience, Pinnochio learns that is wrong. Pinnochio's growing nose should serve as a symbol for the consequences we often need to face after telling a lie.
Black Swan
Anyone who saw Black Swan knows that it absolutely SCREAMS "mind game". It is the story of a hardworking ballerina, Nina, who lands the very prestigious, envied main role in Swan Lake. The role includes two personas: the White Swan and the Black Swan. While the choreographer loves her White Swan, he is less thrilled with her black. He tries to stress to her the importance of finding her inner "Black Swan", aka her sensual and less uptight side. In the process, she is dealing with her crazy, oppressive mother and another ballerina she believes to be stalking her. The whole movie is a web of mind games played between characters. The fact is that Nina is crazy one. She becomes so obsessed with the role that it drives her insane. She doesn't care though, because her performance was perfect.
The Pursuit of Happyness
In the movie Pursuit of Happyness, the main character Chris Gardner struggles to balance single parenting, paying the rent, and trying to survive. He reaches the lowest point in his life --- he is kicked out of his apartment because he can't pay the rent. In this scene of the movie, Chris and his son Christopher find shelter in a subway station. It is difficult for Chris to tell his son of the desperation of their situation. He plays a game with his son to hide this truth from him.
In order to distract Christopher from the reality of their situation, he tells Christopher that the machine he is selling is actually a time machine. Together they play and imagine that they traveled back into time with the dinosaurs. In order to hide from the dinosaurs, Chris goes into the bathroom with his son and locks the door. In this way, Christopher doesn't know the definite truth about what is going on. It would have been difficult for a young boy to cope with the fact that his dad, his hero, couldn't make money, didn't have a shelter, and didn't know what to do. His father, the man that told him he could be anyone he wanted to be, couldn't do that himself. By playing this imaginative game with Christopher, Chris was able to shield the truth and their desperation. Christopher could have hope because of being hid from the truth.
The Sandlot
In this classic scene from the Sandlot, "Ham" Porter is trying to psych out the other team by distracting them. It is an important game because the Sandlot team is playing the Little League team; they have been enemies forever. As the catcher, Ham is in the prime position to play with their heads because he is closest. His rude and imaginitive comments (and sometimes dirty) help him reach his goal of messing with his opponents' minds. When one of them gets mad at him, he simply says that he was "just trying to have a friendly conversation". In reality, he was manipulating the other team by psyching them out to help his own team win.
Sheldon is so addicted to Warcraft, that once it's gone, he doesn't know what to do. It shows the mind game addicting plays on a person.
