The sport of croquet in the movies does not yet have its “Tin Cup”, its “Longest Yard”, or even its “Rocky”. But he appears in the odd movie from time to time. Here is a list of the most popular movies that have croquet scenes:

Savages, 1972: It demands to be the first. The plot actually features croquet prominently, as a group of primitive people get lucky with a croquet ball rolling through their woods. They follow the source of the ball to a derelict English country estate with a croquet lawn set up. There, they take on the roles of the aristocracy while pretending to be the estate’s inhabitants, more or less going through the motions after a bit of trial and error. This ends when they get together to finish the game of croquet, after which they drop all pretense and return to their woods to be wild. It is not fair if this is done to point out the wild nature of humanity or of croquet.

North by Northwest, 1959: The most famous. A brief shot of one of the villains playing solo croquet is glimpsed at the beginning of the film.

Heathers, 1989: The most elegant. Here, a ruling clique plays croquet for her status quo in this teen black comedy. However, the film quickly leaves croquet behind, as all the principles start killing each other and themselves.

Alice in Wonderland, various remakes: Most capricious. The croquet scene is interpreted more or less as Lewis Carrol wrote it, most famously in the Disney version. Flamingo decks, hedgehog balls and card wickets!

Barry Lyndon, 1975: The least known. Stanley Kubrick had barely started his career at this point, so this is one of his lesser known works. The main character plays croquet on the way to rising to the heights of European high society in the 18th century, and even taught it to his son at one point. It is speculated that croquet’s prominence in this film led Kubrick to replace the croquet mallet with an ax when he translated Stephen King’s novel “The Shining” into film for his next project.

Nosferatu, 1922: The historical majority. Two of the characters are engaged in a game of croquet, when they are interrupted by the arrival of a card. A minor plot point, so much so that it’s cut from shorter versions. A Room with a View, 1985; Howard’s End, 1991; What remains of the day, 1993: Very redundant. James Ivory has made croquet his main background activity in his movies, at which point you can be sure that if a movie shows cultured people in period costume hitting wooden balls, there’s probably a James Ivory movie on the way. to an Oscar.