Stranger Than Fiction (2006)

Why So Serious? Will Ferrell dipped his toe ever-so-cautiously into the world of drama with this surreal caper, playing an IRS agent who hears a voice in his head that happens to be narrating his life.

He soon realises that he's a character in the narrator's (Emma Thompson) latest novel, and he's about to be killed off. Cue racing against time as Ferrell tries to identify the mystery author orchestrating his demise.

While there's room for an awkward romance with Maggie Gyllenhaal, some carpe diem pleasantries, and the always amenable Dustin Hoffmann, the subject of the inevitability of death becomes depressingly prominent towards the end of the movie. So not exactly Anchorman 2 then.

If they played it for laughs... Emma Thompson would be writing the biography of Ron Burgundy, who is disappointed by the way his omniscient narrator is portraying him, so he goes all-out to ensure that his life story becomes the legendary tale he feels he deserves.