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My wife was telling me about a movie or tv shows she saw a long time ago...but can't remember what it was.

A group of people have numbers on their foreheads, which is atypical. They don't know what the numbers are for, but eventually realize that they are the number of days they have left to live. When the countdown reaches 0, something will come for them.

I know this isn't a lot to go on, but it sounded so intriging that I'm very curious. Any ideas?

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    Could it be a music video?
    – DavRob60
    Nov 22, 2011 at 13:47
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    also check tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeathsHourglass
    – DavRob60
    Nov 22, 2011 at 13:54
  • @DavRob60 : I'll ask if it was a music video (I presume you're talking about the Nickleback video)...but I'm thinking that it wasn't. And though I didn't find any hits, I did find some interesting suggestions in the tropes section you mentioned.
    – Beska
    Nov 22, 2011 at 14:12
  • Sounds similar to the book called numbers: goodreads.com/book/show/6609758-numbers
    – BitNinja
    Sep 16, 2014 at 22:50
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    I SAW that movie, at a film festival in Santa Monica CA in 1994. Its driving be insane that I cannot figure out what it was called. The festival was focused on every film featuring a different city. :( If anyone figures this out, please email me at producrgrl@aol.com. Take me out of my misery because I had the poster for the festival and I got rid of it, somewhere along the years. It has the names of all the movies we watched on the poster.
    – user46034
    May 23, 2015 at 2:03

4 Answers 4

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It's only tangentially related, but Michael J. Fox's 1996 movie The Frighteners features a ghostly serial killer who puts numbers on his targets' heads. Only ghosts (and Michael) can see the numbers.

It's not a close fit to what you describe, but it could be what was being referenced, since you're getting this description second-hand. It's possible your wife got this confused with the Nickleback video Dav referenced in the comments.

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    Why the downvote? This is a best guess, as I say, and I point out how it could apply. It'd be nice to have commentary.
    – Jeff
    Nov 23, 2011 at 4:01
  • Not sure why the downvote (it wasn't me...) I've asked my wife, and we'll see if we can view enough of the movie to see if that's what she was thinking of.
    – Beska
    Nov 23, 2011 at 13:58
  • My wife seemed to indicate that this might be a winner...will have to watch it and see if it pans out!
    – Beska
    Nov 28, 2011 at 14:20
  • @Beska - did you ever have a chance to see if this was the movie?
    – Jeff
    Jan 4, 2018 at 0:35
  • In The Frightners, the numbers were NOT a time counter. (ie days left to live) they were a Body counter of the numbers of people killer had killed (ie marking the next victim)
    – NJohnny
    Sep 9, 2018 at 1:09
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There was an episode of Medium (season 6, episode 9, "The Future's So Bright") in which Allison starts seeing numbers on or over people's heads, indicating how many days they have left to live. Lee Scanlon's number is 1, indicating that he'll die tomorrow. The plot involves her (a) figuring out what the numbers mean, and (b) trying to prevent Scanlon's death.

This episode aired November 20, 2009, so that's probably inconsistent with your statement that she saw it "a long time ago".

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  • Probably longer ago than that...I get the impression that this was 10+ years ago. Still, a useful suggestion for anyone else that stumbles upon this thread.
    – Beska
    Nov 23, 2011 at 21:29
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    2009 is long time ago.
    – Alessandro Sanfilippo
    Jan 3, 2018 at 18:07
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    @AlessandroSanfilippo: It wasn't when the question was asked in 2011.
    – Keith Thompson
    Jan 3, 2018 at 19:30
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Maybe not exactly on foreheads... "The brand New Testament"

God lives in an apartment in Brussels which he shares with his meek wife and his 10-year-old daughter Ea, to whom he is emotionally and physically abusive. God is a grumpy sadist who created humankind specifically to have something to torment. He manipulates reality via a personal computer which he forbids his family from accessing. One day, Ea sneaks into his office and discovers how He has been mistreating humans. This enrages God who then whips Ea with his belt. Ea decides to rebel against her father. She steals the key to His office and accesses the scheduled dates of death of every human in the world and releases the information to them via their portable telephones

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-1

I think the movie you are looking for is called, In Time. Time is currency. It stars Justin Timberlake.

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    Your answer could do with a little fleshing out on why you feel it is correct.
    – FuzzyBoots
    Sep 8, 2018 at 3:36
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    Welcome to SciFi.SE! I don't think this fits the OP's description; in In Time the countdown is on a person's arm, they're fully aware of what it means, and OP has made no mention of the central "time is currency" premise.
    – F1Krazy
    Sep 8, 2018 at 5:53

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