Many moviegoers today hate the fact that a lot of big blockbusters are just remakes of older films. While it's understandable to want new and exciting stories in cinema, this ordeal isn't a new one. If a film isn't inspired by or explicitly remaking a film classic, it's very likely that it's appealing to at least one of the basic plots that humans have just been passing around for centuries.
Every generation has their variation of Shakespeare, A Star is Born is remade with every music generation, and there's no telling how many American movies are just expensive translations of foreign ones. While it's easy to spot the obvious remakes based on their names, some fan-favorite movies are plagiarism in disguise.
10 The Magnificent Seven Is A Remake Of Seven Samurai
While the cultural identities may make the comparison hard to see, cowboys and samurai are very much contemporaries and colleagues for mid-20th century film. Samurai films are inspired from Westerns; stoic cowboys are inspired from strong samurai. The pattern continues, and the only reason no one calls out either of them is because each new generation keeps on making really good remakes of the last.
One of the best instances of this is The Magnificent Seven. This John Sturges classic (which itself has already been remade) takes heavy inspiration from Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. One is just seven cowboys while the other was seven samurai.
9 Flubber Is A Remake Of The Absent-Minded Professor
Most people today grew up remembering Flubber as a childhood film starring Robin Williams. What many may not realize is that their parents or grandparents may have grown up with a similar story. In The Absent-Minded Professor, Professor Ned Brainard invents a substance that harnesses kinetic energy that he dubs flying rubber or "flubber."
The older film involves a lot of miniature stories where his invention drives him to miss his wedding once again, some hoodlums trying to steal flubber for themselves, and his own attempts to find new uses for flubber. The Robin Williams flick has more heart and is much more grounded as it has Professor Philip Brainard try to use flubber to win back his girlfriend. Plus, flubber has a mind of its own.
8 Obsession Is A Remake Of Vertigo
There are few filmmakers more influential than Alfred Hitchcock. Hitchcock's directing style has gone on to influence and inspire several directing techniques. His influence is so deep that many film fans believe the French novel The Living and The Dead was specifically written to be turned into the Hitchcock film, Vertigo.
While this isn't true, Vertigo at least went on to inspire one of Hitchcock's greatest contemporaries, Brian De Palma, to make a remake, Obsession. While De Palma does take liberties with the setup and ending, the conceit is the same to capture the ever fragile humanity of obsession.
7 Knock Knock Is A Remake Of Death Game
Keanu Reeves is a beloved actor whose resume tells the tale of a multifaceted performer. He played a hilarious slacker in the Bill & Ted movies, a sci-fi James Bond in The Matrix movies, a gritty James Bond in the John Wick movies, and a deceased rocker in Cyberpunk 2077. One of his more underappreciated movies (for good reason) is Knock Knock.
This erotic thriller is about an unsuspecting husband who decides to give shelter to two girls in the rain, only for those girls to torture him throughout the night. Knock Knock is actually a remake of a 1977 film called Death Game, whose plot and critical reception are essentially the same.
6 The Departed Is A Remake Of Internal Affairs
The Departed is regarded today as one of the best crime thrillers of the modern era. Its story focuses on an undercover cop trying to infiltrate a crime syndicate while that same crime syndicate has one of their own infiltrate the police precinct. When both organizations catch on to a mole in their ranks, both men race to unmask the other first.
However, many don't realize that Martin Scorsese had actually been remaking the tantalizing plot of Internal Affairs, a Chinese film where a cop and a member of the Triads do the same thing. If anything, just consider Internal Affairs as doing undercover work to get into the Western market.
5 You've Got Mail Is A Remake Of The Shop Around The Corner
You've Got Mail is one of those classic '90s flicks that modern romantics will be looking back to for decades. It was also another iconic '90s film for Tom Hanks, who essentially became synonymous with good movies in the '90s. In You've Got Mail, Tom Hanks begins a bitter rivalry with his business competitor from across the street.
However, it dawns on him that the woman he hates the most in the world is also the person he's begun a deep cyber romance with. As interesting as this is, this plot is actually borrowed from a classic Ernst Lubitsch film, The Shop Around the Corner. Here, a store clerk doesn't get along with his new coworker yet slowly realizes that she's actually his romantic pen pal.
4 The Money Pit Is A Remake Of Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House
The Money Pit is another Tom Hanks romance that remakes a 1940's classic. In The Money Pit, a young couple suddenly find themselves in desperate need for a new home. They manage to find what appears on paper to be their dream home, only to find that it's an incredibly run down mansion whose repairs test both their finances and their relationship.
This follows the same idea of Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, in which ad executive Jim Blandings and his wife are tricked into buying their own dilapidated home. This pushes Mr. Blanding, who must write a successful ad jingle for ham if he is to save his new home.
3 A Fistful Of Dollars Is A Remake Of Yojimbo
While Yojimbo didn't inspire every movie in the Dollars Trilogy, the classic Western franchise wouldn't be around without it. In Yojimbo, a nameless ronin finds a small village controlled by two rival businessman who are fighting each other for control of the town's gambling dens.
The ronin offers to become a bodyguard to each businessman, only to pit the two sides against each other in a greater gang war. In A Fistful Of Dollars, Clint Eastwood plays The Man With No Name, a lone cowpoke who inserts himself into the increasing gang tensions of a small town by selling either side false information.
2 Quarantine Is A Remake Of REC
One wouldn't initially think that Quarantine was a remake given that a lot of mid-2000's horror movies were just found-footage films - that's on top of Quarantine also being another 21st century zombie movie. However, while Quarantine didn't fair much better than the rest of its colleagues, it was inspired by one of the best found-footage films of them all, REC.
In either film, a local news crew are covering a firefighter team that is suddenly called for a mysterious emergency at an apartment building. The reporters in both films decide to follow the firefighters only to find themselves trapped in a government quarantine of a budding zombie outbreak.
1 The Hustle Is A Remake Of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels Which Is A Remake Of Bedtime Story
It's always fun to see the surprising iterations that one film can go through. Much more than just being remakes, it almost looks like these iconic heist movies are living past lives. Here, Bedtime Story and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels are the most explicit iterations of the story.
Bedtime Story originally tells the tale of rival conmen, Lawrence Jameson and Freddy Benson, as they compete to take Janet Walker's heart and money first. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels echoes the story but with the eclectic talents Steve Martin and Michael Caine. The Hustle maintains the original premise but instead has two women as the lead swindlers.