The 15 best American remakes of foreign films, ranked

Both takes on Shall We Dance? are terrific, but they’re also very different. They share a common central story: an unhappy man secretly finds joy in ballroom dancing, prompting his wife to think he’s having an affair. The original Japanese version, released in 1996, digs a little deeper and feels both more modest and less precious. The 2004 American iteration, directed by the talented Peter Chelsom, puts a bigger spin on things and is a bit rah-rah cheesy. That said, Chelsom banks heavily—and successfully—on the star power and chemistry between its effervescent leads: Jennifer Lopez, Susan Sarandon, and Richard Gere.

British director Adrian Lyne gained a reputation for helming erotic thrillers thanks to the success of 9½ Weeks, Fatal Attraction, and Indecent Proposal. After misfiring with Lolita, he returned to form in 2002 with Unfaithful, a pulse-pounding, super-sexy adaptation of Claude Chabrol’s 1969 French drama, The Unfaithful Wife. Lyne and the script stretch plausibility a bit too often, but Diane Lane and Olivier Martinez steam up the screen, and the film delivers a killer ending.

Based on the 2004 Danish film of the same name, Brothers seemed destined for Oscar glory. Directed by Jim Sheridan and scripted by David Benioff, the story follows a presumed-dead soldier (Tobey Maguire) who returns home to his family from Afghanistan and must deal with guilt, PTSD, and questions about what happened between his wife (Natalie Portman) and his brother (Jake Gyllenhaal) during his long absence. Maguire delivers a career-best performance, and Sam Shepard and Mare Winningham round out the remarkable cast. While Brothers didn’t deliver on its awards promise, it remains a really good film.

Koji Suzuki’s 1991 novel Ring spawned a multimedia empire in the author’s native Japan, including the 1998 film Ring, aka The Ring. That movie—about a videotape that curses anyone who watches it—freaked people out, as director Hideo Nakata brilliantly adapted Suzuki’s source material for the big screen. Ring found fans in the U.S., and Gore Verbinski reinvented it for American audiences with 2002’s The Ring. He shot the fright-fest in atmospheric Seattle, tapped Hans Zimmer to craft a creepy score, and brought out the best in a strong cast that included Naomi Watts, Brian Cox, Jane Alexander, Amber Tamblyn, and Daveigh Chase.

Swedish author Stieg Larsson’s novel The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo exploded into a posthumous bestseller in 2005, followed by a top-notch, uber-nihilistic big-screen Swedish adaptation released in 2009 (starring Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist). The inevitable American version—directed by David Fincher, and starring Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig—arrived in 2011. Fincher fashioned a compelling, mature, dark film bolstered by Mara’s powerful, Oscar-nominated star turn, a remarkably inventive title sequence, and a striking score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

The original Italian Job, a British production released in 1969, starred Michael Caine, Benny Hill, Noel Coward, and a bunch of sleek Mini Coopers. It centered on an elaborate heist of gold bullion in Turin, Italy. F. Gary Gray’s 2003 iteration also involves gold bullion stolen in Italy and a bunch of Mini Coopers, but it mostly unfolds in Los Angeles as a team of thieves (Mark Wahlberg, Charlize Theron, Seth Green, Edward Norton, Mos Def, Jason Statham, and Donald Sutherland) plot their heist, only to contend with a turncoat in the group. It’s fun and stylish, and it boasts a great chase sequence involving L.A. traffic, the subway, and those aforementioned Mini Coopers.

A cover-up, a murder, and a guilty conscience drive the drama in the 1997 Norwegian thriller, Insomnia. The acclaimed Erik Skjoldbjærg film, which starred Stellan Skarsgård, got the remake treatment in 2002 via Christopher Nolan, with the action relocated to Alaska. It’s prime early Nolan: smart, well-shot, and atmospheric with a sizzling cast. Whether you like or love Insomnia depends on your reaction to Al Pacino as a sleep-deprived anti-hero cop and especially Robin Williams as the villain. We love them, and we also appreciate Insomnia for its lean, straightforward 118-minute running time. Nolan’s next six films all ran well over two hours. Great as several of them were, they could have benefited from Insomnia’s judicious editing.

Let Me In bombed at the box office upon release in 2010, but it deserved so much better. Let’s break it down. Swedish author John Ajvide Lindqvist adapted his 2004 novel, Let The Right One In, into a chilling, moodily shot, surprisingly touching Swedish film of the same name (directed by Tomas Alfredson and released in 2008). It centers on a human boy and a vampire child who form an unlikely friendship. Let Me In, written and directed by Matt Reeves, shifts the action to New Mexico and puts Chloe Grace Moretz and Kodi Smit-McPhee in the leads. They’re terrific and share heartrending chemistry, while Richard Jenkins and Elias Koteas are tremendous in supporting roles. Somehow, audiences stayed away, as the film grossed just $24 million worldwide. If you missed it, please see it. We can’t recommend it enough.

Remember when director Gus Van Sant gave us a nearly shot-for-shot, line-for-line remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho in 1998? It didn’t quite gel, but good on Van Sant and his all-star cast for taking a stab. Nearly a decade later, Austrian director Michael Haneke tried something similar, with far better results (sort of). In 2007, he directed Funny Games, an Americanized shot-for-shot version of his disturbing 1997 Austrian film of the same name. In both, two young criminals torture a vacationing family. It’s brutal, gripping, wince-worthy stuff. In short, it’s torture porn crafted by an excellent filmmaker. Audiences stayed away from the American release–which starred Naomi Watts, Tim Roth, Brady Corbet, and Michael Pitt—but brave home viewers with strong stomachs should check it out.

Boring guy François leads an utterly ordinary life, or so everyone around him thinks, including his wife. Only he’s actually a French spy whose latest mission sweeps his wife up in the action. Welcome to La Totale!, Claude Zidi’s 1991 action-comedy that inspired writer-director James Cameron’s True Lies. Cameron’s R-rated adaptation bluntly pushes everything—the comedic violence, stunts, language, and, yes, the anti-Muslim sentiments—to the envelope’s edge. Cameron benefits from a game Arnold Schwarzenegger in full-on star mode, sexy chemistry between Arnold and Jamie Lee Curtis, and a hilarious Tom Arnold as Schwarzenegger’s buddy.

Writer-director Chris Marker’s French sci-fi short La Jetée (1962) served as the launching pad for 12 Monkeys, Terry Gilliam’s frenetic, wildly entertaining post-apocalyptic epic. Gilliam and writers David and Janet Peeples retain the short’s time-travel premise and the effort to prevent a planet-altering virus outbreak, building on it with political intrigue and questions of sanity and mortality. Bruce Willis capably anchors the proceedings, joined by Madeleine Stowe, Christopher Plummer, David Morse, Christopher Meloni, Frank Gorshin(!), and Oscar-nominated Brad Pitt. It’s a dark, stark, brutal film that holds up remarkably well.

Most movie aficionados consider John Sturges’ The Magnificent Seven a classic of the highest order, but it actually garnered mixed reviews upon its release in 1960. The film is, of course, a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s towering saga Seven Samurai, released in Japan in 1954. Both films introduce seven dangerous men hired by locals to protect their village. The Magnificent Seven features impressive cinematography and an Oscar-nominated score by Elmer Bernstein, but it’s the cast that sets this version apart: Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Horst Buchholz, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn, Brad Dexter, and James Coburn as the “heroes” and Eli Wallach as the formidable antagonist.

As the oldest remake on our list, 1959’s Some Like It Hot proves that American remakes of foreign films are hardly a new phenomenon. The film is based on Fanfare Of Love (officially, Fanfare D’Amour), a French film released in 1935. German filmmaker Kurt Hoffman remade it first, as 1951’s Fanfares Of Love. Apparently, Some Like It Hot director Billy Wilder was more influenced by Fanfares than Fanfare, though both focus on two musician guys posing as gals. Wilder crafted a big, brassy, joyful comedy with fabulous jazzy music and unforgettable star turns from Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon, and Tony Curtis, plus fun supporting work from George Raft, Pat O’Brien, and Edward G. Robinson.

The esteemed writer-director team of Elaine May and Mike Nichols turned the hysterical 1978 French comedy La Cage Aux Folles into an unlikely American comedy classic. Released in 1996, The Birdcage is daringly, deliciously, unapologetically gay. Longtime couple Armand (Robin Williams) and Albert (Nathan Lane) own the Miami drag club The Birdcage, but try to act straight when Armand’s son (Dan Futterman) announces his plans to wed Barbara (Calista Flockhart), the daughter of a hardcore conservative Senator (Gene Hackman). The Birdcage has it all: comedy, drama, politics, great music, gorgeous cinematography, an A-list cast at the top of their game, heart, and a scene-stealing turn from Hank Azaria as Armand and Albert’s Guatemalan housekeeper, Agador Spartacus.

The superb Hong Kong action-thriller Infernal Affairs (2002) received the royal remake treatment courtesy of writer William Monahan and director Martin Scorsese. They incorporated elements of the source material while putting an Irish-American/Boston twist on their remake, 2006’s The Departed. Scorsese also assembled an absolutely ridiculous cast: Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Alec Baldwin, Vera Farmiga, Anthony Anderson, Martin Sheen, and a big fat rat with great timing. The movie sizzles, playing out across a lean two-and-a-half hours, and the Nicholson-DiCaprio moments are nothing less than brilliant. The Departed deserved its four Oscars, most notably Best Picture and Best Director.