21 Best Movies Adapted From Live-Action TV Shows
Hollywood never shies away from reinventing fan-favorite TV series into a big house production movie. It’s a challenging process to recast and reimagine a TV series for a whole new audience. What’s even more difficult is to conclude an entire TV series in a 2-3 hour movie. So, what are the best movie adaptations based on live-action TV shows? Here is the list ranked by their accuracy & adaptation.
1.Addams Family (1991)
Release Date: November 22, 1991
Directed By: Barry Sonnenfeld
Film Adaptation: Addams Family revolves around an impostor Uncle Fester trying to deceive the family out of their fortune.
2.The Fugitive
Release Date: August 6, 1993
Directed By: Andrew Davis
Film Adaptation: With seven Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, the movie was a big hit. The most significant changes from the TV show involved a pharmaceutical company that was the cause of Dr. Richard Kimble’s wife’s demise. Consequently, Fredrick Sykesthe was known as the One-Armed Man.
3.Maverick
Release Date: May 20, 1994
Directed By: Richard Donner
Film Adaptation: Maverick, a gambler, joins a woman to enter a Winner Take All poker game.
4.Mission: Impossible
Release Date: May 22, 1996
Directed By: Brian De Palma
Film Adaptation: Unlike the original series, the series hero Jim Phelps became the infamous villain. Consequently, Ethan Hunt, played by Tom Cruise, was the new hero in the action-packed movie franchise.
5.Twilight Zone: The Movie
Release Date: June 24, 1983
Directed By: John Landis, Steven Spielberg, Joe Dante, George Miller
Film Adaptation: The movie featured multiple stories, unlike the TV series’ single-story format. The movie has four segments. Consequently, featuring Albert Brooks and Dan Aykroyd with two bookend segments.
6.The A-Team
Release Date: June 11, 2010
Directed By: Joe Carnahan
Film Adaptation: From being Vietnam veterans to Iraq veterans Hannibal, Face, B.A., and Murdoch blended in the contemporary setting in the movie. Four American soldiers get a chance to clear their names after a special mission in Iraq.
7.Get Smart
Release Date: June 20, 2008
Directed By: Peter Segal
Film Adaptation: Get Smart has a modern-day setting. Consequently, the movie turned Maxwell Smart into a nerdy analyst dragged into a twisted plot involving spies.
8.Miami Vice
Release Date: July 28, 2006
Directed By: Michael Mann
Film Adaptation: The dull tone of the film consequently was a box-office flop. The cult classic revolves around two detectives, Ricardo Tubbs and Sonny Crockett, who go undercover to bring down a major drug trafficking racket.
9.Dragnet
Release Date: June 26, 1987
Directed By: Tom Mankiewicz
Film Adaptation: Unlike the no-nonsense series, the movie turns the plot into a broad parody of the tough guy cliches from the TV series. Consequently, introducing a young Tom Hanks as Joe Friday’s sidekick.
10.Power Rangers
Release Date: March 24, 2017
Directed By: Dean Israelite
Film Adaptation: It was the first Power Rangers film to separate from the TV show’s continuity with a different premise. Consequently, the Power Rangers were portrayed as moody teens with their problems in personal life.
11.The Brady Bunch Movie
Release Date: February 17, 1995
Directed By: Betty Thomas
Film Adaptation: The film follows the Brady family hopelessly trapped in the 1970s and incapable of existing in the then-present the mid-1990s.
12.Baywatch
Release Date: May 25, 2017
Directed By: Seth Gordon
Film Adaptation: The film was a remake as well as a sequel to the original TV series. Dwayne Johnson plays Mitch Buchannon, and Pamela Anderson portrays a character that seems to be her series character, C.J. Parker.
13.Lost in Space
Release Date: April 3, 1998
Directed By: Stephen Hopkins
Film Adaptation: The plot of Lost in Space, following a family of scientists, sent on a deep space colonization mission remains intact. Instead of a vague international space race, the Robinson family leaves a dying planet ravaged by climate change. Consequently, their mission becomes to colonize the planet Alpha Prime.
14.The Dukes of Hazzard
Release Date: August 5, 2005
Directed By: Jay Chandrasekhar
Film Adaptation: What didn’t change in the film was depicting the Confederate flag on the Dukes’ car roof. The story is about Cousins Luke and Bo Duke who are evicted along their family, from their ancestral farm by a corrupt commissioner.
15.Bewitched
Release Date: June 24, 2005
Directed By: Nora Ephron
Film Adaptation: Nora Ephron’s version of the classic romantic fantasy sitcom depicts a witch who falls in love with a mortal. Consequently, the events take a drastic turn. The tangled plotline made the movie too confusing. Evidently, Bewitched was a box-office flop.
16.Charlie’sAngels
Release Date: November 3, 2000
Directed By: McG
Film Adaptation: Drew Barrymore, Lucy Liu, and Cameron Diaz are new characters unlike the angels seen in the TV series. Also, Bill Murray plays a new Bosley.
17.The Honeymooners
Release Date: June 10, 2005
Directed By: John Schultz
Film Adaptation: The original Honeymooners was a plot about working-class American struggles. Consequently, the movie focuses on Ralph Kramden, a New York City bus driver who desires to become rich with his crazy ideas. However, things take a different turn when he ends up losing all his savings.
18.Starsky & Hutch
Release Date: March 5, 2004
Directed By: Todd Phillips
Film Adaptation: The film retained the ’70s setting of the original but added a shade of comedy into the story by flipping the personalities of the lead characters.
19.Wild Wild West
Release Date: June 30, 1999
Directed By: Barry Sonnenfeld
Film Adaptation: In the series, West was white in contrary to Will Smith playing the character of Jim West. Also, Dr. Loveless was changed from a little person to a Civil War veteran in a high-tech wheelchair.
20.Fantasy Island
Release Date: February 14, 2020
Directed By: Jeff Wadlow
Film Adaptation: Unlike the romantic tone of the TV show the movie is a daunting horror about guests’ fantasies turning into living nightmares.
21.Car 54, Where are you?
Release Date: January 28, 1994
Directed By: Bill Fishman
Film Adaptation: The 1950s police sitcom TV show planned to be a musical. But the plot followed two cops in New Work city who are tasked with guarding Herbert Hortz, a witness who’s due to testify in an organized crime case.
