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- Galaxy Quest is a spiritual successor to ¡Three Amigos!. Both movies are about washed up actors who played these cool characters in the past. Then this group of people in need, mistake the actors for the real deal. The actors show up thinking it's an acting gig, only to get their butts kicked. But then they really become their roles they played to succeed.
- Gangster Squad to The Untouchables. Both films are about a man (Sgt. John O'Mara and Eliot Ness respectively), putting together a small team to go after a real life criminal (Mickey Cohen and Al Capone respecitvely). Both films rightly or wrongly, also totally butcher historial accuracy for the sake of entertainment.
- Georges Méliès:
- Multiple academic articles have been written about how Georges Melies's films are the spiritual successors of the féerie, a spectacular theatrical genre popular in 19th-century Paris.
- And hardly any film theorist has been able to talk about the work of the mid-20th-century filmmaker Karel Zeman without either implying, or flat-out stating, that Zeman is the spiritual successor of Méliès.
- Perhaps it would be better to call both films (Braveheart and Gladiator) the newer carriers of the torch for the genre, as both feel in many ways like tributes to the Hollywood Epics of yesteryear as a whole. The other film that Ridley Scott cited as an influence on Gladiator, and he as a filmmaker in general, was William Wyler's acclaimed epic Ben-Hur. Another Roman Era epic, that similarly centers around a well to do and morally upright man who is old "friends" with the film's main antagonist. (Perhaps the biggest difference being that Messala's feelings for Judah were genuine, whilst Commodus only ever put on a happy face as a façade) After the hero refuses the antagonist's request to join up with and help him his life is subsequently torn apart and he is made a slave. Though he eventually manages to "rise from the ashes" so to speak and go for justice and repair his life.
- The 2015 film Get Hard is this to Trading Places (1983), but with the 2008 financial crisis as a backdrop: Both films feature a snooty white financier whose fortunes take a hit after being accused of fraud (or more precisely, being framed by his mentor/father-in-law) and eventually joins forces with a street-smart black character.
- Get Out (2017) is a more overtly horror spiritual successor to the 1991 comedic film Livin Large.
- Get Over It is a high school version of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, a performance of which figures heavily in the plot.
- Ghosted:
- It's basically a Gender Flip of True Lies, with the secret agent half of the couple being a woman instead of a man this time, while the civilian other half who's ignorant of the secret agent's double life until The Reveal is a man this time.
- It's also a gender-flipped version of Knight and Day, another romantic action comedy featuring a competent secret agent and their love interest, a hapless civilian, as they get swept up into a mission with a bio-weapon MacGuffin, lots of globetrotting, and the two leads constantly arguing over their relationship, albeit here the relationship is pre-established (even if they only went on one date) instead of them gradually falling in love with each other over the course of their adventure.
- For folks who wanted more of Paloma, the CIA agent Ana de Armas played in No Time to Die, this is likely the closest they'll ever get to a spinoff movie about her (though Ballerina is very likely to be more serious). She even wears a not-dissimilar black party dress when kicking ass at one point. As for the character being named "Sadie", well, spies have aliases, after all.
- The Girl Next Door (2004) was pretty blatantly conceived as "Risky Business for the 2000s". The protagonist's love interest is an adult film star instead of a prostitute, the villain is a porn producer instead of a pimp, and the climax features the main characters filming a pornographic movie at their school instead of turning their house into a brothel—but they're otherwise similar enough that one easily could have been a remake of the other.
- The Disney Channel Original Movie Girl vs. Monster is about a blonde-haired teenage girl who finds out that she comes from a lineage of monster hunters, and suddenly has to put her teenage life on hold in order to fulfill the "save the world" part of Wake Up, Go to School, Save the World. In other words, it's the closest thing to a DCOM version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer that we're likely to ever see.
- 15 years before G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra came along, the Street Fighter movie was far more G.I. Joe than it was Street Fighter.
- Gladiator has a couple of films that serve as spiritual successors to it...
- Robin Hood (2010) is often considered a spiritual successor to Gladiator because of how both are historical battle epics starring Russell Crowe and directed by Ridley Scott. This is the one that is most often talked about in this light.
- King Arthur (2004), ironically enough another film that serves as a more grounded and gritty retelling of a renowned figure in British folklore, also qualifies as a spiritual successor to Gladiator just as much. Both stories were initially conceived by David Franzoni, Hans Zimmer provided the scores for both, and the two films are Roman era historical battle epics that center around a great and respected officer in the Roman military who has never been to Rome but holds an idealized image of it in his head as the light in a dark and cruel world. An image that becomes effected as their stories go on.
- Exodus: Gods and Kings is also pretty obviously one as well. Both films are directed by Ridley Scott, the trailers getting a lot of mileage with the "From the Director of Gladiator tagline", and both are prominently advertised as the story of "One man facing the might of an empire". The parallels are further compounded by how the main antagonist in either film is the lead character's royal surrogate brother (though that comes with the territory given how things go down in the Biblical book of Exodus) but also in how Moses is being portrayed as a military commander before he goes into exile and becomes an agent of God. (Though it was an idea touched upon in The Ten Commandments)
- Kingdom of Heaven also could have a case made for qualifying as one. Gladiator often coming up in the marketing. Naturally there are the connections concerning them both being directed by Ridley Scott and both being in the same historical epic/swords-and-sandals genre but there are some other things to note. Like how the lead hero in each film is set on his main journey after the deaths of his wife and child which naturally takes a toll on him emotionally, their main mission is tasked to them by a father-figure who planned to pass their power to them and wind up being killed earlier on, the hero in one way or another begins a new life where he becomes a hero to the people, he gets a new love interest in the form of an upstanding princess, the princess has a son that she's devoted to who is in the royal line of succession, the lead villain is a man who holds the woman in some form of bondage to him, connives to ensure he becomes the ruler, and follows up a more idealistic king. Both films in terms of locations feature journeys starting in frosty European woodlands, move into scorching deserts, and end up in sprawling major cities of the ancient world.
- It could be argued that Robin Hood (2010) is just as much a spiritual successor to Scott's other preceding historical epic Kingdom of Heaven as it is to Gladiator. As both are epics set in the Middle Ages, and touch on the corruption and politics of the time. What makes the connections all the more interesting however is the fact that one of the last scenes in Kingdom had that film's lead Balian comes across King Richard the Lionheart on his way to go on the crusade to retake the Holy Land from Saladin. In Robin Hood the film opens up with King Richard and his men on their return journey from his decade long crusade. They even have the lead character Robin Longstride when asked criticize Richard's crusade as well as a massacre of Muslims in the city of Acre. Harkening back to some of the major themes of Kingdom of Heaven.
- God's Own Country: My Summer of Love was the lesbian and 15-years-too-early version of this film, which is set in the same place and mixes the lesbian movie's story with that of Brokeback Mountain (to which it's also a spiritual successor).
- Despite being a Godzilla movie, Godzilla (2014) comes across as this to the other Reboot of his rival franchise, Gamera: Guardian of the Universe. The main monster being a hero in a way that it doesn't really care for humanity but merely protecting it without realizing it? Check. The enemy monster having a Flying creature with Batlike wings with its mate threatening to kill humanity, not be flat-out destroying them, but by spawning more monsters? Check. An attempt to reboot the franchise in a way that's somewhat Darker and Grittier then how most people remember the Titular Monster? Check.
- Good Boy! is essentially the film adaptation of The Starlight Barking, the sci-fi sequel to The Hundred and One Dalmatians, that Disney will never make, where alien dogs come to take Earth dogs back to the dog star Sirius after deeming humanity unworthy of them.
- Good Boys, an R-rated comedy about a group of adolescent boys who go on a lewd, raunchy adventure across town in which their cluelessness about "adult" ideas is Played for Laughs, is the closest thing to a live-action South Park movie that's ever been made, albeit without the political humor or Cartman. With the leads being a 12 year old kid that gets into insane situations trying to fix a problem only making things worse with every shortsighted decision they accidentally make, a snarky Nice Guy black best friend whose color scheme involves orange, and a wannabe tough ladies man that thinks they're super popular when its the opposite this could be considered/joked about as Seth Rogen's Hard R The Amazing World of Gumball.
- Good Morning is this to a previous film named I Was Born, But.... They were done by the same director. They both feature similar dressing brothers wearing baseball caps causing mischief in early 20th century Japan (the 1950s and the 1930s respectively).
- Goosebumps (2015) can be seen as one to Jumanji, at least in the aspect of fictional creatures running amok in the real world, and everything getting sucked back to where they came from in the end.
- In some key respects, Gran Torino is to the Dirty Harry series what Unforgiven was to the Dollars trilogy above.
- Gravity (2013) is the Spiritual Successor to Apollo 13 (1995), as it is a "serious" space disaster film based on current technology and starring astronauts rather than a straight sci-fi. Ed Harris even resumes his role as Mission Control.
- The Great Wall can be considered a Hollywood-Chinese Live-Action Adaptation of Attack on Titan, minus the shape-shifting abilities and Ancient Conspiracy and with the smiling naked giants replaced with green alien lizards.
- The Green Mile is a great film on its own, but it's also an interesting spiritual successor to The Shawshank Redemption (made by the same director). Both are period dramas inspired by Stephen King stories, but instead of going the usual route of looking at his horror stories, Frank Darabont instead looked to some of his unusual works- neither of which was part of the horror genre and one of which had no supernatural elements whatsoever. Both are period dramas set in American prisons during the 20th century dealing with themes of injustice (one involves a man being sentenced for a crime he didn't commit, the other involves a man who tries to comfort prisoners on death row... and then having to carry out their executions). It's also interesting to note the point of view changes between them- Shawshank is told from the point of view of a prisoner, Green Mile is from the perspective of a guard, both of whom are subjected to injustices and try to make the best of their situations with help from a few friends.
- Also in a way, The Shawshank Redemption itself can be considered a spiritual successor to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, as both involve a certain character going to a place where healing is supposed to happen, but the authorities in charge have caused the place to do the exact opposite. As a result, they both take it upon themselves to bring hope and love to a place which has none to give, and the authorities in charge eventually face the consequences for their actions at both films' ends.
- Grosse Pointe Blank itself is a spiritual successor to Say Anything... - although there are some important differences in the backstory, Martin Blank feels in many ways like an alternate history version of Lloyd Dobler 10 years later, with the point of departure being when he joins the army out of high school instead of hooking up with the girl. They're both played by John Cusack (and they both kickbox).
- Groundhog Day is the spiritual successor to Scrooged. In both movies, Bill Murray initially plays a cold-hearted cynic but through a series of unpleasant events, he sees himself in the mirror and decides to change his life from an unlikable cynic to a lovable optimist.
- The Guest shares a lot more of its plot and structure with David Morrell's novel First Blood than the actual film adaptation of that book does. Both are about a Sociopathic Soldier who was abused and then abandoned by the government who terrorizes a small town and kills several people, and his former commanding officer/handler is one of the people trying to stop him, with The Guest giving the story a Setting Update to The War on Terror. The film of First Blood famously altered the story to portray John Rambo in a more sympathetic light, from having him kill only one person to letting him survive and surrender to Trautman at the end, making him more of an Anti-Villain with the local police coming off worse than him.
H
- Halloween is a Spiritual Successor to Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. Not only does Janet Leigh's daughter play the Final Girl, but the hero of the movie, Sam Loomis, has the same name as Marion's lover. Many stylistic choices are clearly influenced by Hitchock, like the simple Leitmotif theme music, and the camera work in Michael's first kill, where we never see knife penetrate flesh.
- The Hangover to Very Bad Things. The former features nearly the exact same premise as the latter, but Lighter and Softer (for one, a baby replaces the dead hooker in The Hangover).
- Happy Days is the spiritual successor to American Graffiti.
- Dazed and Confused is another successor to American Graffiti.
- Likewise, That '70s Show is a spiritual successor to Dazed and Confused, perhaps even Happy Days rebooted for a new generation in a different decade.
- Happy Gilmore and The Waterboy, even more than the rest of Adam Sandler's mid-90s "abrasive man-child" oeuvre, are this to Billy Madison. Sandler even named his production company "Happy Madison" after the first two films.
- Harbinger Down was made by two of the special effects technicians who did the Practical Effects on The Thing (2011). They were disappointed to see their work painted over in post-production with CG, a sentiment shared by people who saw their behind-the-scenes footage of the effects they had worked on, and so they decided to create a Thing-like film of their own.
- As Hardcore Henry is heavily inspired by First-Person Shooter video games, there are arguments that it's one for several examples: Call of Duty in its hectic gunfights and action scenes, Half-Life with the Unbroken First-Person Perspective and Henry's Heroic Mime status, Mirror's Edge in the chases and fistfights, First Encounter Assault Recon due to having a psychic commander as the Big Bad, and BioShock for the protagonist's memory being tampered with and altered, while Mission Control turns out to be evil.
- Harsh Times and Training Day are both about a single day in which a dangerous man employed by the government (soldier/cop) drives around town with a less-than-willing partner on the pursuit of a less-than-legal goal. The're both written by David Ayer, and Harsh Times was Ayer's directorial debut.
- The Hateful Eight is, on closer examination, a spiritual successor in many ways to the The Thing (1982). Both are paranoid, suspenseful thrillers about an almost entirely male group of shady characters note trapped in a snowbound location by the blizzard and are totally unable to trust one another or figure out who's dangerous or not. Sam Jackson's character identifies and disposes of the threats in much the same way as McCready, and both movies are also extremely gory. Ennio Morricone scores both films, and he even got to re-use some of his unused tracks for The Thing in Hateful. They also both end in almost exactly the same fashion: the only two survivors, a black guy and a white guy, who previously had an antagonistic relationship, sharing a moment of companionship as they both realize that neither of them is likely to survive.
- A Haunted House is the Spiritual Successor to Scary Movie. Both films were written by the Wayans brothers and spoof various contemporary horror movies.
- Head and The Trip (1967) are two very trippy movies both written at least partly by Jack Nicholson, and there are definite commonalities, to the point where Head plays almost like a parody of The Trip at times.
- Heat in some respects, can be looked at as being a spiritual successor to Batman (1989). Both Neil McCauley and Bruce Wayne are lonely, brooding, methodical men whose worlds are virtually turned upside down when they meet a kind, caring, if rather naïve woman (Eady and Vicki Vale respectively). And both Neil and Bruce struggle to reconcile with the desire to live a "normal" life with the women that they love in no small part, due to wanting to enact revenge against the men (Waingro/Jack Napier) who in effect, ruined their lives.
- Hereditary is, in many ways, a very similar story to The VVitch, but set in the 21st century. Both are horror movies that were produced and distributed by Creator/A24 and are centered around a grieving family being haunted by a witch-like supernatural entity, and both of them end with the eldest child, the only survivor of the family, being possessed by a demon and welcomed into a supernatural cult.
- The French horror film High Tension has been noted as having drawn many comparisons to the Dean Koontz novel Intensity, with writer/director Alexandre Aja admitting to having read the book and being aware of the two works' similarities when asked about it at Sundance. Strangely, it's also a Disowned Spiritual Adaptation, as Koontz himself also noticed the similarities and considered suing for plagiarism, but decided not to because he hated High Tension so much that he didn't want it associated with his book.
- Highwaymen is one to director Robert Harmon's earlier film The Hitcher. Both heavily feature car chases, pursuit along the highways, and a serial killer with a fixation on the male protagonist.
- Other Clint Eastwood westerns, including High Plains Drifter, Pale Rider and Unforgiven are considered to be spiritual successors to his earlier films with Leone, with the style and his character drawing obvious inspiration. Unforgiven in particular was created as a spiritual sequel and deconstruction of his Man With No Name character.
- The Hitman's Bodyguard is a good preview of what a team-up movie between Deadpool, Nick Fury and Elektra could look like in the Marvel Cinematic Universe especially with their respective actors playing key characters in the film.
- Horrible Bosses to Office Space. Both feature three men getting revenge on a boss and have Jennifer Aniston in a supporting role.
- Hot Bot to Weird Science with elements of The Return of the Living Dead, One Crazy Summer, Cherry 2000, and Superbad thrown in for good measure.
- Hotel Colonial is a very loose adaptation of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, with Marco as a stand-in for Marlow and his brother Roberto as a stand-in Kurtz. Robert Duvall is cast as Roberto, an Actor Allusion to his role in Apocalypse Now, another loose adaptation of Conrad's novella.
- From the Time Travel, to the "Mister Sandman" Sequence, to standing up to the bully and his toadies, to the A Little Something We Call Hip-Hop scene, to the search for the Applied Phlebotinum in order to get back, to the minor part played by Crispin Glover, Hot Tub Time Machine is Back to the Future for a new generation... or more like the same generation, but inverted.
- House Party to After Hours. Both movies feature their main characters experiencing a series of misadventures in a single night.
- As the story goes, Steven Spielberg once casually mentioned to George Lucas that he’d always wanted to direct a James Bond movie. Lucas said "I have a character even better than Bond", and that's where Indiana Jones came from. Given that both series have a habit of cavalier wit, action prologues, beautiful women and exotic locations (and the first of the movie Bonds plays Indy’s father), you can certainly see the resemblance.
- With its combination of action and slapstick, the main character being a Gentleman Thief, and the overall feel of the film, some people have called Hudson Hawk a better live-action Lupin III movie than the actual live-action Lupin III movie. This may explain why it was so popular in Japan despite having flopped in the US.
- Hugo is by far, the best Live-Action Adaptation of StudioGhibli's works in terms of tone and themes.
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- 2020's I Care a Lot starring Rosamund Pike can depending on your point of view, be seen as a spiritual successor to 1993's The Real McCoy starring Kim Basinger.
- David Lynch's latest and supposedly last movie, Inland Empire, is very much a spiritual successor to Mulholland Dr., itself a Spiritual Successor to Lost Highway.
- The 1983 vampire film The Hunger, as noted by Maven of the Eventide, effectively translated Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles and its portrayal of vampires to the big screen eleven years before the official film adaptation of Interview with the Vampire came out. While The Hunger was adapted from a different novel, director Tony Scott was a huge fan of Anne Rice, and his interest in directing an adaptation of Interview led Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to hire him for this film.
- Richard Matheson's I Am Legend has been adapted multiple times to film, but the best adaptation is probably an unofficial one: George A. Romero's Living Dead Series. Heavily inspired by I Am Legend to the point where Romero himself outright called it a ripoff of Matheson's novel, it removed the vampire-like characteristics and intelligence of its ghouls but otherwise adapted its story of civilization being destroyed by a disease that turns humans into monsters quite faithfully, pioneering an entire genre of horror fiction in the process. Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Dawn of the Dead (1978) can be seen as unofficial prequels, while Day of the Dead (1985) can be seen as a spinoff story set in Florida. Matheson noticed the inspiration and said that, while he harbored no ill will towards Romero, he thought Night was "kind of cornball".
- The plot of Idiocracy, which depicts a society that has been dumbed down by a combination of mind-rotting pop culture and the stupid outbreeding the smart, comes off like an unauthorized adaptation of both Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 and Cyril M. Kornbluth's short story "The Marching Morons", only Played for Laughs. And WALL•E is pretty much the Lighter and Softer sequel to Idiocracy.
- Igby Goes Down may be the closest we'll ever have to a film about Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye, though there aren't many similarities other than the main character.
- Inception:
- It's the only Paprika live-action film you'll ever see, which also happens to have a surreal homage to On Her Majesty's Secret Service (though calling it an adaptation makes Constantine look like a word-for-word lift of Hellblazer).
- As this mashup proves, calling Inception a Darker and Edgier Psychonauts reboot is surprisingly fitting.
- The dream technology is so similar to that introduced in the series Stargate SG-1 that some feel it's the closest we'll ever get to a big-budget film set in that universe.
- It may also be the best (or only) Neuromancer movie that we ever see. It's about a thief who specializes in covertly stealing data with the aid of a machine that puts him in lifelike VR simulations, and it involves said thief taking a job from a mysterious businessman who agrees to help him reverse the effects of a major screw-up from his past. Over the course of the movie, he assembles a team of allies who eventually help him perform an elaborate heist in an ornately designed building with strange architecture and gravity—all while coping with regular visits from the hallucinatory ghost of a dead woman from his past. Both works even include a scene where the protagonist gets trapped in a VR construct of a surreal seaside locale, where time moves at a fraction of its normal speed.
- Independence Day:
- Lindsay Ellis has described the film as being closer to the spirit of H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds (1898) than any of the official adaptations of that book, using the 2005 film as a counterpoint (and even describing that film as something of a Spiritual Antithesis). Both are about the preeminent world power in a time of global peace and prosperity — The British Empire in the 1890s and The United States in the 1990s, respectively — being invaded and almost destroyed by Scary Dogmatic Aliens who represented the dark side of that world power's attitude on the world stage. In The War of the Worlds, the aliens are explicitly described as imperialists who inflict upon Britain the same abuses that the European imperial powers inflicted upon many of their subject peoples, and while Independence Day isn't as overt, the aliens there are likewise depicted as Planet Looters, reflecting a common criticism of American consumerism. It should also be noted that both alien invasions were devastated by viruses — the War of the Worlds aliens devastated by a biological virus, and the Independence Day aliens devastated by a computer virus.
- Its sequel, Independence Day: Resurgence, was being called "XCOM: Enemy Unknown: The Movie" even before it came out.
- Indiana Jones got one port movie to game (The Last Crusade) and one port game to movie (The Fate of Atlantis). Many people don't know about the latter movie. This may be because it was filmed with MacGyver.
- Infested(2024): Has pretty much the same premise as Arachnophobia, but it is set in a French apartment complex and all the comedy is stripped out. Both of them involve a deadly species of spider transplanted from its natural environment and running amok.
- Interstellar to Contact. Both films set out to examine popular sci-fi tropes through a realistic lens, both are based on the writings of Real Life astrophysicists (Carl Sagan for Contact, Kip Thorne for Interstellar), both involve space flights through wormholes and spaceships built in secrecy, both end with the protagonist journeying to a pocket dimension and revisiting an important incident from his/her past, and both feature Matthew McConaughey in a starring role
- In the Mouth of Madness, like Event Horizon above, has also been compared to the work of H. P. Lovecraft, in spirit if not in terms of a specific story. .
- The Dee Wallace comedy Invisible Mom had both a spiritual successor, Invisible Dad, and an official sequel, Invisible Mom 2. More confusingly, it had a second spiritual successor, released a year earlier than the sequel, named Mom's Outta Sight, written by the same people (although the director used an assumed name), and which can occasionally be found masquerading as Invisible Mom 2, right down to using the other film's title instead of its own.
- Interstellar is probably the closest we will ever get to a remake of Disney's The Black Hole.
- Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) is a remarkably close film adaptation of Robert A. Heinlein's The Puppet Masters, right down to the alien pod people being a thinly-veiled allusion to communism (a comparison that was made explicit in Heinlein's book), though others have also read into it an anti-McCarthyism message.
- Is Paris Burning? to The Longest Day. Black and white historical Epic Movie, international All-Star Cast, many characters, Allied victory in World War II, French Resistance at work... you got it. It can very much serve as a sequel to it as far as historical events are concerned (if you skip the — very grueling for the Allies — Battle of Normandy that followed D-Day, that is). Also, both films had a soundtrack by Maurice Jarre and had Gert Fröbe in their cast.
- Ishtar was intended to be a spiritual successor to the Road to ... series, but failed.
- The animated The Road to El Dorado, on the other hand succeeded admirably.
- Spies Like Us was, during production, described as a Road movie, and even features Bob Hope in a cameo ... hitting a golf ball into the same tent as the characters in the middle of Afghanistan.
- And, of course, the "Road to..." episodes of Family Guy take this to the level of straight-up Homage.
- It's Always Fair Weather is a spiritual successor to MGM's film version of On the Town, both being written by Comden and Green, co-directed by Stanley Donen and starring Gene Kelly as one of three military buddies.
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- Jabberwocky to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, both films featuring Monty Python members set in The Dung Ages.
- A lot of Jackie Chan movies can be considered spiritual successors of each other, especially his earlier works. You could argue this extends at least some extent to other martial arts movie starts like Bruce Lee and Jet Li.
- Jaws:
- The film is about a shark rather than a whale, but the scenes where the protagonists are hunting the shark make for the best adaptation of Moby-Dick ever filmed, with Quint especially making for a great translation of Captain Ahab in his obsession with catching his prey.
- The first half of the film, focusing on Brody's efforts to close the beaches in the name of public safety, recalls aspects of Henrik Ibsen's play An Enemy of the People, where a well-meaning doctor becomes a pariah for trying to close down contaminated hot spring baths.
- For Johnny Mnemonic, there's the direct-to-video "Johnny 2.0", which isn't a sequel but seems to intentionally present itself as one.
- John Wick is a Spiritual Successor to Point Blank (1967). Although the former features some plot points similar to Road to Perdition, it is more about a stoic badass criminal who goes after a powerful crime family in search of a MacGuffin, with hyperstylized direction and action.
- John Wick:
- It has often been called an amazing adaptation of Hotline Miami due to its gunfights and plot of a lone hitman against the Russian mob.
- It has also been called a Vampire: The Masquerade film sans vampires. The third installment in particular starkly captures the feel of a Kindred being on the wrong end of a Blood Hunt even as an Archon or Justicar (the Adjudicator) shakes things up with their presence on behalf of the Camarilla inner circle (the High Table), using as their services a local coterie (Zero and the Shinobi).
- The series is also much closer to Wanted than the actual movie adaptation. There exists a secret society of criminals in both works that is outright ignored by both the police and the general populace. The main character in both works is an expert marksman who is eventually betrayed and forced to fight society. The main difference is that the Fraternity in Wanted is literally made out of supervillains with powers, while the Continental is just an organization of assassins and crimelords.
- Joker (2019):
- A modern remake of The King of Comedy right down to the similar characters, crime-infested setting, and time period as well as the casting of Robert De Niro as Murray Franklin in a double Actor Allusion of sorts for his role as Rupert Pupkin and his idol Jerry Lewis which serves as the basis for his relationship with Arthur Fleck. In fact, this was very much intentional since the film's director Todd Philips cited the movie and Taxi Driver as its inspirations.
- The screenwriter of Joker also wrote 8 Mile, and the film appears to take a lot of influence from Eminem's Slim Shady persona, mythology and moral panic from The Marshall Mathers LP (as a sort of alternative version of 8 Mile, which was based on the life of the real rapper). The protagonist is a mentally-ill white-trash outcast, shunned for his sick sense of humour, but with a special affinity with suffering children, who he tries to use his art to inspire and entertain. He fantasises about getting famous, gets into guns, becomes a Bully Hunter, murders his flaky mother after figuring out that she was abusing him with Münchausen Syndrome, and develops an obsession with his absent father. After dyeing his hair and making some extremely controversial appearances on TV, he inspires a million others just like him to act like him and dress like him, and rise up against the corrupted society that made them what they are. Even the character's Loony Fan aspects appear reminiscent of Eminem's Signature Song, "Stan".
- Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, can easily be seen as a Pitfall! movie, albeit a highly self-referential one. The fake video game that sucks in the teenage protagonists is even played on a cartridge on what looks like an old-school 1980's game console, a la the Atari 2600 (albeit with far better graphics).
- The Jungle Book (2016) was billed and marketed as a live-action remake of one of Disney's most popular animated movies. And it is — it's the best Live-Action Adaptation of The Lion King ever made. A Coming of Age Story set in the untamed jungle? Check. A Kid Hero who's forced to hastily grow to maturity after going into exile in the wake of his father figure's death? Check. A gluttonous, lazy, self-centered Non-Human Sidekick? Check. A climactic Battle Amongst the Flames with an interloping villain who takes over the hero's family clan by force? Oh, yeah.
- It has been argued that Jupiter Ascending is a film adaptation of Mass Effectnote , Dune, and Tenchi Muyo!.
- Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, likewise, does a much better job of being an adaptation of John Brosnan's novel Carnosaur than the 1993 film of the same name, which was meant to cash in on Jurassic Park, does.
- Just One of the Guys and She's the Man were both based on Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.
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- From the moment the first trailer premiered, the Netflix action film Kate, starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead as an assassin on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the mob, was immediately called the Huntress standalone film we never got, given Winstead's Ensemble Dark Horse performance as that character in Birds of Prey (2020).
- Kingsman: The Secret Service to Kick-Ass. Both have the same director and are Decon-Recon Switch of a specific genre (superheroes stories for Kick-Ass, early Roger Moore era James Bond movies for Kingsman), with generous amounts of Black Comedy. They're also both based on comic books written by Mark Millar, which were eventually revealed to be part of the same continuity.
- The Jet Li film Kiss of the Dragon does a rather nice job of being an adaptation of Fist of the Blue Sky.
- The 2007 movie Knocked Up is considered by many to be a spiritual sequel to The 40-Year-Old Virgin. It was originally intended to be a direct sequel. And now a direct sequel of sorts to Knocked Up is This Is 40.
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- Labyrinth is a spiritual sequel to The Dark Crystal, in so far as both films feature the puppeteering of the Jim Henson corps, scenarios co-authored by Henson himself, and production design by Brian Froud. George Lucas was also reportedly involved in the making of both films, though only credited in Labyrinth.
- The Jack Slater movies in Last Action Hero are the nearest we'll ever be to having a film adaptation of McBain.
- Last Night in Soho to Crimson Peak, due to the ghosts tormenting the protagonist being less malevolent than expected. They either try to warn the protagonists or cry for help and indirectly and up helping the protagonists, be it distraction or forcing a Heel Realization from the villain.
- Lawrence of Arabia has no less than three films that fit the bill of being spiritual successors...
- Doctor Zhivago: The film's producer Carlo Ponti deliberately wanted the film to be as grand as Lawrence of Arabia. And thus he went on to recruit that film's team. Including director David Lean, screenwriter Robert Bolt, cinematographer Freddie Young, production designer John Box and composer Maurice Jarre. Peter O'Toole was even Lean's initial choice to play the leading role, but he turned it down based upon his gruelling experiences making Lawrence of Arabia that created a rift between the two. The role would subsequently go to O'Toole's Lawrence co-star Omar Sharif. Also, Alec Guinness is featured in both films.
- Lord Jim: A film released three years later, the same year that Zhivago came out ironically enough, that again sees O'Toole play the role of a British officer who winds up "Going Native" and becoming a leader among a group of foreigners, which leads to him coming to blows with the government he had served.
- Khartoum: A film released four years after that is another historical epic that is centered around another famous British military leader that was, ironically enough, even mentioned by Prince Feisal in Lawrence of Arabia with the line, “I think you are another of these desert-loving English – Doughty, Stanhope, Gordon of Khartoum.” In this case it is Gen. Charles "Chinese" Gordon who like Lawrence was eccentric, became something of a loose canon who would go beyond his orders, and felt more comfortable in Arab culture. Both films are also critical of imperialism. Reportedly Alec Guinness, the actor of Feisal, was the original choice to play Muhammad Ahmad. He declined and the role went to Laurence Olivier. Which is very ironic, as Olivier had actually been the first choice for the role of Feisal before Guinness was cast. While the film has been generally well received on its own terms many feel that the comparisons to Lawrence, which came out only a few years earlier, are inevitable.
- Legally Blonde is the spiritual successor to Clueless. Both are coming-of-age comedies about a rich, bubbly, and self-empowered blonde girl. Like Cher Horowitz, Elle Woods has a detailed knowledge of fashion, unabashedly enjoys makeovers, and carries a pen with a poofy-pink end. She even helps her father with his upcoming trial-casework. Both Cher and Elle ultimately show that their girly-ness is not something to be overcome, but something that can be embraced.
- Until the ball got rolling on a Mattel-backed Live-Action Adaptation in 2021, this movie (and the sequel) were the closest thing to a live-action Barbie film.
- Legends of the Fall could be considered such to A River Runs Through It. The most obvious thing being that both star Brad Pitt in strikingly similar roles among other similarities in their stories. Including but not limited to that both movies take place in Montana. Both father figures play/played a predominant role in the community (Respected General & Priest). Pitt's character dates an Indian girl who's strongly discriminated against. His character is also openly the family favorite. Both movies have brotherhood as a central theme. The older brother is the more educated/successful one. Weak mother figure presence and importance in both movies. And Pitt's character is the member of the family who is the most 'wild' and who is most unbound by society's rules and expectations.
- Mexican director Luis Estrada has made a series of satirical films depicting the country's ailments, starting with La Ley de Herodes depicting the political corruption, continuing with Un Mundo Maravilloso portraying the poverty of the people and finishing the trilogy with the upcoming Infierno that will deal with the violence of the drug cartels. All of them cast the actor Damián Alcázar (aka:Lord Sopespian) as the lead.
- Licence to Kill is in a way, a spiritual successor to Rocky IV. The first part of each seems to focus more on the hero's (James Bond and Rocky Balboa respectively) friend (Felix Leiter and Apollo Creed respectively) and the hero almost becomes a sidekick for this small section of the film. Then the villain (Franz Sanchez and Ivan Drago respectively) brutalizes the friend and puts him out of commission and at this point, the main character takes over and goes after the villain for revenge. In both films, the hero even travels to the villain's home country (Isthmus and Russia respectively). On top of that, both Apollo and Leiter had a friend (Sharkey and Duke respectively) who joined forces with the hero to help carry out the revenge.
- Life Is Beautiful is often compared to The Day the Clown Cried, as well as Jakob the Liar, all about an entertainer in a concentration camp.
- The conflict between Captain Miller and Dr. Caspary in The Lightship is quite similar to that of Axel Heyst and Mr. Jones in Joseph Conrad's novel Victory. The characters are quite close to their counterparts as well, particularly Caspary to Jones.
- The Lion in Winter is a spiritual successor to the earlier film Becket in that they're both historical dramas starring Peter O'Toole as Henry II playing him as an old man in Lion and younger in Becket.
- There is the Peter Berg and Mark Wahlberg, right now, trio of films about modern-day disasters and the people who rose to the occasion as heroes in the face of them. Whether they be a military mission gone awry that leads to soldiers trapped in enemy territory, a malfunction on an oil-right that leads to a massive inferno, or a terrorist strike and the ensuing manhunt. Those films being Lone Survivor, Deepwater Horizon, and Patriots Day respectively.
- The Hunchback of Notre Dame from 1923 starring Lon Chaney has two films that can be considered spiritual successors. All of these films were made by Universal Studios and produced to some capacity by German born filmmaker Carl Laemmle.
- The Phantom of the Opera like Hunchback stars Lon Chaney with groundbreaking make-up effects in the form of a deformed Parisian who falls in love with a "normal" woman. With conflict ensuing between the multiple parties associated with and desiring her. Both are also based on classic stories from well known French authors.
- The Man Who Laughs from 1928 starring Conrad Veidt is like Hunchback based upon a Victor Hugo novel. Both centering around a malformed but misunderstood man who is mistreated by others and falls in love with, again, a regular woman. Both characters are also known for their iconic make-up effects that brought them to life.
- 1997's L.A. Confidential, despite being made by a totally different cast and crew, is considered by many fans to be the spiritual successor to 1974's Chinatown, as both are set in Los Angeles, both were made 40 years after the time period in which they are set, and both feature themes of betrayal, corruption of public institutions and officials, and "neo-noir" values. Oh, and both have scores by Jerry Goldsmith.
- Several YouTube commenters have made the connections between the Classic Walt Disney cartoon short Lonesome Ghosts and Ghostbusters (1984). Even one of the lines Goofy utters in the cartoon is directly lifted and placed into the main theme of the film.Goofy (Chuckles nervously): I ain't 'fraid of no ghosts!
I ain't 'fraid of no ghosts! - Between the 1920's nautical New England setting, Robert Egger's ear for Antiquated Linguistics, and the presence of monstrous mermaids and unknowable terror, The Lighthouse has been called one of the best H. P. Lovecraft stories that Lovecraft never wrote.
- Logan:
- Some fans have taken to calling it The Last of Us: X-Men Edition. Both works are about an old and cynical badass having to watch over a Little Miss Badass adolescent girl in the aftermath of a great catastrophe, and they share an overall dour and neo-Western look. Furthermore, Wolverine as he appears in the film◊ bears a downright uncanny resemblance to The Last of Us' protagonist Joel◊. When Honest Trailers did their episode on Logan, they flat-out referred to it as The Last of Us at the end.
- Bob Chipman, meanwhile, has called it the best adaptation of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns ever made, albeit with the X-Men instead of DC Comics' characters. Both stories are grim, deconstructionist takes on the superhero genre about aging heroes called out of retirement to fight one last time while finding redemption by serving as a mentor to a young girl. Moreover, both of them relied on the context of the time and its cultural memory of their titular heroes for their deconstructionist elements; The Dark Knight Returns exploited the fact that most people in The '80s knew Batman from the Lighter and Softer Adam West TV show, while Logan does the same with the pop culture knowledge of Hugh Jackman's portrayal of Wolverine in the X-Men Film Series, and the fact that it's his last outing in the role. However, he fears that this trope could manifest in a less pleasant way in the years to come, in the sense that, just as The Dark Knight Returns helped bring about The Dark Age of Comic Books, Logan could set off a similar wave of superhero movies that merely copy its Darker and Edgier aesthetic at the expense of storytelling and themes.
- With its family in a scifi environment, cloaked Mad Scientist villain, a plot centered around a doomed space mission, along with a lot of similarities in the characters' personalities and appearances, on top of encounters with weird aliens, parallel timelines, Bad Futures, Lost in Space could be closest thing spiritually to a live-action Fantastic Four movie (perhaps even more so than any of the offical adaptations), albeit with one where they didn't get powers, and became lost in the 'negative zone.'
- Erich Segal at first wanted to do a film adaptation of The Blue Lagoon with the setting updated from the early 20th century South Pacific to the then-contemporary New York. When an agreement with the estate of Henry De Vere Stacpoole couldn’t be reached, he instead wrote his original tragic love story, still influenced by The Blue Lagoon. After the script was turned down by several studios, his agent pressed him to rework his rejected screenplay into a novel. When the rights to his story were purchased by Paramount, it became the project that saved the studio from being closed by its new parent company, Gulf and Western, Love Story. Ironically, the success of Love Story revived interest on The Blue Lagoon, but due to a lengthy and complicated Development Hell and Troubled Production, a proper Blue Lagoon film adaptation was only released in 1980, at a time movie audiences were tired of tragic love stories.
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- Made starring Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau is a spiritual successor to their previous movie playing best friends, Swingers. Both are written by Favreau.
- What with the lunatics shooting guns and driving cars held together by duct tape who consider death to be just another part of life before coming back for another go, Mad Max: Fury Road is either the best adaptation of the Warhammer 40,000 spinoff Gorkamorkanote (which is itself heavily inspired by the original Mad Max), or the closest we'll ever see to a live-action Waaaagh!.
- Maleficent:
- Similar to Frozen (2013) (see the Animated Film page), the film serves as a live-action adaptation of Wicked with both works reimagining a traditionally villainous character in a heroic light by crafting a sympathetic backstory for how they became evil.
- It can also be viewed as a successor to Beauty and the Beast, which also has a screenplay by Linda Woolverton. Both revolve around a brooding, angry, reclusive non-human character (The Beast/Maleficent), who ultimately heals and changes by meeting a beautiful and brave young maiden (Belle/Aurora) and learning to love her (romantic love/motherly love). Meanwhile, the villain (Gaston/King Stefan) is a handsome, influential man who makes the non-human hero(ine) out to be the evil one and himself the hero, and at the climax, they confront each other on a castle tower, the hero(ine) has the chance to kill the villain but lets him go, but then the villain attacks the hero(ine) from behind, only to fall to his death.
- Mandy is essentially Conan the Barbarian (1982) set in 1980s California. Both films follow a musclebound Barbarian Hero with a VERY large bladed weapon hunting down and taking violent revenge on an insane cult leader and his minions who are responsible for the death(s) of a woman close to the protagonist. Many of the characters have close analogues: Red is Conan, Jeremiah is Thulsa Doom, Carruthers is Subotai, The Chemist is the Wizard of the Mounds, and Mandy is Valeria, and the scene where Red smelts his giant axe in the workshop is shot very similarly to the iconic Forging Scene from Conan.
- Man of Steel can be considered a spiritual successor to Watchmen. Both are superhero films directed by Zack Snyder that deconstruct their protagonists and alternate between past and present scenes. The World Engine (an squid-like alien construct with the ability to level an entire city and change the world to the villain's designs) could also be seen as an Author's Saving Throw for replacing Watchmen's squid-monster with a bomb.
- Marvel Cinematic Universe:
- The Avengers (2012) could be argued as a great movie adaptation of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, with both stories featuring a group of superheroes with attitude being recruited by a bald man with a presence to fight an alien with a fancy staff who wants to conquer Earth. To top it off, the Sixth Ranger was brainwashed into serving the villain before being knocked back into consciousness and has the closest relationship with The Heart (or in this film's case, the only woman) on the team. Together, they fight endless waves of mooks and giant monsters, and while they don't have a Megazord, they do have a helicarrier. In fact, in the wake of Joseph Kahn's Power/Rangers gritty fan film, those who didn't like it pointed to this film as a better alternative since while it's certainly darker than your average Power Rangers season, it still has the defining elements that made the show, most prominently teamwork and the sense of victory, as well as some lighthearted moments to balance out the darkness.
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier may be the best movie adaptation of Metal Gear Solid that we ever get to see, in particular Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. It's about a long-time veteran soldier, who's the sole survivor of a government program to create genetically-enhanced soldiers, coming out of retirement to fight a terrorist leader with ties to his past, having a rivalry with someone with a fake left arm, and working to uncover a conspiracy in the ranks of the government while they prepare to devastate the world with a powerful superweapon, usually within the very organization they work for. The movie even has its own tanker level, and a scene where we find out that the government conspiracy is led by a sentient Artificial Intelligence that took over for the long-deceased human villains. Also, the eponymous Winter Soldier is revealed to be an old friend of the veteran soldier, presumed dead but taken from the battlefield and transformed against his will into a cyborg assassin.
- Guardians of the Galaxy: A number of fans have pointed out the similarity of the film's central characters to the original regular characters of Farscape. (Peter = John, Gamora = Aeryn, Drax = D'Argo, Groot = Zhaan, and Rocket = Rygel.) Some of the changes made to the film characters compared to the original comic versions make them closer to the Farscape characters (in particular Peter being abducted by aliens and Trapped in Another World instead of voluntarily exploring space, and Drax being an alien rather than an augmented human). Notably, James Gunn is a fan of the show, and cast Ben Browder (who played John Crichton) in a small part in Vol. 2.
- Just take a look at Ant-Man's heist at Pym Tech if you want to know what a live-action Pikmin movie would look like.
- Doctor Strange is a better Green Lantern film then the actual Green Lantern movie, as pointed out here and here by Jeremy Jahns and Couch Tomato respectively.
- The Nostalgia Critic, at the end of his video on The Lion King, called Black Panther the "real" live-action remake of that film. Specifically, both are epic stories set in Africa about an heir to the throne who is usurped by a tyrant who kills his father and leaves him for dead, and undertakes a long quest to return to his rightful place as king. Both have scenes where the hero and villain duke it out on a cliff's edge, and the heroes of both contact the spirits of their dead fathers, though T'Challa's reunion with his father is a bit more heated than Simba's. And both stories are themselves heavily inspired by Hamlet. The heroes even both evoke big cats, though Simba from The Lion King is a literal lion while T'Challa in Black Panther is a human who uses the imagery of a panther.
- Thor: Ragnarok is an interesting example, in that it's a literal sequel to one film, but also a Spiritual Successor to another film set in the same universe. To elaborate, it's the third in a trilogy with Thor and Thor: The Dark World, but it has much more in common with Guardians of the Galaxy in terms of tone and aesthetic. It has the colorful Space Opera setting, the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits cast, the plot involving space travel to the seamier corners of the galaxy, and the retro soundtrack full of '70s and '80s rock hits (complete with original synth music by Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo).
- Additionally, many critics and fans have called Thor: Ragnarok the best He-Man movie ever made. This is thanks to its mixture of sci-fi and Swords and Sorcery, retro '80s score and aesthetic, colorful cast of heroes and villains, and the fact that it stars a muscular hero who wields swords and lightning.
- Captain Marvel has also been called pretty good adaptation of the Green Lantern mythos. It's an epic Space Opera centered on the origin of a superhero with energy manipulation powers, the main character is part of an elite intergalactic military force, and the story begins with a lost alien crashing to Earth. Even if the main character's name is "Carol Danvers" instead of "Hal Jordan", the story manages to hit all the beats that Green Lantern fans love: the colorful space battles, the exotic aliens, the lovably cocky hero who flies fighter jets... It's all here.
- A lot of viewers have noted that this movie makes for a surprisingly good live-action Dragon Ball Z film. Some even consider it to be a more faithful adaptation than the much reviled Dragon Ball Evolution. Like Goku, Carol is an immensely powerful warrior with the ability to fly and shoot energy from her hands, with no understanding of her past, and learns she was part of a legacy of genocidal alien conquerors (the Saiyans/the Kree) who are the sworn enemies of a race of pointy-eared green aliens that later turn out to not all that bad. The movie even climaxes with the main character unlocking her hidden power and entering a glowing Golden Super Mode to defeat the villains.
- It could also be seen as one to She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. Both female leads gain superpowers and defect from an Evil Empire after belatedly learning that it's, well, evil and that her enemies were Good All Along. Carol's relationship with the Supreme Intelligence also calls to mind Shadow Weaver's manipulative raising of Adora.
- Many consider Spider-Man: No Way Home to be one to, of all things, One More Day, including such elements from story as Peter's secret identity being revealed and the consequences thereof, the involvement of Doctor Strange, Aunt May being fatally wounded by one of Spider-Man's enemies and ending with everyone's memory of Peter's identity being erased, and Peter and MJ's relationship being erased with it. Unusually, the movie is considered a far superior story, utilizing elements of the general plotline in ways that are far more consistent with both the characterization and themes of Spider-Man.
- The Masters of the Universe film is described on That Other Wiki as being the best Jack Kirby's Fourth World movie ever attempted. Though Word of God from the director indicates he meant to do an homage to the work of Kirby in a general sense, not the Fourth World in particular.
- The Matrix:
- It can be called a sci-fi version of Mage: The Ascension, as it's about a group of people who discover that their world is an illusion, unlocking great powers in the process, and are then pursued by just-as-powerful beings who are tasked with keeping the illusion alive.
- It was also very heavily influenced by Ghost in the Shell with its mix of cyberpunk action and philosophical musings about the nature of humanity and consciousness. The Wachowskis were huge fans of its anime adaptation, which they have cited as one of their favorite films and which they screened for producer Joel Silver in order to show him what they wanted to accomplish with their film, and many scenes are lifted more or less directly from it as shout-outs. In fact, the success and influence of The Matrix was a big part of why the 2017 Hollywood adaptation of Ghost in the Shell met a lukewarm reception — as far as most Americans were concerned, The Matrix did it first.
- Max Keeble's Big Move to Snow Day. Besides both featuring Zena Grey and Josh Peck in supporting roles, both are farcical kid-oriented movies (ironically, one made by Disney and the other made by Paramount/Nickelodeon) from the early 2000s that contain a flurry of gross jokes, sight gags, and disposable pop rock. Both basic plots concern a pee-wee wisenheimer with a clueless dad fighting “the system” and besting a generically named, over-the-top nemesis. In Max Keeble's Big Move, the over-the-top nemesis is Jamie Kennedy as an ice cream man. While in Snow Day, it's a seething snowplower played by Chris Elliott. There's also themes about fawning over the wrong girl.
- Orange County in itself, can be thought of as a spiritual successor to Snow Day. Both are coming-of-age stories produced by a Viacom owned company (MTV and Nickelodeon respectively). They both also have Chevy Chase, Schuyler Fisk (who even plays a similar character in both of them), and Carly Pope in them as well as a comedian stealing the show (Jack Black and Chris Elliott respectively).
- Mean Girls is a Lighter and Softer spiritual successor to the cult Black Comedy Heathers. It's worth noting that Heathers screenwriter Dan Waters is the brother of Mean Girls director Mark Waters, so the parallels are likely intentional on at least some level.
- This trope also applies to the musical adaptations of both movies, especially when you remember that Barrett Wilbert Weed portrayed a major character in the original casts of both shows (Janis and Veronica, respectively).
- Mean Girls could also be seen as a spiritual successor to Never Been Kissed albeit with a more cynical edge to it. Both movies are fish-out-of-water tales about a female entering high school in Chicago. Josie in Never Been Kissed like Cady in Mean Girls eventually joins a competitive math team. Josie and Cady also have to go "undercover" to obtain information. Both Josie and Cady also befriend the resident female school outcasts in Aldys and Janice respectively. Janice is admittedly, more of a "loser" than Aldys and her "Nerd" description though. Meanwhile, the main antagonists in both movies (The Plastics and Kirsten, Gibby, and Kristin respectively) are a group of 3 popular high school girls. Both movies even have a Forced Meme with "rufus" in Never Been Kissed and "fetch" in Mean Girls.
- Never Been Kissed in itself, could also be considered a Lighter and Softer version of Welcome to the Dollhouse when it pertains to the flashbacks to Josie's actual high school years. Plus, the entire premise of an aspiring female journalist who has to go undercover at a high school is reminiscent of Just One of the Guys. Meanwhile, like Drew Barrymore's character in Never Been Kissed, Kathleen Turner's character in Peggy Sue Got Married gets to return to her own high school years and relive them through an adult's perspective.
- Mean Girls has once been called a spiritual successor to Clueless.
- Mean Streets, Goodfellas, Casino and The Irishman are all directed by Martin Scorsese, featuring a number of members from his Production Posse, plus the second and third films are both based on nonfiction books by Nicholas Pileggi. Scorsese has said that these films form a Thematic Series of increasingly elevated steps on the mafia hierarchy adding The Irishman as a final look of this tetralogy.
- The indie film Meek's Cutoff is an accidental film adaptation of The Oregon Trail series.
- The movie adaptation of Men in Black is a spiritual successor to Ghostbusters (1984) by exploring paranormal activity (in MIB's case, extraterrestrial life) with a mundane approach.
- Michael Clayton has been called "the best John Grisham movie ever made".
- Midnight Cowboy is often described as being like an urban 1960s Of Mice and Men, albeit one where the "George" character (Ratso Rizzo) dies and the "Lennie" character (Joe Buck) survives instead of vice-versa.
- While the Conan O'Brien and Adam West comedy series Lookwell never made it past the pilot, Mindhorn serves as a good movie adaptation, albeit a British version.
- The Miracle of the Wolves (1961) is the closest French cinema's ever had to 1952's Ivanhoe, with the adventures of a knight who's deeply loyal to his king (protecting him against someone who plans to get rid of him and usurp him) and participates to The Tourney at one point, gets help from a useful gang of men who have turned outlaws against tyranny and hide in the forests and use bows, a lady who's accused of witchcraft and a Trial by Combat in the form of a Duel to the Death to solve that latter issue.
- Mirrormask was designed to be the spiritual successor to Labyrinth and, to a lesser extent, The Dark Crystal. When the Jim Henson Company hired Neil Gaiman they told him to ”Give us a script in whatever genre Labyrinth was in”. The original plan was to get David Bowie to play the Prime Minister of the White City, but scheduling conflicts forced them to just have Rob Brydon play the PM and Helena's father.
- When the first trailer for Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children came out, many called it Tim Burton's X-Men.
- The fact that child actress Patty McCormack went from playing an Enfant Terrible to an Evil Matriarch 40 years later is the reason why the low-budget thriller Mommy is considered the spiritual successor to The Bad Seed (1956).
- Moneyball to The Social Network, as both are critically-acclaimed biopics set in the early 2000s and written by Aaron Sorkin, known for their fast pace, witty dialogue, and making an engaging story out of a topic most people wouldn't find interesting (statistics in baseball for the former and the founding of Facebook for the latter).
- Money Train is the spiritual successor to White Men Can't Jump, as both films star Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson in the main roles, and each have a Latina actress as the love interest. The female lead in White Men Can't Jump was Rosie Perez while Money Train featured Jennifer Lopez.
- In his video on The Monster Squad, Minty Comedic Arts called it the first unofficial movie adaptation of Stephen King's It, with a similar premise of a group of kids going up against monsters (in this case, the Universal monsters instead of a Monster Clown Eldritch Abomination).
- Monty Python's Life of Brian can be seen as a spiritual successor to Siddhartha in that Brian from life of Brian and Siddhartha from Siddhartha follows the life story similar to religious figures of the contemporary times(Jesus of Nazareth for Brian, and Gautama Siddartha for Siddhartha)
- Mortal Engines owes a lot to the Final Fantasy franchise's Sword and Gun Steampunk Zeppelins from Another World mishmash. There's even "extradimensional energies" that act as Magic by Any Other Name.
- The final act of mother! (2017) is basically a bigger-budget studio remake of Begotten.
- Moulin Rouge!, although officially a loose retelling of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, is basically a composite adaptation of the operas La Traviata and La Bohème. In particular, it's a Spiritual Successor to Baz Luhrmann's own production of La Bohème that was first staged in 1990 at the Sydney Opera House.
- Movie 43, between its Vulgar Humor, its laundry list of celebrity guest stars, and it being an Anthology Film, is pretty much a live-action Robot Chicken.
- David Lynch intended for Mulholland Dr. to be a spiritual successor to Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard.
- The Mummy (2017):
- It's an Urban Fantasy horror story about a secret London-based organization devoted to fighting supernatural evil, making it probably the closest we'll get to a film adaptation of the Templars from The Secret World.
- The plot also shares more than a few elements lifted from Hellsing, including Dr. Jekyll's role being virtually identical to Integra's, and his office in fact looking quite like her office. At the end of the film, Tom Cruise is essentially a male Seras Victoria.
- The Muppet Movie can be seen as an elaborate variation on The Bremen Town Musicians. A Mixed Animal Species Team of ambitious ragtag misfits all meet each other on a journey to a town where they hope to become entertainers, along the way facing villains whom they ultimately scare away. The fact that Jim Henson adapted the fairy tale several years earlier as The Muppet Musicians of Bremen makes the similarities feel even less coincidental. The two endings are different, though, as the Bremen Town Musicians decide not to go to Bremen after all, but settle comfortably in the robbers' abandoned house, whereas the Muppets do reach Hollywood and become the famous troupe of performers we all know.
- My Führer, to Goebbels and Geduldig, with Ulrich Mühe playing a Jewish man who ends up directly facing the leading figures of Nazi Germany up close. Also, Katja Riemann played Eva Braun in both.
- Mystery of the Wax Museum is a spiritual successor to Doctor X. The two films aren't part of the same continuity, but they overlap in genre (though Mystery of the Wax Museum lacks most of Doctor X's comedy elements), share the same director and several cast and crew members, and are filmed in the same visually-distinctive Technicolor process. In addition, both films include morgue scenes, wax statues (though they only appear briefly in Doctor X), multiple characters portrayed as having disabilities (including a villain who is more able than he lets on), and a plot based on investigative reporting.
- Notably there is also My Fellow Americans which was a buddy comedy political thriller that was originally supposed to star the two of them during that period in the 90s. It still has Jack Lemmon as one of the leads and arguably had a pretty similar sense of humor, but due to health complications at the time Walter Matthau wound up being replaced with James Garner as the co-star.
- My Girl can be viewed as a stealth adaptation of Bridge to Terabithia with the genders reversed. This has lead some fans to view the Terabithia film version as a stealth gender-bent remake of My Girl.