There comes a time for many television shows when the small screen just isn't large enough anymore. Certain stories are epic enough that they need the full force of Hollywood behind them. When that happens, a few good shows make the jump to the big screen.
With the release of the first trailer for The Fall Guy, based on the ‘80s TV series, we're looking back at the best of these TV shows-turned-movies. From the best of theStar Trek films to the Muppets invading Manhattan, these are all examples – not in any particular order – of how to transition from the small screen to the silver screen properly.
Addams Family Values
Yes, this might be the sequel to the original Addams Family TV-to-movie adaptation, but Values is far superior to its predecessor. With a killer script, an infinitely quotable Wednesday Addams (Christina Ricci), and a blissful lack of MC Hammer, Values captured the fun, macabre spirit of the show that the first film couldn't. Joan Cusack, Peter McNichol, Christine Baranski, David Krumholtz, Nathan Lane, and more lent their talents to this twisted tale of a murderous nanny who sends Wednesday and Pugsley to the frighteningly chipper Camp Chippewa after they discover her plot to marry Uncle Fester and murder him for his fortune.
The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Director Guy Ritchie’s slick 2015 adaptation of the ‘60s spy series is set during the Cold War. While the TV show never explained how two guys with such diametrically opposed ideologies – American Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill) and Russian Illya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer) – became partners, nor indeed how U.N.C.L.E. was formed in the first place, Ritchie fills in the blanks, his film serving as both prequel and origin story, as well as enabling him to explore his favorite territory - that of masculinity and the ties that bind guys together. Ritchie shoots proceedings with trademark style and swagger, his action regularly defying Hollywood convention.
The Fugitive
"A murdered wife. A one-armed man. An obsessed detective. The chase begins." A perfect tagline for a perfect movie, The Fugitive reminds us why Dr. Richard Kimble's search for the man who brutally murdered his wife - and the U.S. Marshall on Kimble's trail - works so well. The good guys and bad guys are clearly defined, the stakes are life and death and the tension is always high as we watch Harrison Ford's Kimble go on the run to prove his innocence.
Director Andrew Davis, despite a development process filled with significant script issues, pulls together arguably his best film. As good as the director and leading man are, it's Tommy Lee Jones's turn as Sam Gerard, the human bloodhound on Kimble's ass, that makes The Fugitive that rare film you watch no matter when it is on, from beginning to end. If that wasn't enough praise, it was nominated for Best Picture in 1993 and Jones won the Supporting Actor Oscar.
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Some fans argue that this animated theatrical release (based on The Animated Series) is the Dark Knight's best big-screen story. Bruce Wayne's past takes center stage as Batman must stop a new rogue on the block, Phantasm, from killing Gotham's local mob population. The crimes and the perpetrator are connected to Bruce's first – and last – shot at true love, a relationship he was willing to give up the cowl for if it meant he could be happy.
Tragedy and Batman are meant to be together, and when you throw Mark Hamill's Joker into the mix, you have one of the most heartfelt and dramatically satisfying Batman stories ever told. The Phantasm is a great nemesis, and the reveal of who is behind the mask is both surprising and justified. The climax, set at the abandoned Gotham World’s Fair, is also truly epic and violent as hell.
Jackass Forever
The final chapter in American comedy’s most chaotic saga, Jackass Forever is a hilarious last hurrah for its original crew from the MTV show. An extravagant stunt show filled with more cinematic homages (and more bodily fluids) than ever before, it takes an ill-advised trip down memory lane and raises the stakes in maniacal fashion. This time, the anticipation before each ill-advised escapade lasts even longer, as do the reaction shots of shock and uproarious cackling in the aftermath. Everyone is visibly older and more fragile. It all hurts so much more and goes wrong so much more easily. The payoff is that much higher. It’s hard to say whether its individual stunts will have the same staying power as anything in its predecessors (in part because it retreads so much familiar ground), but it’s the most well-oiled movie in the series, moving smoothly from one segment to the next with a perfect balance of pain and hilarity, with just enough recovery time in between.
Dragon Ball Super: Broly
2018’s Dragon Ball Super: Broly is more than simply a continuation of the cinematic return of this beloved franchise, and more than just the return of the popular character Broly. This is an animated movie that takes the Dragon Ball franchise to a new peak by telling a story that feels appropriately modernized, while also retaining a nostalgic sheen. It delivers in terms of awesome action, but more than that, it uses the fathers of Goku, Vegeta, and Broly to link back to the late-1980s and early-1990s heyday of the series to add a relatable and thoughtful subtext. It’s a humorous movie that bounds into the world of imagination and is gripping to the end.
The Naked Gun
Based on the short-lived TV series Police Squad!, Naked Gun is one of the funniest movies parodying cops and robbers ever. Leslie Nielsen plays Lt. Frank Drebin, a cop who engages in full-body condom sex and poses as an umpire and opera singer Enrico Palazzo while investigating an assassination plot against Queen Elizabeth II. So much humor is packed into Naked Gun, making it a solid double-feature with that other great ‘80s comedy from the Zucker Bros., Airplane. This movie taught viewers that, when you see five Shakespearean actors - good ones - performing Julius Caesar in the park, you shoot the bastards because that's Frank's policy.
Downton Abbey: The Movie
Released theatrically four years after the six-season series went off the air, this first big screen outing sees the Crawley family hosting the most prestigious of guests -- King George V and his wife, Queen Mary, which provides a provocative backdrop for both Downton’s servants and aristocracy, as they scramble to prepare for the royal visit. Series creator and screenplay writer Jullian Fellowes’ move from the small screen to the big screen -- apart from its total runtime -- doesn’t try to drastically change Downton’s tried and true formula. The movie feels like a two-hour episode, which isn’t a bad thing since the show already had a cinematic aesthetic, complete with long sweeping views of the gorgeous Downton grounds, and impressive tracking shots following the servants through the bustling downstairs corridors.
21 Jump Street
Against the odds, Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s 21 Jump Street works on just about every level, largely thanks to a whip-smart script that revels in the ridiculousness of its premise while at the same time subverting both the high school comedy and buddy/undercover cop genre. The film's first stroke of genius is to quickly reverse the roles of its lead actors. Through a mix-up at the school, geeky Schmidt (Jonah Hill) has to take drama classes with the popular kids, while jock Jenko (Channing Tatum) ends up in chemistry lessons with the nerds.
It's classic fish-out-of-water stuff, but so tightly scripted and beautifully performed that you soon forget about the lack of originality and just laugh. Throw in a couple of perfectly judged cameos, and you've got a film that's a genuine crowd-pleaser that satisfies nostalgia fans and newcomers alike, honoring the original 21 Jump Street while at the same time cleverly and consistently subverting the very notion of its being remade.
Mission: Impossible – Fallout
This 2018 adventure is the TV series-to-film franchise’s most critically and commercially successful entry. Fallout features healthy servings of M:I’s staple ingredients — government conspiracies, double-crosses, bombastic set-pieces — but as stated in IGN’s review, the main draw is watching “Tom Cruise do his death-defying thing.”
The Syndicate, rebuilt as The Apostles, returns as the antagonist organization in Fallout. Ethan Hunt, accompanied by Henry Cavill’s August Walker, is tasked with recovering three plutonium cores to prevent the detonation of three nuclear bombs. Cruise, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Michelle Monaghan, Rebecca Ferguson, Alec Baldwin, and Sean Harris all return from the series’ past, while Cavill leads a group of newcomers that includes Angela Bassett, Wes Bentley, and Vanessa Kirby.
MacGruber
Based on the SNL sketch of the same name and starring Will Forte, the concept is a simple one: the title character is a MacGyver-esque American hero who is none-too-bright, with his particular blind spot being explosives. Beyond the MacGyver spoof, however, the film takes shots at pretty much every action movie of the 1980s -- from First Blood to Lethal Weapon to Die Hard -- and the result is a feature that does for that genre what Austin Powers did for 1960s spy flicks. Having honed their characters on the TV show, Forte and Kristen Wiig deliver a comedy masterclass, with the pair seemingly prepared to do anything to raise a laugh. Highlights include throat-ripping and a sex scene that has to be seen to be believed.
The Muppets Take Manhattan
Jim Henson's Muppets already had a successful variety show on TV. The journey to the big screen enabled the Muppets to venture out into the wider world and move beyond the limited confines of the Muppet Theater. In this third and final Muppet film to debut before Henson's death, our diminutive heroes head to Manhattan to bring Manhattan Melodies to the masses.
Naturally, success isn't immediately forthcoming, and so the Muppets are forced to scatter across the country in search of odd jobs. Kermit finds new friends, and Miss Piggy gets up to her old tricks. But in the end, the Muppets get back together and bring down the house. The film also has the distinction of introducing the Muppet Babies, who would later gain their own animated series.
Serenity
If you haven't watched the FOX series Firefly on which Serenity is based, that's okay – the movie does a fast job of getting you caught up with the stakes our crew of Serenity faces. The World That Was has given birth to The Alliance, and one of their deadly Operatives is after River Tam (Summer Glau). River is a frail teenager wrapped around a brain full of means of killing, which makes her a living weapon. The Alliance wants her. Captain Reynolds won't let them get her. What ensues is one hell of a fun movie, whether you are a fan of the genre or not. It's funny, badass, and smart. Watch it. For the first time or the millionth.
The Simpsons Movie
By the time 2007 rolled around, the best days of The Simpsons were long behind it. The charm and wit of those early seasons had long since been replaced by sarcasm and Homer's endless shenanigans. It was surprising enough that the long-rumored movie even became a reality, much less that it was good enough to recall the glory of the show's golden years.
In The Simpsons Movie, Homer once again screws things up for his family and the entire town of Springfield, but in a fashion so epic that only the big screen could properly handle it. The movie packed plenty of celebrity cameos, including Green Day, Tom Hanks, and the long-awaited return of Albert Brooks as the film's villain. It was a return to form for The Simpsons that, sadly, wasn't a little more permanent.
South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut
The South Park movie does what the TV-to-film genre rarely achieves: It not only validates its existence as a standalone feature, but it also expands on and stretches the boundaries of its format in a legitimately worthwhile way. When the South Park kids sneak into an R-rated movie, only to return home with a newly obscenity-laden vocabulary, their parents and teachers decide to "Blame Canada," soon leading to war and, even worse, an air attack on the Baldwin brothers! Meanwhile, the eternally doomed Kenny winds up in Hell, where he learns that Satan and his lover Saddam Hussein are planning an attack of their own. It's all ridiculous, not surprisingly, but also hilarious (also not surprisingly). Plus, it's chock-full of genuinely fun and funny musical numbers. Also, fart jokes.
Star Trek (2009)
After a lull of seven years, Paramount brought Star Trek back to the big screen in a big way with J.J. Abrams' 2009 reboot. Recasting, de-aging and, yes, de-smarting the series to a degree, Abrams made a flashy and exciting film that won over mainstream audiences in a big way. This wasn't a new idea; Harve Bennett, who had produced Treks II through V, had years earlier wanted Star Trek VI to be a Starfleet Academy story. Obviously, Bennett was onto something, just a bit earlier than was necessary, because ultimately the facelift Abrams brought to Star Trek was just what the big screen franchise needed. Yes, Abrams plays fast and loose with Trek continuity, a fact that was (and is) troubling to some fans. But dropping that very continuity and starting from scratch is undoubtedly one of the film’s greatest strengths as well.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Both one of the best Trek films and best sci-fi movies ever made, Wrath of Khan picks up the storyline of a classic TOS episode, "Space Seed", and pits Kirk against Khan, a very intelligent, very pectorally-proud product of late-20th century genetic engineering. Khan wants nothing more than revenge on the Enterprise captain who marooned him and his crew years ago, and what we get is a space opera that holds up quite well with repeat viewings.
The action and ILM effects work are as good as you're gonna get for 1982 standards, made even better by an exceptional character-driven screenplay and confident direction by Nicholas Meyer. The movie treats the Enterprise crew as real people; they feel conflicted about growing old, they bleed and they grieve - especially when Kirk is forced to face a no-win scenario. Separated by safety glass, Kirk can only watch his best friend Spock die, slowly, as the Enterprise warp speeds away from its most bittersweet victory.
The Untouchables
Director Brian De Palma and writer David Mamet joined forces to tell the Prohibition-era story of Treasury agent Elliot Ness' war against Chicago crime lord Al Capone. Sean Connery, Kevin Costner, and Robert De Niro headline the cast in a very R-rated adaptation of the classic TV series that starred Robert Stack as Ness. Aside from Connery's Oscar-winning performance ("He brings a knife, you bring a gun!"), the film's physical production is also outstanding. Impressive Chicago exteriors and a broad daylight raid – on horseback, in Canada! – allow the movie a sense of scale the TV show could not afford. Ennio Morricone's stirring score also makes the film that much better.
Transformers: The Animated Movie
Unicron, Optimus Prime dying, and Stan Bush all in one movie? Premium nerd fuel. 1986 was a good year to be a fan of things based on a cartoon, which was based on toys, to be adapted into a feature film geared to sell more toys. It's not the best story ever told, but it hits all the right emotional beats. It's a movie that, decades years later, holds up better in fanboy hearts than the live-action films largely have, regardless of their shiny ILM effects.
A Very Brady Sequel
Another sequel (see: Addams Family Values) that is stronger than the original TV-to-movie adaptation. What worked about the Brady films is that they turned the beloved TV family into a hilariously creepy brood who were all inexplicably trapped in a time warp, where they acted like their groovy ‘60s TV selves while the rest of the world remained firmly grounded in contemporary reality. A Very Brady Sequel brought in Jan's fake boyfriend George Glass, the return of Carol's supposedly dead husband, some awesomely far-out incestuous feelings between Marcia and Greg, and a hostage-taking Hawaiian adventure.
Wayne's World
A product of the SNL's 1990s Renaissance, funny guys Mike Myers and Dana Carvey took their cable access show hosts, Wayne and Garth, to the big screen. and they brought their absurdist, satirical wit with them. With then-timely references to Terminator 2 and a few nods to pop culture fun such as Star Trek and Scooby-Doo endings, Wayne's World manages to be the rare sketch adaptation that expands upon its source material without any of the story feeling like filler. We get well-realized characters based on caricatures with a two-minute lifespan, in a movie that could have sucked but didn't.
Wayne's World took certain comedy risks – breaking the fourth wall several times, random cutaways such as one of the covert ninja-like SpecOps training behind a door in a donut shop – that feel more at place in the current comedy landscape than the one that brought us Sister Act and Encino Man. This is a long way to say a movie with purposeful on-screen sponsorship callouts and the mystery of what Wayne will do with a gun rack was ahead of its time.
The X-Files: Fight the Future
Mulder and Scully's first big-screen outing is the rare adaptation that hit theatres while the series was still in production. It's a physical and creative gamble, which paid off, delivering one of 1998's more cerebral Hollywood entertainments. The plot, centering on Mulder and Scully's search for the truth surrounding the Black Oil's alien presence on Earth, takes our FBI agents from exploding federal buildings to glaciers concealing a UFO. In doing so, the narrative keeps the action character-centric, providing more than just a widescreen version of a two-part episode. The storyline is enjoyable on a pure entertainment level for non-fans, but better appreciated (and understood) by the series' legion. Fight the Future does a consistent job of keeping the audience asking "What's next?" which is what good movies are supposed to do. (Unlike its sequel The X-Files: I Want to Believe.)
The Blues Brothers
This popular SNL skit about sibling bluesmen Jake and Elwood Blues (John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, respectively) became a hit comedy that saw the ne'er-do-wells undertake a "mission from God" to raise money to save their childhood orphanage. To accomplish this, the Blues Brothers reunite their old band and then proceed to run afoul of both the law and Illinois Nazis, resulting in one of the funniest and best-known car chases in movie history. This John Landis-directed classic boasts an amazing soundtrack and appearances by Carrie Fisher, James Brown, Ray Charles, Cab Calloway, Aretha Franklin, John Candy, and Steven Spielberg.
The Muppets
A truly triumphant big screen return for Jim Henson's beloved characters, The Muppets stars Jason Segel (who also co-wrote it with Nicholas Stoller) as Gary, a small-town guy who spends all his time with his girlfriend, Mary (Amy Adams), and his brother, Walter. The thing is, Walter just so happens to be a Muppet, and the two brothers both have a lifelong love of The Muppet Show, which they grew up watching on old VHS tapes. It was a risky tactic having the film begin with these new characters, particularly a new Muppet, but Walter (performed by Peter Linz) is a wonderful creation; lovable, good-hearted, and easy to root for.
The movie’s extremely funny with all of the self-aware, clever humor the Muppets are known for, as it openly deals with the fact that they’ve been out of the spotlight for a while when this film was released in 2011. But everyone involved knew exactly what it is that makes the Muppets work, and makes them so appealing and endearing to children and adults alike: that specific mixture of whimsy and earnestness that is sometimes sentimental, but never overly schmaltzy, and always retains a sense of humor.
Borat
The first of two movies featuring the character who debuted on Da Ali G Show, this 2006 mockumentary is hilarious as well as offensive, ridiculous, and often quite unbelievable. But what would you expect from a movie with a full title as unwieldy as Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan? Sacha Baron Cohen takes his mustachioed Kazakh reporter, Borat Sagdiyev, across America. The results, as Borat would say, are "very nice." Borat, both the character and the movie, would not work without the amazing comedic talents of star-writer Cohen. He completely embodies Borat and is so straight-faced and convincing in the part that you forget that this is an actor playing a role. From his unique mangling of the English language to his ability to goad innocent bystanders into obscene gags, Cohen’s Borat is a sight to behold.
The Equalizer 3
The Equalizer 3 ends the trilogy, based on the ‘80s TV series, strong with a style, energy, and cohesiveness that most sequels aren’t capable of. Director Antoine Fuqua and star Denzel Washington’s circle feels complete and delivers a showstopping dessert at the end of a solid three-course meal they’ve been preparing for almost a decade Although Robert McCall has officially given up his life as a government assassin, injustice continues to cross his radar, and he remains unable to ignore it. After taking a bullet while facing off against a cartel in Southern Italy, he’s rescued by a good samaritan and brought to a coastal village to recuperate. It’s not long before McCall spots the signs of a community under the oppressive and violent fist of local crime bosses. Of course, the small fish have bigger fish bosses, who happen to be the Sicilian mafia. All hell breaks loose as McCall does what he needs to do to protect his new friends and their livelihoods.
For more movie and television coverage, check out our picks for the 100 Best TV series of all time and the Best Action Movies.
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Best Movies Based on TV Shows - IGN
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