The 35 greatest movies based on TV shows
Jun. 26, 2024These movies made us put down the TV remote and head for the theater
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Just because television is called the “small screen” doesn’t mean it can’t have big screen ideas. In the history of the greatest TV shows turned into movies, what are the best of all time?
In 1954, the barriers that separated the world of TV and movies began to blur when the hit television crime drama Dragnet, directed by creator Jack Webb (who also starred) was made into a movie. Dragnet was already something of a “franchise” before this happened - it began life as a radio drama in 1949 - but its financially profitable adaptation into a movie proved that moviegoing audiences were willing to show up for anything, so long as they know what it’s about.
Hollywood as a whole had qualms about cinema and television being two totally different worlds, but everything slowly changed as the world marched into the 21st century. Now, when TV and movies all stream together on the same platforms and Oscar-winning actors don’t think twice about taking on TV roles, there is a surprisingly large canon of TV shows that have also become equally memorable, if not classic movies.
Here are 35 of the greatest movies that actually came from TV shows.
35. The End of Evangelion (1997)
While incomprehensible even to those who have seen all of Neon Genesis Evangelion, the brazen apocalyptic vision of director Hideaki Anno is hard to discount in this theatrical release designed to wrap up the show’s plot. After fans begged for a proper resolution to the popular anime series, Anno - in the midst of emotional duress and depression - answered with a monkey’s paw, a movie that does indeed wrap the story of Evangelion in perhaps the most aggressive, resentful way possible. Nothing illustrates Anno’s antagonistic relationship between his work and his admirers better than the very end of The End of Evangelion, in which a fan-favorite love interest expresses disgust towards the main character as they sit atop the ruins of the world.
It’s something of a high-wire act for a TV show entirely centered around bad movies to become a movie itself. Thankfully, the 1996 “film” Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie hardly changes a thing from its own formula. The only difference is, like, a more elaborate opening and somehow better jokes. Mike Nelson (played by Michael J. Nelson) is still stranded on a spaceship where he’s forced to watch bad movies as part of a mad scientist’s ongoing experiments. On deck is the 1955 oddity This Island Earth where, hey, you can see the Cubs losing.
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Dan Aykroyd and Tom Hanks team up in this laugh-a-minute sendup of 1940s detective media, itself based on the radio show-turned-TV hit Dragnet. Aykroyd plays the part of Joe Friday, nephew of the original Joe Friday portrayed by Jack Webb. Aykroyd’s Friday is a man basically frozen in time, his sharp suits, trilby hat, and outdated speech making him stick out in modern day Los Angeles. He is assigned a new partner, the cocky and streetwise Pep (Hanks), as they take on a case involving a millionaire adult magazine publisher and a Satanic cult. Dragnet isn’t the most popular movie in either Hanks or Aykroyd’s filmographies, but you can’t deny the appeal of the two rapping in “City of Crime.”
South Park co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone so relished how much controversy their Comedy Central series stirred among parents and censorship groups, they had to sing it in song. In 1999, the pair released South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut, a satirical animated musical that lampoons the misguided moral panic over popular media. After the children of South Park obsess over an R-rated film version of their favorite cartoon, their parents step up to protect them - by waging war against Canada. Also, Saddam Hussein and Satan are both involved. We can’t quote literally any of the songs here, but just know they’re devilishly catchy.
While The Simpsons Movie released during a prolonged flop era for the show, this long-in-development production won over almost all audiences with its throwback sense of humor and still relevant social satire. After Homer Simpson (Dan Castellaneta, reprising his role from the show) accidentally pollutes all of Springfield, the town is encased in a sealed glass dome. Eventually, the Simpsons family must save their friends and neighbors even though they’re so royally mad. The Simpsons Movie was a critical and commercial hit that wasn’t afraid to have a few laughs while exploring important issues like religion and environmentalism.
More than a decade after it went off the air, HBO’s prestige Western drama Deadwood enjoyed one last round in the saloon with Deadwood: The Movie, written by creator David Milch and directed by Daniel Minahan. A continuation of the original show and wholly designed to wrap up leftover story threads, Deadwood: The Movie takes place amid celebrations for South Dakota’s newfound statehood - but not all of its inhabitants are feeling joyous. Deadwood; The Movie reunites most of the show’s original cast (at least those whose characters were still alive, anyway) as their characters ride off into the sunset and into the footnotes of history books for good.
While The Addams Family began life as a cartoon, the 1964 television sitcom played a huge stylistic and artistic influence over Barry Sonnenfield’s hit movie (and debut as director). Anjelica Huston, Raul Julia, Christopher Lloyd, and Christina Ricci - as breakout character Wednesday Addams - all star in The Addams Family, a big screen imagining of the creepy and kooky, mysterious and spooky suburban household. But past all the cobwebs and black wardrobes, Sonnenfield’s movie is primarily about rebuilding, in its story about the long-lost relative Fester Addams (Lloyd) when he comes home after decades away with no contact.
The popular Saturday Night Live sketch comes to the big screen as Mike Myers and Dana Carvey again play their basement-dwelling metalheads with their own public access show. This time, a sleazy network executive, played by Rob Lowe, attempts to produce a bigger, more commercialized version of Wayne’s World, all while stealing Wayne’s own girlfriend Cassandra (Tia Carrere) out from under him. In this send-up of rags to only marginally better riches rock ‘n roll stories, Wayne’s World is a ballroom blitz of a good time.
The uncomfortable presence of O.J. Simpson aside, The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! brings the comical misadventures of Police Squad! to the big screen with legendary comic star Leslie Nielsen back in his role as Frank Drebin. A parody of police and detective noirs, The Naked Gun tells an intentionally ludicrous story in which Frank tries to stop a criminal plot involving mind control. Directed by David Zucker, The Naked Gun is armed and dangerous with its arsenal of slapstick gags and puns, as well as supporting actors Prisilla Presley, Ricardo Montalban, and George Kennedy who compliment Nielsen’s deadpan delivery and goofy faces.
Everyone has a favorite Batman movie. But aficionados may likely all agree that Batman: Mask of the Phantasm is the best of them all. Set in the same canon as the Emmy-winning Batman: The Animated Series, Mask of the Phantasm introduces a new love interest and nemesis for Batman in a story that challenges Batman’s understanding of justice when crime bosses are killed one by one. (They still made toys after this movie, by the way.) While planned for a direct-to-video release, Warner Bros. had strong faith in the movie - as they should have - to release it in theaters, only for it to bomb until it came out on home video afterward. All Batman movies are great in their own ways, but Mask of the Phantasm, with its twist ending, is truly one of a kind.
Celebrated filmmaker Tim Burton made his directing debut with Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, a big screen adventure for Paul Reubens’ quirky character Pee-Wee from The Pee-Wee Herman Show. A farcical retelling of the Italian classic film Bicycle Thieves, Pee-Wee goes on a zany search across America to retrieve his stolen bicycle. While Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure earned some positive reviews during its release, it eventually earned status as a true cult classic, both for Burton’s directing and Reubens' endlessly lovable weirdo.
Strictly speaking, Brian De Palma did not adapt the 1959-1963 television series The Untouchables. Both the show and De Palma’s movie were adaptations of Eliot Ness and Oscar Fraley’s own memoir. Still, the series' reputation as a landmark, hard-nosed crime drama no doubt informed De Palma’s approach to his film, which stars Kevin Costner as Prohibition agent Eliot Ness and Robert De Niro as famed gangster Al Capone. The Untouchables is simply top-notch American crime at its finest, and no matter what version you watch, you’re in for a treat.
Produced during the third season of the original incarnation of The Muppet Show, the 1979 road trip movie The Muppet Movie gave audiences a look at how Kermit the Frog gathered his band of misfits and dreamers to eventually wind up in Los Angeles. One of the first mainstream movies to employ surrealist humor, meta-references, lampooning of L.A. lifestyles, and a parade of celebrity cameos, The Muppet Movie helped spawn even more Muppet movies, making them all household names. In 2009, The Muppet Movie was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. Not bad for a movie where Gonzo hits on a chicken.
It might be hard to picture it now, but before The Fugitive was an iconic ’90s movie starring Harrison Ford, it was an episodic TV show that ran for four entire seasons. Both the show and the movie share the same premise: Dr. Richard Kimble (Ford in the movie, David Janssen in the show) is a physician wrongfully accused of murdering his wife. After he’s sentenced, Kimble escapes and begins a cross-country trip to find the real killer. Somehow, an actual 120 episodes were made without that story running out of steam. (And it was actually very popular!) But the movie cuts it all down to a tighter 130 minutes, or just over two hours.
Some 20 years after Michael Mann produced the pastel-colored, neon-lit ‘80 cop drama Miami Vice for NBC, the filmmaker - at the behest of Jamie Foxx - adapted the series into a grittier noir film revolving around haunted men. Colin Farrell and Foxx co-star as Miami detectives who go undercover to combat illegal substance trafficking rings. While initial response to Miami Vice was lukewarm in 2006, it has gone on to become a cult classic, a movie appreciated for its tragic atmosphere and darker retelling of what used to be a more colorful action drama. But only the movie taught us how to be a fiend for mojitos.
Eric Francisco is a freelance entertainment journalist and graduate of Rutgers University. If a movie or TV show has superheroes, spaceships, kung fu, or John Cena, he’s your guy to make sense of it. A former senior writer at Inverse, his byline has also appeared at Vulture, The Daily Beast, Observer, and The Mary Sue. You can find him screaming at Devils hockey games or dodging enemy fire in Call of Duty: Warzone.
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