From ‘Some Like it Hot’ to ‘Three Men and a Baby’: 10 Hollywood movies you didn’t know were remakes of foreign films

Hollywood has longed looked to Europe, Asia and beyond for plot inspiration, and putting its own spin on things

‘True Lies’: James Cameron’s 1994 all-action movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis was a remake of the 1991 French film, ‘La Totale!’ In the original, a telecommunications worker Francois Voisin (Thierry Lhermitte) hides his secret agent identity from his wife. He is in fact, a world-renowned spy known as ‘l’Epee’ (‘The sword’). Courtesy 20th Century Fox, Supplied

‘Let Me In’: Originally called ‘Let The Right One In’, this Swedish film is about a bullied boy aged 12 who develops a friendship with a vampire child in a suburb of Stockholm. The Hollywood version transplants the creepy tale to New Mexico, with Chloe Grace Moretz starring as the vampire, Abby. Courtesy Filmpool Nord, Paramount Pictures

‘Some Like It Hot’: The 1959 classic stars Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis as guys on the run from the mob who disguise themselves as women. The film was based on the 1935 French original ‘Fanfare d’amour’. It also enjoyed a West German remake in between, with ‘Fanfares of Love’ coming out in 1951. Courtesy Solar-Films, Mirisch Company

‘Downhill’: The Hollywood version of the Swedish black comedy was released in 2020, six years after the original, ‘Force Majeure’. Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus star as the husband and wife whose marriage is tested when the husband, seeing an avalanche coming towards them, dashes off to save his own skin, rather than his family. Courtesy 20th Century Fox Film, Beofilm

‘The Departed’: Like Tarantino, director Martin Scorsese looked to Asia for the inspiration for his four-time Oscar-winning film. Based on the Hong Kong thriller ‘Infernal Affairs’ in which a police officer infiltrates a Triad gang, the Hollywood version starred big-hitters Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Jack Nicholson. Courtesy Warner Bros., Alamy

‘The Lake House’: The 2006 film starred Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves as two people living in separate moments in time, who meet via letters left in the mailbox where they live two years apart. It’s a remake of the 2000 South Korean film, ‘Il Mare’, starring Jun Ji-hyun and Lee Jung-jae. Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures, Blue Cinema

‘Insomnia’: Both the 1997 Norwegian original and the 2002 Hollywood remake, which starred Al Pacino and Hilary Swank, share the same name. The European version helped usher in a new wave of Norwegian cinematic noir which included ‘The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo’. Supplied, Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures

Three Men and a Baby: The enduring favourite, which spawned the sequel ‘Three Men and a Little Lady’, was released in 1987, two years after the French version which starred Roland Giraud as Pierre, Michel Boujenah as Michel and Andre Dussollier as Jacques. Courtesy Acteurs Auteurs Associés, Touchstone Pictures

‘The Parent Trap’: Remade by Hollywood twice, once in 1961 starring Hayley Mills as the Evers twins and again in 1998 with Lindsay Lohan doing double duty, the original was originally a West German film. Released in 1950, ‘Das doppelte Lottchen’ (‘Two Times Lotte’) used two actresses, sisters Jutta and Isa Gunther to play the twins. Courtesy Doring-Film, Disney

There are plenty of ways to tell that Hollywood has run out of original ideas. Unnecessary sequels, never-ending remakes and reimaginings (here's looking at you, Batman), a plethora of origins stories (hello, Joker) and TV shows transitioning to the big screen are among the most obvious. But Hollywood also has a long history of borrowing from world cinema and putting their own spin on things.

While some movie-makers are blatant about their inspirations, with Oscar-winning director Quentin Tarantino announcing to Empire: "I steal from every single movie ever made," there are plenty of other films you might not have known originated in other parts of the world.

Eighties favourite Three Men and a Baby, starring Ted Danson, Steve Guttenberg and Tom Selleck, was originally a French film called 3 hommes et un couffin, and came out in 1985, two years before the Hollywood version.

Likewise, the 1959 Oscar-winning black and white classic, Some Like it Hot, which starred Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon, was also based on a French film called Fanfare d'amour, which came out in 1935.

The latest to borrow from abroad – once again from French cinema – is British film director Guy Ritchie, who has teamed up with his favourite collaborator Jason Statham for the action packed Wrath of Man.

Based on the 2004 French thriller Le convoyeur, Statham stars as the mysterious one-lettered H, a cash truck security guard who shows himself to have almost preternatural robbery prevention skills which come to light during an attempted heist.

From the South Korean original that became the Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves film The Lake House, to the German film The Parent Trap was based on, scroll through the gallery above for 9 more Hollywood films you didn’t know were remakes.