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Spiritual Successor / Live-Action Films (G-M)

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Spiritual Successor in Films.

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    G 
  • 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.
  • 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 

    I 

    J 
  • 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.

    K 

    L 
  • 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:
  • 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.

    M 
  • 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.
  • 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.

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