Top American Adaptations of Foreign Movies

“The Last American Virgin” is a rom-com about three high school students on a quest to lose their virginity. The film had echoes of teen raunch flicks like “Porky’s,” though critics said its more downbeat ending set the film apart from other contemporary teen fare. The movie is best known for its 1980s pop soundtrack. The Israeli version of the teen right-of-passage story was set in the 1950s.

A strong cast led by Nicolas Cage, Meg Ryan, and TV series veterans Andre Braugher and Dennis Franz is featured in this rom-com. Cage plays an angel who becomes visible to humans as they near their demise. He opts to take human form when he meets a distraught heart surgeon (Ryan). The film’s German predecessor was shot in black and white by director Wim Wenders. It stars Bruno Ganz, with a cameo by American actor Peter Falk, and scored 98% among Rotten Tomatoes critics.

In 1965, three Mossad agents went to East Berlin to apprehend a Nazi war criminal who performed medical experiments on concentration camp prisoners during World War II. They claim they’ve killed him, but in actuality he escapes. Thirty years later, a man claiming to be the Nazi has reappeared, and the agents must return to Berlin to finish the mission and avoid the disgrace of failing in the first place.

“Return to Paradise” is about three friends (Vince Vaughn, David Conrad, Joaquin Phoenix)

vacationing in Malaysia. Two return to New York to continue their careers while the third remains behind. The two who returned learn their friend has been arrested for drug activity they were all involved in and faces the death penalty. They are left with the decision of whether to return to Malaysia and share the penalty or let their friend die alone.

In this Michael Bay-directed white-knuckle ride, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II plays a man desperate to pay his wife’s soaring medical bills. He turns to his adoptive brother (Jake Gyllenhaal), a career criminal who offers him the chance to help him pull off a major heist in L.A. Things go wrong and they hijack an ambulance containing a badly wounded cop, leading to a manic chase through the streets of Los Angeles.