Top American Adaptations of Foreign Movies

Sled dogs are the real stars of this film about loyalty between humans and canines. In the frozen expanse of Antarctica, an accident and increasingly dangerous weather conditions force an American scientific team to abandon their mission and their sled dogs, who must try to survive the frigid landscape. The Japanese original takes place in 1958, with a team of Japanese scientists seeking the dogs they had left behind a year earlier.

This is a splashy Bob Fosse-directed musical (his first film) that stars the multi-talented Shirley MacLaine as an ever-hopeful performer at a rundown dance hall looking for, and finding, love. It’s based on the Federico Fellini movie “Nights of Cabiria,” released in 1957 and stars Giulietta Masina. It holds a 100% Rotten Tomatoes critics score.

Guy Ritchie and Jason Statham collaborated on this actioner set in Los Angeles, about an armored-car driver with incredible self-defense skills who seeks vengeance on those who killed his son. The film grossed more than $103 million worldwide. In the French original released 17 years earlier, a disturbed man is hired as a security guard for an armored-truck company.

Directed by acclaimed Swedish director Lasse Hallström, the movie is about a college professor (Richard Gere) who forms a friendship with a dog he finds on a train platform. Many critics found the storyline bland though they appreciated the connection between human and canine. Its Japanese predecessor, “Hachikō Monogatari,” was based on a true story about a dog’s loyalty to its human friend even after the man passes away.

The Mike Nichols-helmed farce “The Birdcage” stars Robin Williams and Nathan Lane as gay parents of a son who plans to marry the daughter of a conservative couple. A favorite of both critics and audiences, the remake of “La Cage aux Folles” had box-office revenue of more than $185 million worldwide. Its French/Italian predecessor holds a 95% Rotten Tomatoes score.