20 TV shows you didn’t realize were based on movies

Fargo works so well as a series that it’s hard to imagine it was a film first. But it was. And a good one at that. It was first a 1996 Coen Brothers film. And, of course, before that, it was a town in North Dakota. 

Audiences loved HBO’s series Westworld, but unlike quite a few HBO projects, this one wasn’t completely original. The series was based on the 1970s sci-fi Western of the same name. 

Everybody liked watching high schoolers play football so much that the Friday Night Lights film led to a series. And it was a successful idea. The show ran for five seasons and still has a strong fan base. 

Alice  was a sitcom that ran for nine seasons throughout the 1970s and 1980s. It was based on the Martin Scorsese film Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, and it begs the question: How many other Scorsese films are there that would make for great television? 

Teen Wolf  wasn’t just a movie before it was a TV series; it was a franchise. The original starred Michael J. Fox, and its sequel starred Jason Bateman. There was an animated TV adaptation, too, but it wasn’t as successful as the live-action series from the 2010s.

Hannibal Lecter has been in the public consciousness for decades. He was brought back to the mainstream for the series Hannibal, but he entered our minds through the 1991 horror film The Silence of the Lambs, which was adapted from the 1988 novel of the same name.  

We hear so much about the success of MASH as a TV series — it has the most-watched finale of any TV series in American history — that we forget it was first a movie. It was released just two years before the series premiered.

There are many, many Steve Martin movies from the ‘80s and ‘90s that could be adapted to a TV series. His 1989 film Parenthood is what loosely inspired the 2010 TV series of the same name. The series was a little more dramatic, though. 

Tina Fey adapted The Four Seasons for Netflix from the 1981 film of the same name. Comedy legends were in both the film and the TV series, with Alan Alda and Carol Burnett starring in the former and Fey and Steve Carell starring in the latter. 

10 Things I Hate About You was a short-lived series with just one season and 20 episodes. However, it was a series, nonetheless, and it was inspired by the iconic film of the same name, starring Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles. 

If you’ve seen Bates Motel, surely you know its origins. But if you haven’t, you probably didn’t realize that the series is based on the iconic horror film Psycho. It shows the events that led up to the eponymous psycho becoming such a psycho. 

If you loved the series 12 Monkeys , great news: There was a movie first. The series was based on the 1990s movie of the same name, with an absolute all-star cast of Brad Pitt, Bruce Willis, and Christopher Plummer. 

What We Do in the Shadows is a hysterical TV series, but it isn’t an original television idea. It’s based on a movie of the same name that deserves far more credit than it gets. The film was written and directed by stars Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement, and it was that team that brought it to life on television. 

Okay, it’s possible that you actually did know that High Fidelity is a movie and just didn’t realize that there was a TV adaptation. The series only ran for one season, but it had an incredible cast led by Zoe Kravitz, Jake Lacy, and Da’Vine Joy Randolph. 

Cobra Kai is another series that you likely know the origins of if you’ve seen it, but probably have no idea about if you haven’t seen it. It’s based on the iconic film The Karate Kid, and it even had star Ralph Macchio reprise his role. 

Sarah Michelle Gellar certainly defined the role of Buffy the Vampire Slayer , but she didn’t originate it. The series was based on the 1990s movie of the same name, which didn’t do fantastically at the box office or with critics, but it featured an incredible cast, including Donald Sutherland, Paul Reubens, Luke Perry, Hilary Swank, and David Arquette. 

The Librarians is a fantasy adventure series worth getting into if you like IP with continuity. The series is based on The Librarian, a made-for-TV movie starring ER ’s Noah Wyle, and the show has a loyal fanbase. 

Lethal Weapon enjoyed some TV success in the mid-to-late 2010s. And if you liked it, you should check out the film of the same name that it’s based on. Mel Gibson, Donny Glover, and Gary Busey star. 

The Gentlemen got off to a good start on Netflix, even taking home a Creative Arts Emmy. And unlike quite a few series based on movies that have been made lately, the source material for The Gentlemen isn’t that old. The film of the same name was released in 2019. 

Time Bandits was a short-lived Apple TV+ series starring Lisa Kudrow, based on the 1981 film of the same name, which starred Sean Connery and Shelley Duvall. The film might’ve had more fans than the series, but both are worth watching for some fun fantasy adventure.