10 Movies That Look Suspiciously Like Rip-Offs

Fast and Furious, 2001

The very first installment in the Fast and Furious franchise didn't yet have cars flying between buildings, but fairly closely followed the plot of 1991s Point Break. Both films feature undercover law enforcement operatives infiltrating gangs, embracing a new lifestyle, falling in love and under suspicion, and then facing off with the gang leader.

In later installments, the franchise really put the pedal to the metal, borrowing fast and furiously from Taxi, XXX, Death Race, Gone in Sixty Seconds, and many others.

A Fistful of Dollars, 1964

These days, remaking Japanese horror flicks is all the rage. As it turns out, back in the 1960s, it was Japanese samurai movies that got remade for western audiences all the time. For example, Italian director Sergio Leone loved Akira Kurosawa's 1961 samurai flick Bodyguard so much, that he barely deviated from the original's plot in his A Fistful of Dollars, only changing the location, the protagonists, and the weapons. In the Japanese film, a small town is terrorised by two criminal gangs when an expert swordsman samurai turns up. The two local gangs keep hiring him, overbidding each other, allowing him to eventually kill off all the gangsters. A Fistful of Dollars follows this plot to the letter to such an extent that Bodyguard producers successfully won a plagiarism suit against Sergio Leone and his crew.

Avatar, 2009

2009's Avatar was all about 3D and CGI. And as far as the plot was concerned, producer and director James Cameron simply used a collection of tried and true tropes: the story of a soldier infiltrating a native tribe, falling in love, adopting the locals' way of life, and ending up fighting on their side borrows heavily from 1990's Dances with Wolves, 2005's The New World and even Disney 's 1995 animated musical Pocahontas.

Cars, 2006

One thing Pixar productions were always famous for was their originality. But this changed with Cars: a stock car named Lightning McQueen crashes on his way to a race and ends up in a backwater town where he gets sentenced to several hours of community service. At first, he tries to escape, but he soon finds he actually enjoys the work, makes new friends, and falls in love. Does this sound familiar? Well, if you've seen 1991's Doc Hollywood, it certainly should. However, Cars made so much money at the box office that not only did it get a sequel but it also spawned its own rip-offs: the animated movies Planes and Turbo.

Disturbia, 2007

Disturbia is not just a film about how young and talented Shia LeBeouf once was, it's also a pretty faithful remake of Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 classic Rear Window. In both movies, the protagonist is trapped in his home because of an injury. Bored out of his skull, he starts watching his neighbours and discovers that one of them has committed a murder. In the end, in both movies, the partially immobilized protagonist has to face the murderer one on one.

Fatal Attraction, 1987

There is nothing new about the story of a one-night stand turning a man's life into hell on earth. In 1971, Clint Eastwood played a DJ who spends a night with a fan and ends up becoming her victim. 16 years later, Fatal Attraction, starring Michael Douglas and Glenn Close, followed essentially the same plot. The 1987 version adds more suspense but changes little about the story itself. Since then, several other movies have been made that use the same premise: Swimfan in 2002, The Boy Next Door, and Knock Knock in 2015.

Days of Thunder, 1990

In 1986's Top Gun, Tom Cruise played a top-notch fighter pilot who relies on instinct and always wants to be the best at everything, an attitude that eventually ends in tragedy. Four years later, Tom Cruise reprised essentially the same role in Days of Thunder, swapping out the cockpit of a fighter jet for the cockpit of a race car and Kelly McGiilis for Nicole Kidman.

Galaxy Quest, 1999

Galaxy Quest is not a rip-off of Star Trek. The science fiction spoof starring Sigourney Weaver and Alan Rickman follows instead the basic premise of the 1986 comedy classic Three Amigos. Actors playing roles are mistaken for their characters and end up going on an adventure of a lifetime. The principal difference between the two movies is that Three Amigos poked fun at westerns while Galaxy Quest sent up space operas.

Ecstasy, 1999

Quentin Tarantino loves borrowing great scenes from his favourite movies, masterfully weaving them into the plot. Then others try to replicate his successes. Ecstasy came out five years after Pulp Fiction and took the cue from the latter in telling several stories out of chronological order and bringing them all together at the end. And while Ecstasy enjoyed success at the box office when it came out, few people remember it now, unlike Pulp Fiction, which remains a classic.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens, 2015

Self-plagiarism is not a crime. That was probably the rationale behind Disney's Star Wars reboot. And it makes sense, seeing how 1977's Episode IV has since become a cult classic and how its fans definitely deserved to have a say in whether or not the saga should continue. So the team behind The Force Awakens decided to recreate all the tropes from the original, guiding the new female lead down the same path that Luke Skywalker followed in the 1977 episode. And in this new installment, Luke, who was a humble disciple in A New Hope, becomes a sensei, albeit a far less quirky one than Master Yoda.