10 Movies That Had The Balls To Do It Better (AND WANTED YOU TO KNOW)

These movies KNEW they nailed it - and wanted to make sure you did too.

Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse
Sony Pictures Releasing

Making a good movie is hard enough without having to deal with the baggage of what came before, whether a previous version of the film or the source material that inspired it.

But sometimes filmmakers feel that they've done it better, that they've pushed beyond the bounds of the prior work and found a more interesting path forward.

And with proud creatives generally being an immodest bunch, they sure as hell wanted you to know about it too, and so had their works basically low-key scream it from the heavens.

These 10 movies all dared to push back against the mistakes, shortcomings, or simply "lesser" nature of the material that preceded them, taking things forward in another, often mocking way.

From straight-up deriding an earlier version of the story to loudly announcing how they've improved it, and even retconning what came before straight out of existence, these movies all went fully scorched Earth on the movies and source texts that they categorically left in the dust.

What these movies might lack in grace and restraint, they more than compensate for with good humour and jolting shock value...

10. The Green Knight

Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse
A24

David Lowery's mesmerising Arthurian fantasy epic The Green Knight is a bold, spirited adaptation of the 14th-century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Though Lowery's film is certainly faithful to the spirit and the soul of the source text, it also diverges in some notable ways.

Beyond being decidedly more explicit and Mature than the poem, it changes the Green Knight (Ralph Ineson) into a more feral character, Sir Gawain (Dev Patel) is aged-up, new characters such as The Scavenger (Barry Keoghan) are introduced, and the ending is somewhat different.

It's a superb film any way you slice it, but Lowery concealed a slightly cheeky nod to the changes he made to the story within the dialogue of the movie itself.

At the end of the second act when Gawain meets the Lady (Alicia Vikander), she tells him that her library of books are comprised of stories she has herself written down after being told them by others.

She then tells Gawain, "Don't tell anyone this. Sometimes when I see room for improvements… I make them."

This is basically Lowery winking at the audience and slyly confirming that he tried to improve the original story - and arguably, he absolutely succeeded.

Contributor
Contributor

Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.