9 Actors Who Made Better Versions Of Previous Films

5. Ryan Gosling - Drive & The Place Beyond The Pines

Nicolas Winding Refn's cult hit Drive casts Ryan Gosling as an unnamed stuntman who moonlights as a getaway driver, while also working a side-job as a mechanic. Gosling's protagonist then falls in love with a woman (Carey Mulligan) who is already in a relationship, and the movie ends with his life precariously hanging in the balance (though the popular interpretation is that he survives).

Gosling played an eerily similar role in Derek Cianfrance's crime drama released the very next year, The Place Beyond the Pines. His protagonist, Luke, is similarly a stuntman (this time on a motorcycle rather than a car) who ends up seduced into a life of crime, while working as a mechanic on the side.

Meanwhile, he gets romantically entangled with a former lover (Eva Mendes) who isn't single, and let's just say things don't go too well for Luke by the end of the movie (or long before the end, in fact).

There are undeniable tonal, stylistic and structural differences between the two films, but the similarities are too numerous to ignore. Many will attest that Drive is the better movie, but as entertaining as it is, the core of the story and characters aren't particularly memorable.

The Place Beyond the Pines packs a far more haunting and affecting punch, with another entrancingly stoic Gosling performance at the forefront.