This week, fans get to witness the return of Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy) and the rest of the gang in this epic movie continuation of Peaky Blinders.
Watch With Us can’t wait to watch Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man on Netflix, but it got us thinking — what are some other great movies that started as TV shows?
Ahead of Peaky Blinders receiving the big screen treatment, we put our thinking caps on and pooled a list of the best movies that began on the small screen.
Our list includes hits like 21 Jump Street and more divisive fare like Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me.
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me chronicles the events leading up to the murder of Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), taking on a much darker tone than Twin Peaks had become known for while it aired on ABC in 1990 and 1991. The story initially follows FBI agents Chester Desmond (Chris Isaak) and Sam Stanley (Kiefer Sutherland), the former of whom goes missing while investigating the murder of teenager Teresa Banks (Pamela Gidley). Then, the film transitions to the final seven days of Laura Palmer’s life, as she is tormented by an evil entity known as BOB (Frank Silva) while juggling her double life as a popular high school beauty queen and drug-addicted sex worker.
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me was greenlit shortly after Twin Peaks was abruptly cancelled, after rapidly dwindling ratings plagued the season until its conclusion. The movie was extremely divisive upon release; brutal, abrasive, disturbing and a far cry from the lighthearted comedy of the series, many critics and audiences of the time bristled at its execution and content. However, it has enjoyed reappraisal in recent years, with fans and film analysts praising it as a true masterpiece that deconstructs the rot at the heart of the American nuclear family.
‘The Fugitive’ (1993)In Chicago, surgeon Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford) is wrongfully accused of killing his wife and sentenced to death. But when his fellow captives stage an escape on the bus ride to prison, Richard escapes, and a manhunt is unleashed by relentless Deputy U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones). On a quest to clear his name and find his wife’s true killer, Richard leads the team of U.S. marshals on a wild goose chase while uncovering the events that led to his wife’s death, convinced that a man with a prosthetic arm is the key to solving the crime.
Before The Fugitive became a seven-time Academy Award-nominated film (including a nomination for Best Picture), it was a 1960s television series that aired on ABC, starring David Janssen as Richard Kimble and Barry Morse as police detective Philip (not Samuel) Gerard. The Fugitive is still considered a taut, well-executed crime thriller to this day and one of the best movies of Ford’s career. The nonstop action, exhilarating pacing and efficient filmmaking from director Andrew Davis allow The Fugitive to endure as a classic.
‘Mission: Impossible’ (1996)After a covert assignment goes dangerously wrong, U.S. government operative Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is the only survivor of his team — and he’s suddenly the prime suspect in their murders, including that of his beloved mentor, Jim Pehlps (Jon Voigt). Hunt becomes a fugitive from justice, but he has to work quickly to find who is responsible for leaving all his fellow agents dead. To do this, he recruits a veteran hacker named Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) and expert pilot Franz Krieger (Jean Reno) to assist him in infiltrating a heavily guarded CIA building that houses a computer file that can exonerate him.
Cruise’s name is so synonymous with the Mission: Impossible franchise that you might not even realize that the series originated as a television show from 1966, and its sequel series from 1988. Though all the characters, including Ethan Hunt, are new creations for the films, Jim Phelps and his wife, Claire (Emmanuelle Béart), originate from the ’66 show. While the films have presumably ended with the recent The Final Reckoning, they remain wildly popular — the first movie is arguably the best. With exciting direction from Brian De Palma, a taut script and thrilling set pieces, Mission: Impossible remains an action classic.
’21 Jump Street’ (2010)After cops Morton Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Greg Jenko (Channing Tatum) fail to read an arrested suspect his Miranda rights, they’re reassigned to the 21 Jump Street unit: a revived police program which infiltrates illegal activity at high schools. Due to their youthful appearances, Schmidt and Jenko are tasked with going undercover as teenagers and containing the spread of a new synthetic drug. But when they show up for school, the once-popular Jenko finds himself in with the losers, and Schmidt, a former nerd, is suddenly on top. Can the two cops put their teen drama aside to save lives?
21 Jump Street resurrects the Johnny Depp-starring police procedural of the same name, which ran from 1987 to 1997 (Depp and fellow OG Jump Street actor Peter DeLuise both make uncredited cameos in the film). Directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller in their live-action directorial debuts, 21 Jump Street manages to take a show that many young people likely had never heard of and turn it into comedy gold. The chemistry between Hill and Tatum carries the film, and the screenplay by Michael Bacall is littered with unforgettable gags and nutty lines.
After clueless cop Frank Drebin’s (Leslie Nielsen) partner Norberg (O.J. Simpson) is shot in the line of duty, Drebin does whatever it takes to find the culprit. His investigation leads him to a business tycoon named Vincent Ludwig (Ricardo Montalbán), who is linked to a plot that aims to mind-control innocent people into becoming ruthless killers. However, Frank has no evidence, but his fortunes turn when he meets Ludwig’s ravishing assistant, Jane Spencer (Priscilla Presley). While she doesn’t actually know anything about Ludwig’s scheme, she agrees to help Frank, and they fall for one another.
This past summer, Liam Neeson took on the role of Frank Drebin’s successor, playing his detective son, Frank Drebin Jr., and showing off comedic chops to rival those of a comedy legend like Nielsen. But before Nielsen helped to first make The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! one of the most beloved comedy farces of all time, he starred as Drebin in the TV show Police Squad!, which was cancelled after only six episodes. In the end, Police Squad found new life on the big screen, and remains an unapologetically goofy, crass and absurd gag-a-minute rollercoaster.
