The Most Remade Film In The History Of Cinema

Perfect Strangers (Italian: Perfetti sconosciuti) is a 2016 Italian comedy-drama film directed by Paolo Genovese. It was released in Italy on February 11, 2016.

Following a group of friends who get together for a dinner party, the film tells the story of the evening as they decide to play a game in which they all lay their mobile phones out on the dinner table, and agree to read out every incoming message over the course of the meal, since they have nothing to hide from one another. Inevitably, chaos ensues when it appears there are one or two people keeping secrets that were never meant to be made out in the open, leading to quarrels, the rapid breakdown of friendships and more.

The film was a critical and commercial success, winning the David di Donatello in the Best Film Category and grossing more than €16 million in Italy. It has been remade in many countries including Spain, Mexico, South Korea, France, Hungary, Greece, China, Russia, Armenia, Germany, Poland and Vietnam.

On 15 July 2019, it was included in the Guinness World Records as it became the most remade film in cinema history, with a total of 18 versions of the film.

Remade film 2016 Italia Perfect strangers

But why has Perfect Strangers been remade so many times?

It is too good to produce just once.

Simply put, it’s a brilliant story, and one that combines two completely alien yet entirely relatable everyday situations: the dinner party, and the world inside your mobile phone. We all fret and worry about our secrets being released to the world, and this film takes those worries and puts them into a nightmarish social engagement, as a group of best friends all discover what every one of their friends is really like, with no inhibitions, no barriers and no privacy.

On top of that, the film points to how modern society is so overly reliant on the digital world, and more specifically, their mobile phones. Once again, a relatable and almost universal contemporary topic, the film cuts deep into a topic that’s still fairly untouched on the big screen, yet does it in equally fascinating and entertaining fashion, as all the trappings of the many secrets we hide away in our phones come out into the open.

That’s a theme that pretty much anyone in the modern day can relate to, and that’s why it has such a universal appeal to countries from all over the world.

Check out the list of the remakes and choose one (or more) to watch!