'Secret in Their Eyes' & 5 Great Remakes of Foreign Thrillers

Julia Roberts in ‘Secret in Their Eyes’/Image © STX Entertainment

The list of embarrassing, misguided, and pointless U.S. remakes of great foreign films is unflatteringly long. And yet, sometimes we get it just right. Oscar-nominated writer-director Billy Ray ("Shattered Glass") has pulled together a new Americanized, A-List adaptation of Eduardo Sacheri's dark and twisty 2005 novel The Question in Their Eyes, which weaves a story of unrequited love and revenge through an unsolved murder case that still haunts its investigators twenty-five years later. The original Argentinian adaptation won the Oscar for best foreign-language film in 2009, so we'll have to see if Ray's "Secret in Their Eyes" does the material justice. With the film opening Friday, November 20, we've picked our five favorite American remakes of foreign thrillers.

"The Departed" (2006)
The 2002 Hong Kong crime thriller "Infernal Affairs" plays out the ingenious plot of two moles on opposite sides of the law desperately trying to smoke each other out. William Monahan justifiably won an Oscar for his adapted script, which perfectly transposed the Hong Kong/triad setting to the Irish-Italian crime milieu of South Boston for a tense, star-studded adventure.

"Twelve Monkeys" (1995)
Terry Gilliam's strange and strangely moving time-travel thriller, written by Janet and David Webb Peoples, expands Chris Marker's classic French 1962 twenty-eight-minute short "La Jetée" into a science-fiction classic about a man sent back in time to track down the origin of the virus that wiped out most of humanity.

"Let Me In" (2010)
"Cloverfield" director Matt Reeves wrote and directed this viscerally disturbing adaptation of Swedish author John Ajvide Lindqvist's novel about a bullied boy who befriends a strange, protective girl that happens to be a vampire. Lindqvist adapted his own book for the original, equally great 2008 Swedish release "Let the Right One In" directed by Tomas Alfredson ("Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy").

"The Talented Mr. Ripley" (1999)
Anthony Minghella's brilliant adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's classic 1955 novel about a sociopathic conman who takes over the identity of a rich, old acquaintance he's murdered was justifiably nominated for five Oscars. René Clément's 1960 version, "Purple Noon," which featured French star-in-the-making Alain Delon as the diabolical Tom Ripley, is just as coldly riveting.

"The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" (2011)
Stieg Larsson's runaway bestseller about a disgraced journalist and a clever hacker trying to punish depraved men produced two great film adaptations -- the original 2009 Swedish version that starred Noomi Rapace as avenging angel Lisbeth Salander, and this English-language version written by Steven Zaillian, directed by David Fincher, and starring Rooney Mara as Salander. They barely differ in their approach to the bleak story, but that's just as well since Larsson's tight plotting and grim atmosphere are so effectively constructed.