Five movies that should return as TV shows

Twelve Monkeys is coming to TV, and I’m not excited. Terry Gilliam’s 1995 Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt-starring time-traveling thriller is a cult classic, and rightfully so. The plot is thrilling, the imagery otherworldly, and Pitt’s performance is remarkable. Featuring the most annoyingly angst-filled X-Man, the TV version is never-the-less finding a cast and coming next year to the SyFy channel, home of such classics as Sharktopus, Frankenfish and Piranhaconda.

But some movies just aren’t meant to be stretched out across 12 or 20-something episodes a year with long, over-arching themes and plot tangents. Remember the short-lived boob tube iterations of Clueless? Or worse, Ferris Bueller? Anyone? Um, Bueller?

Many comedies have not fared well in such transitions—though I would pay my weight in eggs to see Dazed and Confused serialized—but in an era when creativity is biggest on the small screen and Walter White, Don Draper and Nucky Thompson are household names, dramas and thrillers seem tailor-made for the modern cable TV landscape. Here are five films that should be revived as cable TV series.

Characters leading double lives are all the rage and for good reason, it makes for an incredibly tense and complex narrative that teeters on the razor’s edge of two simple questions: Who will find out and when? Harvey Kietel, and to a lesser but weirder extent, Nicolas Cage, have both embodied this seriously flawed detective who wages war with street thugs and mafia bosses as well as his own drug addiction. Cast: Former Law & Order: SVU star Christopher Meloni and HOUSE M.D. star Jennifer Morrison.

This 1994 documentary might be the greatest sports movie of all time. At least top 10. A documentary-style cable drama that follows two phenomenally gifted urban teens and cross-town rivals striving for fame and glory in the NBA and facing all the trials and temptations that come their way would make for powerful television, especially in the hands of David Simon. Ideal Cast: Treme‘s Renwick D. Scott and Beasts of the Southern Wild‘s Quvenzhane Wallis. Shoot, throw in Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the role of the veteran coach, a 7-foot Yoda.

Unexpected father figures often make for great television, and Luc Besson’s tale of a European assassin taking in an orphaned New York girl—Natalie Portman in her screen debut—and passing on his trade as a “cleaner” while both are on the run from Gary Oldman’s maniacal detective would probably become the next Breaking Bad, an edge-of-your-seat thriller with plenty of heart, and heartbreak, too. Cast: Eastern Promises‘ Vincent Cassel and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn‘s Mackenzie Foy.

Another theme trending now is that of the dark and alternate near future. No one, and I mean no one, has created an alternate near future world as believable and frightening as Alfonso Cauron did with this escape thriller set in a time when humanity has lost the ability to birth children. When a baby is born miraculously to a lowly countrywoman, a team of protectors, including Clive Owen, with various motives attempt to shuttle her to safety as civilization crumbles around them. Who wouldn’t tune in every week to see that? Cast: Zero Dark Thirty and The Great Gatsby‘s Joel Edgerton and Akeelah and the Bee‘s Keke Palmer.

Anarchists are sexy. Or at least Hollywood and much of the news media think so. From infamous hacker group Anonymous and this year’s indie hit The East to this London-set actioner from 2005 that pitted Hugo Weaving and Natalie Portman against an ultra-fascist government, subversive behavior is, well, all good. If it captures that rebels versus the evil Empire feel of the original Star Wars movies, even better. Anarchists certainly provide ample opportunity for set pieces and pyrotechnics which TV audiences love. Move the plot from London to New York City and you’re set. And always remember the 5th of November! Cast: Harry Potter‘s Alan Rickman and former Friday Night Lights star Minka Kelly.