11 movies that ended up working better on TV

Sometimes the cinema isn't the right place for a story. And, occasionally, a drama that starts in theatres gets even better when it is transplanted onto the small screen (plus, the only rustling popcorn is your own). Here are 11 times movies transformed to become better TV shows...

Before novelist Michael Crichton sent genetically reborn dinosaurs on a rampage, his robot theme park hit a glitch and started wiping out its visitors. Crichton wrote and directed the 1973 movie version of Westworld and while the first film has a Terminator-like joy to it, the current TV series has taken the battle between humans and hosts to a whole new intellectual, philosophical and narratively-mindboggling level.

When it was announced that Joss Whedon would turn his disappointing vampire movie into a TV series, there was a general shrug. Then we all fell as much in love with the pop-culture genius as we did with the kick-ass Ms Summers and the rest of the Scooby Gang. Nice save!

In between winning Oscars for Good Will Hunting and Argo, Ben Affleck's career took a bit of a hit. Playing Matt Murdock in Daredevil should have been a boost but fans didn't take to the film version in the way they have Charlie Cox's Netflix show. Being PG-13 didn't help.

Coming hot off his success with Back to the Future, Michael J Fox's werewolf comedy was a surprise hit at the box office. But the TV version took the campy 1985 movie and created a smarter show for a Twilight-obsessed audience that lasted for 100 episodes.

Kurt Russell's go-getting warrior and James Spader's bookish linguist in the movie became Richard Dean Anderson's deadpanning colonel and Michael Shanks's moral compass in the Stargate SG-1 television show. Round out the TV team with Christopher Judge and Amanda Tapping and this fun, multi-stranded franchise has so far racked up an impressive 362 episodes and multiple TV movies. Phew!

Ron Howard's fun 1989 movie boasted a stellar cast, including Steve Martin, Mary Steenburgen, Dianne Wiest, Jason Robards, Rick Moranis, Keanu Reeves and Joaquin Phoenix. Yet the 2010 TV series of the same name allowed the personal stories of the Braverman, Trussell and Graham families to be truly in-depth and audiences spent more than 100 episodes with them over five years.

Hugh Grant's antics in the movie adaptation of Nick Hornby's novel wowed critics but it was the TV version of About a Boy that struck a greater chord with audiences over its two seasons.

When ultra-violent gangster drama Gomorrah made the jump to TV it brought Godfather-style levels of family infighting to its weekly episodes. Watching adopted son Ciro and mobster Geni go head-to-head as the collateral damage stacked up was a box-set binger's dream.

For all its style, director Alan Parker's 1980 movie took a tough, gritty look at performing arts students hoping to make it in show business. The TV series took things in a more family-friendly direction – ditching the darkness to offer up a pre-Glee slice of feel-good entertainment each week. You remember its name, right?

Terry Gilliam's 1995 apocalyptic time-travel adventure took French film short La Jetée and crafted an impressive movie from it. Twenty years later Travis Fickett and Terry Matalas took those ideas and turned them into a thoroughly entertaining series that only recently aired its fourth and final season on Syfy. That's some growth for such a small acorn of an idea.

This 2004 sports drama made the leap to the small screen like an American football star reaching for a Hail Mary pass. It was so well received there was talk of another movie being made to wrap up these TV characters' stories, which would have sent it back in the direction it first came.