10 of the Best Body Swap Films

One of the film world’s earliest forays into the body swapping genre occurred way back in 1917, when a rich jerk and a young blacksmith switched places in The Eye of Envy. But while there were a few pictures that later expanded on that far-fetched scenario (Hal Roach’s screwball comedy Turnabout in 1940, for example, or 1960 Danish fantasy The Greeneyed Elephant), the trope only really took hold toward the end of the 20th century. 

Since then, Hollywood has given us role reversals involving attorneys and adult film actors (The Change-Up), middle-aged criminals and teenage cheerleaders (The Hot Chick), and even workaholic billionaires and cats (Nine Lives). And with the sequel to 2003’s Freaky Friday, Freakier Friday, arriving in the wake of It’s What’s Inside, By Design, and Grafted, the concept appears to be as popular as ever. Here’s a look at 10 great movies about literally walking in someone else’s shoes. 

1. All of Me (1984)
2. Big (1988)
3. Face/Off (1997)
4. Being John Malkovich (1999)
5. Freaky Friday (2003)
6. 13 Going on 30 (2004)
7. Your Name (2016)
8. Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle (2017)
9. Freaky (2020)
10. The Substance (2024)

All of Me (1984)

“My mature film career started with All of Me,” Steve Martin once said, an odd claim considering the 1984 comedy finds his mild-mannered estate attorney accidentally imbued with the soul of an oddball heiress, played by Lily Tomlin. The funnyman still gets plenty of opportunities to manically contort his face and frame in a movie that continually veers from existential panic to full-blown farce. And then there’s the fact that Martin’s future wife, Victoria Tennant, plays a criminal schemer who willingly transfers her spirit into a horse. But no matter your interpretation of a grown-up picture, Martin is undeniably in his comedic prime—his constant sparring with Tomlin’s unwelcome guest produces all-time zingers such as “I never liked you when you were in your body; I certainly don’t like you in mine!”

Big (1988)

From Vice Versa and 14 Going on 30 to 18 Again! and Like Father, Like Son, the late 1980s was a boom period for the body swap comedy. But towering above them all was the film that cemented Tom Hanks (a replacement for Robert De Niro, if you can believe it) as the most amiable man in Hollywood. The star earned a Best Actor Oscar nod for capturing the wide-eyed innocence of a teen fast-forwarded into adulthood via a vintage Zoltar fortune teller machine. Sure, the infamous scene in which Elizabeth Perkins’s oblivious exec essentially sleeps with a 13-year-old wouldn’t pass muster today. But packed full of heart, warmth, and memorable set-pieces—the Walking Piano sequence, in particular, is an indelible part of ’80s cinema—Big’s charms far outweighs its shortcomings. 

Face/Off (1997)

As its title suggests, John Woo’s finest Hollywood hour is more interested in swapping faces than bodies, but the theme still applies. Here, John Travolta’s FBI agent Sean Archer undergoes some science-defying cosmetic surgery to discover where exactly Nicolas Cage’s terrorist—a man named Castor Troy who’d killed Archer’s son six years previously—is hiding a soon-to-be-detonated bomb. Of course, the latter doesn’t take kindly to having his face transplanted onto the enemy and vengefully confuses matters further by adopting the same form of extreme cosplay. Face/Off’s premise is gleefully absurd, of course, but both leads gamely throw themselves into all the madness, resulting in a hyper-stylized, hyper-violent, and hyper-entertaining reinvention of the cat-and-mouse thriller. It’s the kind of action cinema they simply don’t make anymore.

Being John Malkovich (1999)

The maverick duo of director Spike Jonze and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman were never going to create your average bodyswapper. But even so, the singular surrealism of Being John Malkovich is still a sight to behold. John Cusack plays a creepy New York puppeteer, Cameron Diaz a frumpy, frizzy-haired chimpanzee owner, and the titular thespian a version of himself whose mind can be inhabited by anyone with access to a special 7½ floor portal. Just the usual. Nominated for three Academy Awards, the cult classic poses all kinds of questions about autonomy, disillusionment, and self-identity. But it’s just as visually challenging, none more so than when a bewildered Malkovich steps into his own mind to witness a gathering of Malkoviches speaking in the language of Malkovich. 

Freaky Friday (2003)

While 1976’s  Jodie Foster/Barbara Harris version of Freaky Friday spearheaded the body swap renaissance, the 2003 remake remains the definitive. Then at the peak of her teen queen powers, Lindsay Lohan displayed a maturity when playing her character’s continually disapproving mom, which suggested a glittering career ahead. And Jamie Lee Curtis, who replaced Annette Bening just four days before filming, was clearly having a blast as a rebellious rock chick horrified to wake up as the “Crypt Keeper.” Throw in One Tree Hill heartthrob Chad Michael Murray riding a motorcycle, some era-appropriate slang (“Could you, like, chill for a sec”), and a high-spirited punk-pop soundtrack featuring double threat Lohan herself, and you have one of the quintessential comedies of the early ’00s.

13 Going on 30 (2004)

Pretty much the female equivalent of Big, this 2004 rom-com finds a teenager humiliated at her own birthday party wishing her life away (“I want to be 30 and flirty and thriving”), only to wake up the next morning 17 years into the future. Jennifer Garner is positively radiant as the shy and sweet nerd who discovers she’s now a glamorous fashion editor who will stop at nothing to get to the top; Mark Ruffalo and Judy Greer also provide strong support as her “Thriller”-dancing love interest and mean girl best friend, respectively. 13 Going on 30, which has since been adapted into a West End musical, might not reinvent the body swap wheel, but it’s still a joyously nostalgic helping of Hollywood make believe.

Your Name (2016)

“For me, it's incomplete, unbalanced,” self-critical director Makoto Shinkai once said of his fifth feature. “The plot is fine but the film is not at all perfect.” The fact it was critically lauded (98 percent on Rotten Tomatoes), inspired Hollywood to greenlight a live-action remake, and overtook Spirited Away as the highest-grossing anime of all time suggests the wider world vehemently disagreed. Your Name centers on two disenchanted teens—one from an isolated mountain town, the other the bustling metropolis of Tokyo—who intermittently get the opportunity to see if the grass really is greener on the other side. Incorporating elements of sci-fi, coming-of-age comedy, and star-crossed romance, the lushly drawn picture is equally adept at switching genres as it is bodies.

Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle (2017)

Hollywood once again seemed destined to tarnish childhoods when they announced a remake of ’90s VHS staple Jumanji. Yet Welcome to the Jungle unexpectedly managed to retain the original’s family-friendly charm while offering a contemporary body-swapping spin. Instead of being sucked into an old-fashioned board game, the film’s four teenage heroes are transported inside the console equivalent and forced to inhabit wildly different avatars. So the school star athlete is now a pint-sized zoologist with an aversion to speed. The socially-awkward nerd is now a supremely confident muscle man. And most amusingly, the self-involved princess is now a plump, hirsute cartographer who looks suspiciously like Jack Black. What follows is a high-octane, high-stakes (lose all three lives and it’s game over in life itself) caper that appeals to kids and kids at heart alike. 

Freaky (2020)

After giving Groundhog Day the slasher treatment with the two Happy Death Day films, Christopher Landon further cemented himself as horror’s great new genre-splicer with this deranged take on Freaky Friday. Vince Vaughn plays a serial killer named the Blissfield Butcher who swaps bodies with Kathryn Newton’s unpopular teen student shortly after she survives one of his attacks. The former makes for a surprisingly convincing teenage girl, whether it’s nailing a cheerleading routine or puckering up to a football jock. The latter, meanwhile, turns Freaky into something of a feminist revenge movie, dispatching the scourge of high school life with everything from a table saw to a cryogenic chamber. It’s the rare horror-comedy that brings both the laughs and the scares. 

The Substance (2024)

Demi Moore pulled off one of the great modern comebacks in the unlikeliest of vehicles: an unashamedly grotesque body horror that gradually reduced her to an amorphous blob. She even nearly bagged an Academy Award for her fearless performance as a faded actor who uses a black-market serum to compete with today's younger starlets. Of course, she ends up competing with herself when her alternative Lolita-esque body (played by Margaret Qualley) develops a mind of her own, aging her real self more quickly than you can say “pus-oozing hunchback.” The monstrous set-pieces will make your jaw drop—but as a meditation on the pressures of fame and society’s obsession with youth, Coralie Fargeat’s visceral tour-de-force also has plenty of substance to its gonzo style.

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