Adapted by David and Janet Peoples and directed by Terry Gilliam, 12 Monkeys was itself a fantastic film, and surprisingly faithful to many elements of La Jetée. The original short, meanwhile, remains a masterpiece. The video above is only a brief clip; if you can, do try to track down the full 28-minute film.

Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB (1968)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PAePOxImiM

Became: THX 1138 (1971)

The story of how George Lucas got into feature filmmaking – and set off on his path to Star Wars – is an oft-told one, but it’s worth returning to, if only as an excuse to revisit his early work. Lucas made his dystopian short film, the snappily-titled Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB, while he was at the University of Southern California. The result is a gritty and quite spooky: a pessimistic view of a future where humans have lost their identities in a maze of technology. One man – the THX of the title – tries to escape the nightmare of constant surveillance, and fails.

Lucas shot the film in and around the university, and many of his cast and crew were from the US Navy – the future Star Wars director had agreed to teach a class of Navy filmmakers in return for their assistance. THX 1138 was extremely well received, winning first prize in a student film festival and earning the attention of such industry figures as Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola.

Lucas later made THX 1138 into a similarly bleak feature film in 1971, produced by Coppola’s American Zoetrope and starring Robert Duvall and Donald Pleasence. Thereafter, he made American Grafitti, the hit 1973 drama, before heading off to a galaxy far, far away. Looking again at the striking, eerily downbeat imagery in THX 1138 again, we can only wonder what sort of career Lucas might have had if he’d never made Star Wars.

Within The Woods (1978)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yul22fUJBFc

Became: The Evil Dead (1981)

The Evil Dead brought Sam Raimi to the world’s attention as a mischievous master of gore and blackly comic mayhem. With its gritty, grungy look and icky special effects, The Evil Dead is still remembered as one of the most infamous horror films of the early 1980s. The film Raimi made before The Evil Dead was, if anything, even more grainy and rough around the edges – which only adds to its appeal.