20 Classic Films That Could Be Rebooted with Female Leads

12. Dead Poets Society, with Angela Bassett

It’s hard to believe that Dead Poets Society is a film that came out over 25 years ago, but you can believe it when you look at the cast and realize that the actors who played Dr. Wilson on House and Will Gardner on The Good Wife are grown men now. It’s also one of my personal favorite roles of the late Robin Williams: a teacher who comes in to teach what he knows to a group of private school students and walks away realizing he’s done much more than that in the process. Now that Dead Poets Society is sitting comfortably in the annals of classic movies, I’d be curious to see how it would play out if a woman played the part of Keating. (And no, I’m not talking about How To Get Away With Murder‘s Annalise, although that is a wonderful coincidence.)

Angela Bassett has been mostly in the television spotlight lately with shows like American Horror Story (in which she starred for the last two seasons and is confirmed to return again for the show’s sixth cycle). She’s also on showrunner Bryan Fuller’s wishlist to be a Starfleet captain in the new CBS Star Trek series. And while other films have tried to tell the story of a radical female teacher trying to impact her students’ beliefs (Mona Lisa Smile partly succeeded), a film about an accomplished Black woman imparting lessons on young minds is one that I’d sit down to watch over and over again.

Next: Fight Club