Face/Off is the best body-swap movie ever made. Here’s why

Most of the best-known body-swapping movies are comedies, and many of those follow the age-gap pattern of Freaky Friday, a 1976 adaptation of the Mary Rodgers’ YA novel where a mother and daughter inhabit each other’s bodies for a day. The Rodgers novel has been remade by Disney multiple times, including a 2003 version with a new legacy sequel, and the late 1980s body-swap boom featured several male versions of that same basic story. Empathy is taught, lessons are learned, and everything works out in the end. Even the slasher version is pretty sweet-natured. Maybe it’s the formulaic nature of these often family-based stories that makes John Woo’s Face/Off an unexpected contender for the best body-swap movie ever made.