Top 10 Body Swap Films

Forget the 1995 TV movie and 2003 remake. The 1976 film worked because Barbara Harris and Jodie Foster were so enjoyable as the mother and daughter who swap bodies. The swap plays well because Foster was such a mature child and Harris was such a goofy adult. The two also sang the song "I'd Like to be You for a Day" for the film. The parent-child reversal was also used in Like Father Like Son (1987, with Dudley Moore and Kirk Cameron swapping) and Vice Versa (1988, with Judge Reinhold and Fred Savage doing the old switcheroo).

Technically not a body swap but a futuristic technology that allows a terrorist and an FBI agent to change faces and places. The fun part of this switch is to see John Travolta and Nicolas Cage play each other. So each one gets to play both good and evil.

A boxer named Joe (Robert Montgomery) gets whisked out of his body by an overeager angel who doesn't want to see the poor soul suffer a horrible death. Only problem is that Joe wasn't meant to die for another 50 years. But when the angel tries to put Joe back in his body, he discovers the body has been disposed of so a new one will have to be found. Unfortunately, the new body is fat and out of shape preventing Joe from pursuing his boxing career. A clever and even touching comedy that was nicely remade with Warren Beatty as Heaven Can Wait (1978).

This is the classic case of Hollywood loving to see a grown star act like a child; in this case it's Tom Hanks playing an adolescent. When a kid makes a wish to be big at a carnival fortune-telling machine, he wakes up as Hanks and ends up with a job at a toy company. This means Hanks gets to play with silly string, nibble on miniature corn on the cobb, and generally just not act his age.

And of course we have to have the female version of Big, so a 13-year-old girl plays a game on her 13th birthday and wakes up as 30-year-old Jennifer Garner. As with Big and Hanks, this film works because Garner has fun playing a kid.

The creepiest body swap -- and you could argue this isn't really a body swap -- occurs in this perplexing and fascinating psychological thriller from David Lynch. Naomi Watts and Laura Harring trade names and identities. But nothing is ever what it seems in a Lynch film...

Magic allows everyone to look like Harry to help the young wizard elude Voldemort. Then Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Ron (Rupert Grint), and Hermione swap bodies with a trio of adults to infiltrate the Ministry offices. But the best body swap of the franchise is when Hermione (Emma Watson) assumes Bellatrix's body to get into Gringotts. The fun is seeing Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix channel the uncomfortable teen Hermione.

I also need to include a gender swap. A millionairess (Lily Tomlin) tries to cheat death by transferring her soul to a younger woman, but something goes awry and she ends up in her lawyer's body (Steve Martin). The fun is in seeing these two comic greats share a body. At one point Martin has control of half his body while Tomlin controls the other and they try to cross the street. Another amusing gender swap occurs between Anton and Olga in the Russian vampire flick Day Watch (2006).

And here's an interspecies switcheroo: private eye Chevy Chase is murdered on the job and gets sent back to earth to solve his own case. Only catch is that he's a dog: the cute and iconic Benji.

Okay. I had to include one animated switch: Donkey and Puss in Boots trading toon bodies while the vocal talents of Eddie Murphy and Antonio Banderas convey the absurdity of the situation.

Bonus Pick: Most Uncomfortable Body Swap:
A popular teenage girl steals some ancient earrings and wakes up as Rob Schneider in The Hot Chick. Ew!!!!