RING (1998)

Japanese film Ring is considered to be a timeless horror movie classic, which achieved both critical and commercial success across Asia. The film was so well-received that it inspired two sequels and a prequel. It sparked a revival in horror filmmaking in Japan and garnered interest in Japanese horror cinema worldwide, coining the term J-Horror in the west. Subsequently, Ring led the way for other acclaimed Japanese films such as JuOn: The Grudge (2002) and Dark Water (2002).

The film resonated so well with international audiences that it was also remade in the United States in 2002 and went to number one at the box office, ultimately prompting one of the most curious baby-naming trends of all times: a boom of girls called Samara in America. (Samara jumped from the 929th to 456th most popular name for girls in 2003, according to the US Social Security Administration, and reached 256th in 2018.) Across the movie genre aisle, the comedy-horror franchise Scary Movie also used the plot from

Ring as part of the central storyline of its third instalment in 2003.