While Prime Video’s Cruel Intentions is a new version of the story, the show still recreated many iconic scenes from the classic film.

Based on a modern retelling of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos‘ novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses, the original Cruel Intentions film was released in 1999. The movie told the story of Annette (Reese Witherspoon), who became a pawn in a Sєxual conquest wager between step siblings Sebastian (Ryan Phillippe) and Kathryn (Sarah Michelle Gellar).

Multiple attempts to recreate the Cruel Intentions magic resulted in some sequel films and a pilot that was never released. Prime Video had the most success with their TV adaptation, which starred Sarah Catherine Hook, Zac Burgess and Savannah Lee Smith in the тιтular roles.

Before the show premiered, however, the cast threw Us for a loop when they revealed they weren’t allowed to consult the movie for inspiration.

“We got pretty strict instructions which were, ‘Do not copy the original.’ And I had not seen the original at that point and I think for me — if I was to watch it — I’d be unconsciously influenced,” Burgess, who played Lucien, exclusively told Us Weekly in November 2024. “I didn’t want to replicate Ryan’s performance because it is a cult classic, and he did such a wonderful job the first time. It’s a new chapter to the series.”

Hook, meanwhile, had already seen the movie multiple times.

“I was really discouraged to do anything Sarah Michelle Gellar did. But of course, I think her gorgeous performance was just running rampant in my brain and I couldn’t avoid it,” the actress admitted to Us. “But honestly, I tried more to pull from the regalness of Glenn Close in Dangerous Liasons. So I think I leaned a little bit more in her direction — mostly because I was told not to go Sarah Michelle Gellar, and we didn’t want to copy her already iconic performance.”

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While speaking to Us, showrunners Sara Goodman and Phoebe Fisher broke down the balance between paying tribute and creating something new.

“Part of the fun of getting to take on this project is getting the opportunity to expand on all of these characters and all of these dynamics that we’ve set up in the pilot while still paying homage to the original source material,” Fisher said before Goodman added, “We didn’t want to alienate fans of the movie. We’re fans of the movie so we definitely wanted to keep the tone and those little references that we all love.”

Keep scrolling to see which iconic scenes from the Cruel Intentions movie were recreated in Prime Video’s TV version: