While people might say John Wayne in Rio Bravo and Rio Lobo count, a better match is Wayne in Rio Bravo and El Dorado.
<Insert obligatory Get Shorty reference.>
Edward Everett Horton played Nick Potter in the 1930 version of Holiday as well as the 1938 version.
Various horror movie stars in multiple versions of the same story. Peter Cushing was often Van Helsing. Christopher Lee was often Dracula.
Peter Cushing also played Sherlock Holmes in a number of different productions. He was in two different versions of The Hound of the Baskervilles. One was a cinema movie, the other was a 2-part TV episode
Donald Pleasence was a POW in The Great Escape (1963) and one of the German officer’s in the 1988 television remake (which put more focus on hunting down the Nazi responsible for the murders of the escaping prisoners.)
How is that the same character?
It’s the same character in the sense that I didn’t read the OP very well. Or hardly at all, it appears. Sorry. Please continue on without me.
Bela Lugosi apparently played Dracula at least 5 times, in 2 feature movies, 1 short movie and 2 TV episodes.
He also played Ygor in 2 Frankenstein films.
Son of Frankenstein in 1939 and Ghost of Frankenstein in 1942. Different directors and casts other than himself.
It’s a bit of a stretch, but Judi Dench played two separate "M"s in two different James Bond continuities.
(Inasmuch as James Bond has continuity).
In Young Holmes, young Sherlock Holmes is played by Nicholas Rowe.
In Mr Holmes, old Sherlock Holmes is played by… Ian McKellen. But when he goes to see a film of one Dr Watson’s reports about his “real” adventures, the role of Holmes in that film is played by Nicholas Rowe.
Christopher Lee played Count Dracula in the Hammer film Dracula (called Horror of Dracula in the US). He also played him in Jess Franco’s 1970 Count Dracula. Lee played Dracula many times, but only these two films were nominally based on Stoker’s novel.
Clark Gable played the same part in the movie Red Dust and its remake Mogambo.
Brigette Helm played Antinea in three different versions of l"Atlantide. This was back when they made completely new productions for different languages, rather than simply dubbing in voices. A couple of other parts were played by the same actoprs in two of the three versions, but Helm was the lead. And, I think, the only one to be in all three versions.
It’s not the same story, but Peter O’Toole notably played the same character – Henry IV of England – in The Lion in Winter and in Becket.
Kevin McCarthy arguably played the same character in the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers and the 1978 remake.
Jimmy Stewart played Elwood P. Dowd in the original movie Harvey and again many, many years later on TV.
For that matter, a lot of actors reprised their movie roles in radio adaptations of their films back in the 1940s and 1950s.
Oh, hey, checking…
The same actor (Yuyu Ozeki) played Toshio in Ju-On: The Grudge and JOTG 2 and The Grudge (a different actor played him in The Grudge 2, since the ghost of a little kid is harder to have consistent actors).
The same actor (Takashi Matsuyama) played Kayako’s husband and Toshio’s father, Takeo, in every appearance before the Ju-On reboot (5 movies across the two continuities).
Sean Connery, of course, played James Bond in both the original Thunderball and in Never Say Never again, its virtual remake.
Alastair Sim played Ebenezer Scrooge in both the 1951 version of A Christmas Carol and in the 1970 animated version for TV produced by Chuck Jones.
Vincent Price played what is essentially the character of Montresor from “The Cask of Amontillado” in both an evening with Edgar Allan Poe and Poe’s Tales of Terror, both Roger Corman films. In the former Price is as much narrator as character (although this is the most faithful Poe adaptation Corman ever did, arguably), while in the latter, the story is combined with “The Black Cat”, and Price’s character is named “Luchresi”, which recalls “Luchesi” from Poe’s story “The Cask of Amontillado”.
Price more often played different characters in different versions of Poe stories when he appeared in different versions (he played two different parts in two movie versions of The House of Seven Gables, for instance). It’s notable that both Price and Basil Rathbone both narrated Poe stories on audiobook and played the same characters in Roger Corman movies.
Speaking of which, it’s not two different movies, but Leo McKern played barrister Horace Rumpole in the same stories both on television and in distinctly different audio adaptations of the same stories (and for three different audiobook companies). Although at least two other voice actors performed Rumpole for audio, McKern did it more often, and was overall a much better interpretation of the role. Heck, author John Mortimer wrote them with McKern in mind.
The Cat and the Canary is a stage play by John Willard, written in 1922–one of the earliest Spend-The-Night-In-The-Spooky-Old-House-To-Inherit-A-Fortune stories. It’s been adapted to film several times.
Elizabeth Patterson played the role of Aunt Susan in the 1930 movie version, called The Cat Creeps. She played the same role in the 1939 movie version, called The Cat and the Canary, which starred Bob Hope.
You remember Elizabeth Patterson, if you remember her at all, as Mrs. Trumball, the neighbor lady who frequently babysat for Little Ricky on I Love Lucy.
Lon Chaney played Echo in the silent version of The Unholy Three, and played the same role in the sound remake five years later. Harry Earles also appeared as the same character in both.
Laurel and Hardy’s A Fine Mess was a remake of their earlier silent film Duck Soup.
Jesse White (the original Maytag repairman) also played Mr. Wilson (the orderly at the sanitarium) in both the 1950 movie and the 1972 TV-movie.
Hey everybody wanna feel old? Young Sherlock Holmes is 50.
James Stewart played Elwood P. Dowd in at least two versions of Harvey.
Look up two posts