I see. So you didn’t like Gene Kelly as D’Artagnon and Morgan as the King, then?
Most of these examples are movies made from books or other sources. Almost no movie can ever encompass the full range of plot and character a book offers, so a new movie can always go back to the source material and dig deeper or just be more true.
Good movie remakes based on movies are therefore even more exceptionally rare.
And I haven’t seen both versions of the ones cited here, so I don’t know if any of them actually succeed.
I’ve seen them both and preferred the Lester version. For one thing, Michael York did a great job showing D’Artagnan’s youthful (foolish) self-confidence. For another, the other three musketeers were memorable characters in their own right in the Lester film.
Beau Geste. The Gary Cooper classic was a remake of a silent film starring Ronald Colman.
The Prisoner of Zenda. There are nine versions of this movie. The most famous, the 1937 film with Ronald Colman, was the fourth incarnation.
Ooh. Good one.
And your user name reminds me that the musical film production of Li’l Abner was reportedly much better than the previous attempts. Those films had different storylines though, so they probably don’t count as remakes.
And then of course there was “The Last Remake of Beau Geste” with Michael York and Marty Feldman. 
Wasn’t Warren Beatty’s “Heaven Can Wait” based on an earlier movie? (I’m thinking maybe something called “Here Comes Mr Jordan”?) I’ve never seen the original but always heard that Beatty’s version was better.
I don’t know if better, a couple weeks back, I saw the remake of FLight of the Pheonix. I had seen the original a month or so before that, but everyone watching felt it was at least as good, if not better then the original.
I felt the Jimmy Stewart remake of “The man who knew too much” was better then the original.
I really love the original Mr. Deeds with Jimmy Stuart and I have to say it’s better than Sandler’s version. But I love Sandler’s rendition. It manages to be very sweet while keeping a few of the darker moments as well. Plus, he goes on a bender with Johnny Mac. Pure fucking genius.
I have to give props to Samuel L.'s version of Shaft. I also found Red Dragon to be superior to Manhunter.
Wasn’t the Money Pit a remake? My girlfriend forced me to watch that movie this past year and I don’t know how I never saw it before.
Finally, the Island of Dr. Moreau. IoDM did what 28 Days Later couldn’t do, and did it years before 28DL couldn’t do it.
You’re gonna have a hard sell with this one. The best version is generally considered to be the first one, 1933’s Island of Lost Souls. In the 1970s, a movie was made with the original Island of Dr. Moreau title, and it was okay, but it had a 1970s feel to it, and a romantic subplot was added that distracted from the main storyline. And the John Frankenheimer 1996 version, starring a lump of dough that used to be Marlon Brando, is an abomination unto H.G. Wells. Seriously, tell me that’s not the one you were talking about.
I gonna disagree on SCARFACE, though – the first one with Paul Muni is amazing, and the remake isn’t.
I don’t think musicals – like LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS or LI’L ABNER – would count. They’re not remakes, they’re completely revised into a different medium.
I watched War Of The Worlds a couple of months ago - I’d last seen it when I was six and could only remember the very end and the war room stuff that made no sense to me at the time - and I can’t fathom how the new movie could possibly be worse than this one. There were many great movies made during the 50s and 60s, and WoTW wasn’t one of them. My mom is right: the people who did the dialogue should have been shot. 
No wonder I blocked most of it out…
Agreed that Red Dragon is a better film than Manhunter. No offense to Brian Cox and William Petersen in the original, who are both very good actors in a solid (if hopelessly dated) movie, but the newer version was just slicker and better-made, and it had Anthony Hopkins and Edward Norton in the same roles, which didn’t hurt.
Gotta disagree on this. I’ll take Peterson’s Graham over Norton’s any day. I like Cox’s take on Lecter better than Hopkins’, and Michael Mann’s direction was compelling enough to make me stop and watchj the movie in the middle of the night.
Cox played one scary Lecter. Hopkins was excellent, but he’s done the role before and with more character development from an additional book.
The Fellowship of the Ring blew away the original.
Jackson made a masterpiece. Ralph Bakshi made a disgrace in 1978.
Wizard of Oz (1939 Classic) was a remake of a 1925 silent film. (Oliver Hardy was the Tin Woodsman) I can’t stand the 1925 version.
Ocean 11 is a good example.
Best way to make a remake, is to remake a movie that is not a classic.
Sabrina was surprisingly good but could not measure up to the original. But remake Audrey Hepburn movies is just plain wrong.
Remake of Miracle on 34th street was a disgrace.
I think this is a case where the two versions both derive from the same work, and you get into murky waters calling it a “remake” – I don’t think the 1939 references the 1925 one, or had it in mind. By comparison, It’s hard to believe Cecil B. DeMille didn’t have his own version of The Ten Commandments in mind when he made the 1956 film (even though the plots are different)
Fist of Legend, by Jet Li. The same movie was done by Bruce Lee and Jacky Chan. Bruce Lee’s version is ok, Jacky’s version slightly less so, but Jet Li’s version is one of my favorite movies of all time and beats the other two version hands down.
I know Hardy was both a farmhand & the Tinman. I beleive they were both based loosely on a play that was based loosley on the book. This allowed for wide variation. But MGM was definately remaking the Wiz of Oz as the original was silent.
This might be semantics, but I beleive it counts as a remake.
What about Ben Hur? Or the various versions of Shakespeare’s works?