Movie remakes that are quality movies in their own right

Cafe Society
1

I thought the Robocop remake (2014) was a great movie in its own right. The plot outline was different and the movie was pretty decent and better than the original Robocop.

I know remakes get shit on, but they can be pretty decent sometimes. However I don’t know if I’ve seen a good horror series remake. Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on elm street, Halloween, etc. The remakes of these weren’t very good.

The Thomas Crown affair remake was decent from what I recall of it (I’m only counting movies where I’ve seen both the original and the remake).

The Ring also had a good remake. I thought oldboy’s remake was passably good, but not as good as the Korean version.

2

Technically, The Wizard of Oz was aremake, but I’m not sure if that’s the sort of thing you’re looking for. There are probably a number of other similar cases.

3

The Thing - (John Carpenter’s) Better than the original. I like the latest one as well.

4

The modern Ocean’s Eleven is a fun movie.

5

I think the original was a fine film, but I also think Carpenter’s The Thing was a seminal classic.

6

So was The Maltese Falcon.

But it seems to me that there’s a significant difference between one person reading a book and saying, “I want to make a movie out of that!” followed by another person reading the same book and saying the same thing, versus a person watching an existing movie and saying, “I want to make that movie again!” If the 1931 Maltese Falcon had never been made, the one with Humphrey Bogart probably still would have been filmed ten years later. If Hitchcock had never made Psycho, then it’s absolutely certain that Gus van Sant would not have made it, either.

7

I think the remake of The Thing was better than the original also. The remake of True Grit was very good, a perfect example of a remake that stands up in its own right.

8

I love both The Things.

I thought I was the only person who enjoyed the new Robocop.

9

There are a lot of movies that are remakes that are virtually forgotten. A lot of the originals are silent filmsThe Maltese Falcon has already been mentioned. I’ll add:

The Brass Bottle – the original a “lost” silent film, the remake with Tony Randall, Burl Ives, and – NOT as the genie – Barbara Eden.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea – there were actually several silent versions, but the best was made just under a century ago, and was filmed underwater (in very advanced technology) in the same waters that Disney would film the remake in in 1954

Thirteen Ghosts – the original was a William Castle “gimmick” film. The remake had a wholly different plot, and was probably appreciated by more people.

She – H. Rider Haggard’s classic was filmed twice as a silent movie before Merian C. Cooper, fresh from King Kong, made the definitive version. It was remade twice after him, once with Christopher Lee and Ursula Andress.

Ben Hur – both the original and the remake were impressive fiolms.

The Ten Commandments – Cecil B. deMille “remade” his own film, tossing out the modern second plot and expanding the Biblical section to its own epic length. The original featured a Technicolor segment (so did Ben Hur) and some state-of-the-art special effects, climaxing with the Parting of the Red Sea. The 1956 remake upped the ante on the effects, again hitting its climax with the Red Sea scene.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame – remade many times, but the Lon Chaney version and the Charles Laughton version both can stand on their own.

King Kong – I know there are folks on this Board who hate Jackson’s remake, but I love it almost as much as the 1933 original. We’ll ignore what happened in 1976.

The Fly – the original is actually a good flick, and generally faithful to Langelaan’s original story. The Cronenberg remake is a entirely different creature (so to speak), and a worthy film in its own right.

10

The Thing and The Fly are awesome, I think I’ve seen the original Thing but I know I’ve seen the original Fly. I thought both the original Halloween and the remake were good.

I’ve never seen either Robocop. I’ve also only seen Terminator 3. I know, I’m lame. haha.

11

Invasion of the Body Snatchers from 1978.

I’ve heard the 1993 version of the story “Body Snatchers” was actually good as well, but I never saw it so can’t verify that. But AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE the Nicole Kidman stinker from the mid 2000s.

12

It’s been a while, but as I recall both version of The Parent Trap are very good.

13

I thought the Cape Fear remake with Robert De Niro was an improvement on the original.

I hadn’t heard anything about the Robocop remake before. I’ll have to give it a look. I loved the original.

14

Desperado
The Flight of the Phoenix
Four Brothers
The Four Feathers

15

The Hobbit. Yeah, it was sucky, but miles better than the Bass and Rankin cartoon.

16

Airplane was a comedy remake of Zero Hour and took quite a bit of dialog from the original.

Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much was a remake of his early version of The Man Who Knew Too Much. Opinion is divided as to which is better, the Hitchcock preferred the second version.

17

There’ve been several remakes of The Three Musketeers; I think the 70s version with Michael York was the high point.

By all objective criteria, Peter Jackson’s King Kong was the best version.

Every version of His Gal Friday/The Front Page/Switching Channels legitimately has its fans.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels was a remake of Bedtime Story, and a far superior one at that.

18

Looking at these lists…

…the following movies strike me as good on their own merits:

3:10 to Yuma
The Birdcage (remake of La Cage Aux Folles)
Heaven Can Wait (remake of Here Comes Mr. Jordan)
The Italian Job
Scarface
Three Men and A Baby
True Lies (remake of something called La Totale!)

19

Heaven Can Wait was better than Here Comes Mr. Jordan.

20

A Star Is Born (1937) starring Janet Gaynor and A Star Is Born (1954) starring Judy Garland are both very good films and get virtually the same user rating on imdb.

Then there was A Star Is Born (1976) starring Barbra Streisand, which is less beloved.