Riddick 3 is the best movie to feature the character Riddick.
I love all 3, but was stunned they made the best one after such a long gap.
**Mad Max 4 **also was amazing and better than the original. And also had a huge gap.
I see BATMAN RETURNS scores a bit higher on Rotten Tomatoes than Michael Keaton’s first outing as Bruce Wayne, and I’d argue it at least deserves to count as a tie.
The Painted Veil with Naomi Watts is better than the earlier Garbo or Eleanor Parker versions.
There’s another W. Sommerset Maugham novel whose remake is not better than the original, but that’s not what the OP asks.
Casino Royale, Danial Craig remake of the dreadful David Niven Casino Royale
White Christmas, color remake of Holiday Inn.
Has Spider-Man 2 been mentioned?
Post #10.
Incidentally, if you’d shown me the SUPERMAN movie and told me to make it a little better, I’d have said “Well, sure, Christopher Reeve is flawless in the role – but if we’re being brutally honest here, (a) drop the Can You Read My Mind bit; (b) minimize the role of Otis; and © seriously, an action movie where our hero doesn’t throw a single punch? I want to see a bad guy getting punched through a building. I want to see a bus getting used as a throwing weapon. Has that ever been done on screen? Well, it’s time now: mess with a Kryptonian, and bones shatter just like pavement does. But for all that, give me a Clark Kent who has to outsmart Lex Luthor; and a Lois Lane who’s bright enough to realize Clark is Superman; and, I dunno, an ending that’s a bit more epic than blandly telling a warden we’re all on the same team – like, say, flying to the cinematically smashed White House, flag in hand, to tell the President he won’t let him down again.”
You can maybe argue SUPERMAN II doesn’t beat the original, but it’s at least as good.
There was plenty of pandering in the first one, albeit a different kind.
Father of the Bride
The Steve Martin version was just as good as the original, and I wasn’t looking for that. The one thing the new version couldn’t have was the radiant beauty of young Elizabeth Taylor. But the new girl was pretty and sweet.
Sequels better (IMHO):
*The Bride of Frankenstein
Aliens
Remakes Better:
The Maltese Falcon (HUston’s was the third version, easily better than the first two
Moby Dick – Huston’s version again, better than prior ones
The Wizard of Oz – I don’t know if this is what earlier posters meant, but the 1939 version wasn’t the first. It’s easily better than Larry Semon’s 1925 version (which is abysmal, but has Oliver Hardy(!) as The Tin Man). L. Frank Baum himself also made a series of Oz shorts that are more of historic interest than entertaining.
Actually, a lot of “good” versions were films that had had previous “silent” versions, and the sound versions were definitely better:
She
Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde
The Ten Commandments
Ben-Hur
However, Keaton’s Batman beats the pants off the original, with Adam West. Similarly, the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man.
Country singer/songwriter Brad Paisley saw the movie just after breaking up with his girlfriend, was quite taken with the bride in the movie, and cast her in a music video of his. They later married.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimberly_Williams-PaisleyOcean’s Eleven w/ George Clooney et al is a better film than the original Rat Pack one was. The Rat Pack version fails what Roger Ebert put out as a pretty good litmus for movies — people often get distracted by a movie having a great cast, but ask yourself “would I rather just watch and listen in on the actors chatting over lunch than watch them in this movie?” and you are pretty close to knowing whether the movie is any good.
For a Few Dollars More is a remake of Yojimbo, I can’t say if its better but its at least as good.
Yojimbo by Akira Kurosawa? Not for me.