25 Best Remakes that I can think of right now.

This thing about the worst remakes of all time really stuck in my craw and got me annoyed. It’s not because I disagreed with their choices as such, but rather because pointing out that a remake is bad is like pointing out that a professional basketball player is tall. They might as well make a list of the 25 most spoiled sports stars, or the 25 best looking supermodels. It’s a lazy article that was probably akin to shooting fish in some kind of hollow cylindrical object that can hold water.

The biggest problem being that you have to whittle the choices down to just 25. Also, a lot of the choices made there feel too safe to me. Most those movies are ones that the writer is confident aren’t going to have ardent supporters complaining about how their favorite movie was slagged off. Of course since they are talking about the 25 worst there might be a reason for that, but it still feels lazy to me.

So In decided that what we really need is a 25 BEST remakes, or at least the 25 that I can think of/like. I’ve tried to keep my list of remakes within movies that came out of Hollywood, just to prove that Hollywood remakes aren’t all bad. I sort of feel annoyed when people start getting all “In MY day the movies were better!” even though I can show that a lot of crap came out in any year they care to mention. As a side note, the rank in the list isn’t meant to be absolute. I’ve probably got some things in the wrong places, but I’ve tried to make the list as close to a descending to a number one as I could. Anyway, on with the list…

26. Let’s take a moment to mention most the superhero movies. I’m putting them collectively into the 26th slot because most hero movies have been made before, and will be made again. Superman, Batman, Captain America, The Green Hornet and many other heroes who would later have Big Time Feature films were serials, TV shows, and even a few big screen movies before the sudden resurgence in the 80s and 90s. Also, Indiana Jones is essentially a remake of most the Saturday serials all rolled into one trilogy. So, I think the super heroes as a whole deserve at least a nod for having so many movies.

Let’s begin with a real list of 25, shall we?

25. Valmont
Okay, so it’s just based on the same book as Dangerous Liaisons, but I think it fits. I might be stretching the point a little, but only a little and only for this one. I wanted one of those books that got remade again and again to represent all the Shakespeare and Jane Austen books that get done over and over. I could list every good production of each great book that’s been done to death, but we’d be here all day if I did that.

24. Die Hard
It’s High Noon… with machine guns. Watch High Noon, now watch Die Hard. You notice anything? Like the troubles with the wide? The one guy who wants to help but can’t? The officials telling him to just go away and stop causing trouble? The big fires? Yeah, they are the same movie!

23. The Fly (1986)
Actually, I like this better than the 1958 version. The ‘58 version is scary, but I find this one more involved.

22. Three Men and a Baby
Hard to compare this to Trois hommes et un couffin, because I’ve never seen it. However, as well as Three Men did, we have to admit it’s a remake that works.

21. Mark of the Vampire
Tod Browning remade his own silent (and lost) movie London after Midnight. How cool is that?

20. Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
The story has been made a bunch of times, In the Wake of the Bounty was made first in 1933, but the ‘35 one is probably the best one. If not, we can always claim the 1984 version with a young (and not yet crazy) Mel Gibson.

19. The Ten Commandments (1956)
I’ve got some problems with this movie, which I won’t go into here, but it can hardly be denied that it’s a great film in both the critical and popular senses. The 1923 original is a very different movie though. About half the movie is historical and half is contemporary, it’s an odd mix. You can see both if you buy the most current DVD though.

18. The Jackal
Based loosely on The Day of the Jackal, this is really a dark comedy retelling of the original suspense filled movie. This one is so over the top, and so silly in places that all you can do is call it a comedy. It was panned back when it came out, but I loved it because I saw the comedy. If you think of it as a statement about how over blown things are in modern movies (modern for the 90s anyway) then the massive cannon that Bruce Willis buys makes perfect sense.

17. Outland
A closer and more deliberate remake of High Noon, but this time it’s in SPACE!

16. The Great Gatsby (1974)
It was made twice before this version that I’ve actually seen came along. Once in 1926 and once in 1949. It’s a pretty good movie, even if it doesn’t quite mean you can skip reading the book if you want to pass the test in Lit Class.

15. The Italian Job (2003)
Not a really great movie, but if we’re honest neither is the 1969 version. It’s fun though, as is the original. I figure there is probably something about the ’69 version that I just don’t get, but I don’t think that’s such a massively great movie either. Oddly, the remake actually sort of, kind of, follows where the first one left off. The heist in the 2003 version is a short little thing, the movies is actually about getting the gold back from someone. That was going to be (sort of) the plot for The Italian Job 2, so there is that.

14. 3:10 to Yuma (2007)
I’ve probably seen the 1957 version at some point (because I’ve seen most things from the Western or Horror Genre made before 1980) but I can’t remember anything from it. The remake gets a little silly in some places, but for the most part it’s a perfectly serviceable western movie with some good performances and an entertaining story.

13. The Racket (1951)
First made in 1928. Not bad, not great either, but a good and serviceable movie. You get to watch Robert Mitchum breeze his way through a cop roll and Robert Ryan always makes a good bad guy.

12. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
You didn’t say it sucked in 1991 when it came out, so stop trying to front now. You probably started to pretend you hate the Ewoks in 1998 too. Broadly speaking it’s a live action remake of the 1971 Disney film, which is itself a remake of 1938’s The Adventures of Robin Hood staring Errol Flynn and THAT’S a remake of Douglas Fairbanks’ Robin Hood! If you want to split hairs, there is another movie that was made in 1991 simply called Robin Hood that follows Errol Flynn’s movie pretty closely.

11. To Be Or Not To Be (1983)
I like this, but I like the 1942 version as well. I haven’t seen either version in years, but I have good feelings towards both.

10. A Fistful of Dollars
An Italian Western, with an American star, based on Yojimbo, which is a 1961 jidaigeki which is itself based on the 1942 film The Glass Key which is based on Dashiell Hammett’s book. If you as some people though they’ll mention another of Hammett’s books, Red Harvest. My point is that here we have a remake of a remake, of a movie that was pretty good to begin with but nothing really great. *phew*

9. The Shining 1997
Actually, I like the made for TV remake. Mostly because I believe in Jack in this version of the story and he’s not completely insane on the day he shows up. I always kind of felt that there wasn’t much of an arc of decent in Jack Nicholson’s portrayal. I know, I know, I’m committing blasphemy for not preferring the Kubrick version. I’ve committed it before though, and I’ll probably do it again later.

8. The Magnificent Seven
Another Kurosawa remake, but it’s not just a remake of Seven Samurai, but a genuinely great movie in its own right. This is one of those places where you can say the film makers really got what the original guys were trying to do. The movie isn’t just a good western, but it’s a reflection on what the western genre had become and examines how the iconic heroes feel about their pasts, much like the samurai do in the Japanese original.

7. The Departed
I think this one stands on its own really. Oddly, watching Infernal Affairs and this isn’t like watching the same movie twice. I sort of feel like it’s watching two movies made about the same book that I haven’t read. There are lots of similarities, but there are just as many differences. The two movies are different enough, and good enough, that they both stand up on their own.

6. Scarface (1983)
You know, you really need to see the 1932 version to get why this is ranked so high. The new version is really a modern reflection of the original, while being a reflection of it’s times as well. You can see the defiance towards things like the old production code, which didn’t really have teeth when the first one was made, but was at least partly in place. The original had many forces to contend with, while the new version defies them and screams in their faces. The movie exists so completely in it’s time that it actually is a bit odd to watch now. When you see both, you get an appreciation for how things had changed, and how they’d stayed the same through out the years.

5. Ben Hur (1959)
A big damn epic! There was a one reel version made in 1907 and a larger epic version made in 1925, but it’s this one people think of when they think of Ben Hur. I like the ‘25 version, but I’ve got to admit that I think of this one first and I’m more likely to watch this version as well.

4. Ocean’s Eleven (2001)
I have tried to give the 1960 version and even shake, but just I didn’t like it much. This version is a vast improvement in my view. That’s why I ranked it so high. Not because it’s one of the best movies on this list, but because of how it compares to its counter part.

3. Nosferatu the Vampyre
I’m throwing it in here because Nosferatu is a great horror classic and this is a great movie as well. It’s good for a remake and it’s good just as a piece of horror. Score, and score!

2. The Wizard of Oz (1939)
First made in 1910 and then made again in 1925, both these versions fail to follow the book as well as the final theatrical remake of the first book would do.

1. The Maltese Falcon (1941)
First made ten years earlier in 1931 (and again in 1936 as Satan Met a Lady, but we don’t discuss that version) the ‘41 version is a significant improvement over the original. About the only thing that the ‘31 version really and truly has going for it are a few bits of pre-code sexual innuendo that just couldn’t pass muster ten years later. In ever other way, from acting to scripting to editing, directing and camera work, the newer version is significantly better. It’s hard to find anyone who doesn’t prefer the later Bogart version and makes it one of the best remakes of all.

Magnolias (not of steel)