Top 20 Best Movie Remakes

Remaking a film considered to be a cornerstone of its genre can be a tricky gambit, but if anyone is up to the task, it’s the master himself, Steven Spielberg. A fan of the original since childhood, Spielberg brought unique flourishes to the new version that wouldn’t have been possible in the 1961 film or the stage play. Rita Moreno, who played Anita in ‘61, even returns as a new character, Valentina, and serves as an executive producer. Despite never directing a musical before, Spielberg’s remake is a cinematic achievement and one of the best in the genre of the last few years.

Thanks to streaming, today people around the world can watch Japanese horror with the click of a button. But in days past, many fans were only able to see “J-horror” by swapping VHS tapes, which is exactly how director Gore Verbinski discovered “Ringu.” Instantly intrigued, Verbinski set out to make an American version of the film, which, appropriately, centers around watching a scary VHS tape. The film took many American fans of the genre by surprise, featuring innovative and unsettling visuals rather than the gore and shock value that most western horror films were known for at the time. It would go on to spawn a successful franchise and bring Japanese-style horror into the mainstream.

There have been countless remakes of Disney animated classics, some better than others. For our money, Jon Favreau’s reimagining of Mowgli’s story is the best of them all. It manages to recapture much of the charm of the 1967 film while updating the visuals. The impressive CGI animals were created using motion capture, groundbreaking animation, and state of the art rendering from Weta Digital. An all star cast provided phenomenal voice work to really bring these incredible looking characters to life. Favreau also brought the themes of the film into the twenty-first century, keeping in mind how humanity’s view of nature has changed since Rudyard Kipling’s time.

Based on the Akira Kurosawa drama “Ikiru,” which was itself inspired by Tolstoy’s novella “The Death of Ivan Ilyich,” this film has quite the prestigious pedigree. That might be a lot to live up to for “Living,” but with a screenplay from Nobel Prize winning author Sir Kazuo Ishiguro, the film rose to the occasion. It follows a British bureaucrat dealing with a terminal illness and searching for meaning at the end of his life. Bill Nighy portrays the character with a profound sense of weariness and melancholy. His performance and Ishiguro’s script received near-universal praise, and both were nominated for Academy Awards.

Perhaps a bit of an outlier in James Cameron’s filmography, this action comedy starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis is based on the French film “La Totale!” It utilized Schwarzenegger’s skills both as an action star and a physical comedian in his role as an undercover secret agent disguised as mild mannered salesman Harry Tasker. Even his wife, played by Curtis, is unaware of the ruse, thinking her ordinary married life is a little boring. To spice things up, Harry plans a fake spy mission for her that of course turns into a real one. The first movie with a $100 million budget, “True Lies” is a wild, fast-paced action romp.

One of the great Biblical epics of the 1950’s, the spectacular stunts and sheer scale of this historical tale had an immeasurable influence on cinema. At the time, few films looked as grand as “Ben-Hur," which broke records for the biggest budget and largest sets ever constructed. Much of that came from the famous chariot race, but this wasn’t the first time MGM had created that set piece. The 1925 version of the film was also noted for its thrilling race sequence, which has been imitated in numerous other pieces of media. It was incredibly impressive for its time, but the remake helped usher in a new era of epic filmmaking.

After the French farcical comedy “La Cage aux Folles” became one of the biggest foreign successes in the United States, an American remake was probably inevitable. “The Birdcage” follows a gay couple running a nightclub who struggle to impress their future daughter-in-law’s conservative family. The film earned praise from GLAAD for portraying the characters as more than just shallow stereotypes. And of course, Robin Williams and Nathan Lane give side splittingly hilarious performances. While plenty of other films discussing similar subject matter have become dated, many viewers believe that “The Birdcage” has stood the test of time.

Released in a climate of McCarthyism and a blossoming Cold War with the Soviet Union, the first adaptation of “Body Snatchers” has an enduring legacy. That legacy is only eclipsed by the remake, which took those same anxieties and showed them through the lens of 1970’s paranoia thrillers. While it still focused on the inability to know or trust your neighbor, the film’s new setting of San Francisco in 1978 added another layer of depth. Some critics have noted that the film mirrors the slow death of the counterculture that had risen in the 60’s. Before characters in the film are replaced by unfeeling duplicates, they’ve already given up their revolutionary dreams, becoming corporate drones long before the aliens arrive.

Unofficially based on the Japanese film “Yojimbo,” this film was an Italian, West German, and Spanish co-production with an Italian director, set along the US-Mexico border. That made it a truly international affair. The film's visual style, which would come to define Sergio Leone’s distinctive technique, was a synthesis of Kurosawa’s Japanese method and that of American western filmmaker John Ford. The stoic “Man with No Name” anti-hero played by Clint Eastwood also helped launch the actor's career, with the film serving as the first in a legendary old west trilogy.

Originally intended to be part of Universal’s ill-fated “Dark Universe,” this remake of a 1933 sci-fi horror was instead produced as a stand-alone film. Shifting the focus onto a former girlfriend of the titular invisible man, the movie follows her as she deals with issues of gaslighting and abuse. In fact, much of the film makes the audience question whether there even is an invisible man or if this is all a horrible delusion. The creators use the film’s low budget to brilliant effect, making empty spaces a thing of pure dread.

The classic film from 1937 was so iconic that it’s been remade on three separate occasions, and the 2018 release deserves its own mention here. But it’s narrowly edged out on our list by the first remake from 1954. Starring Hollywood greats Judy Garland and James Mason and directed by the legendary George Cukor, the film is full of both grand cinematic set pieces and quiet personal moments. The leads give two of the best performances of their careers, showcasing emotional highs and lows as one rises to stardom and the other tragically spirals out of control.

Between direct sequels, spinoffs, crossovers, and remakes, the king has appeared in quite a few films since his 1931 debut. However, nothing following that first appearance quite recaptured the magic as much as Peter Jackson’s 2005 version. The film was a passion project for Jackson, who’d been a lifelong fan of the original. Thanks to some innovative motion capture techniques that showed Kong’s facial expressions in detail, Jackson was able to imbue the gigantic ape with an even bigger dose of pathos than his predecessor. This made the film’s ending all the more heartbreaking.

The first adaptation of Charles Portis’s 1968 novel was released just a year after the book and is partly remembered for being the film that finally gave John Wayne an Oscar. The remake came over forty years later, and while Jeff Bridges' turn in the role of the one-eyed lawman Rooster Cogburn is equally iconic, the film shifted its focus. Like the novel, the 2010 version places Mattie Ross, played by Hailee Steinfeld in her breakout role, as the main character. Her quest for revenge against the man who murdered her father is portrayed with a balance of melancholy and dark comedy that we’ve come to expect from the directorial team of Joel and Ethan Coen.

One of a number of films made by the Las Vegas-based performers known as the Rat Pack, the original “Ocean’s 11” follows a group of conmen robbing a series of casinos. That basic premise is one of the few things that carried over to Steven Soderbergh’s remake, but he took it and ran. Like the original, some of the biggest stars of the day play the group of thieves, each with their own specialized set of skills needed for the heist. Its twists and turns keep the audience guessing in one of the sleekest films set in the city that never sleeps. The penultimate scene set at the Bellagio fountain still holds a special place in our hearts.

Directed by Howard Hawks, the original Scarface was a violent twist on the American dream. Released in the 1930s, the film featured many of the traditional gangster film tropes, following an Italian immigrant rising to power in the mob in Prohibition era Chicago. When Brian De Palma and Oliver Stone remade the movie in the 1980s, they updated it to reflect the times. Scarface is now a Cuban immigrant in Miami building a drug empire in an ultra-violent, profanity-laced film. This did not sit well with critics initially. However, over the years the movie has become a cult classic, earning a spot for its poster on countless dorm room walls.

Meant to serve as a pilot for a TV series, the original version of “L.A. Takedown” failed to be picked up by NBC and was instead made into a TV movie. Writer/director Michael Mann eventually came to believe that his story had more potential. After the success of “The Last of the Mohicans,” Mann returned to his original script. With the backing of a studio budget, he was able to give scenes like the armored car heist the punch they deserved. The film’s cast also got an upgrade. While the original had talented TV actors, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino helped turn “Heat” into an all-time great crime thriller.

A tale of scientific innovation gone wrong, the 1958 version was a classic B-movie, producing the now iconic scene of a fly with a man’s head screaming for help. By the 1980s the fun but dated effects in those earlier films had given way to realistic and horrifying prosthetics. With David Cronenberg in the director’s chair, and the brilliant Jeff Goldblum in the lead role, the movie also transformed into something fascinatingly grotesque. Both versions warned of the relentless march of dangerous science in the name of progress, but Cronenberg’s version swapped camp for something that would haunt our dreams.

The parallels between Japanese samurai films and American westerns often lead people to consider them two sides of the same coin. Nowhere is that more apparent than in Akira Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai” and its American remake, “The Magnificent Seven.” Like the original, the story follows a group of seven warriors who are hired to defend a small village against a group of nefarious bandits. The remake moved the action from Japan to Mexico and turned the swordsmen into gunslingers. “The Magnificent Seven” became almost as influential for American cinema as Kurosawa’s classic was for Japan, standing as one of the most iconic westerns ever made.

Martin Scorsese has long been a champion of international cinema, so it should come as no surprise that he chose to remake the 2002 Hong Kong crime thriller “Infernal Affairs.” Scorsese’s version infused the plot with his distinct style, reminiscent of his earlier uniquely American crime tragedies while keeping what made the original great. Now set in Boston, “The Departed” follows two men undercover, one a policeman in the mob, the other a mobster who has infiltrated the police. The two men’s lives are intertwined with violence, betrayal, and love, and the themes of identity and guilt provide a strong undercurrent throughout.

Like “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” some critics see a representation of Western fears of communism in 1951’s “The Thing From Another World.” John Carpenter’s remake expands those Cold War allegories even further. Taking cues from the 1938 novella, in “The Thing,” the alien is able to replicate itself into any creature it encounters. Anyone can be an alien – but false accusations can get an innocent person killed. Groundbreaking special effects and an eerie score further deepen the sense of dread and paranoia in the film. Ultimately “The Thing” is now regarded by many critics as one of the best horror and science fiction films ever made.