Top 20 Best Movie Remakes
Second time's a charm! Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the best reimaginings of popular films.
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00:00 I don't know what the hell's in there, but it's weird and pissed off, whatever it is."
00:03 Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the best reimaginings of
00:09 popular films. "Hey, I don't mind going it alone. You know, if you went alone every once in a while,
00:14 you might get somewhere." We'll be judging these remakes on their own merits, not how they stack
00:18 up against the original. Number 20. West Side Story
00:23 Remaking a film considered to be the cornerstone of its genre can be a tricky gambit. But if anyone
00:29 is up to the task, it's the master himself, Steven Spielberg. "Skyscrapers blooming America,
00:36 Cadillacs zooming America, industry booming America, 12 in a room in America."
00:43 A fan of the original since childhood, Spielberg brought unique flourishes to the new version that
00:49 wouldn't have been possible in the 1961 film or the stage play. Rita Moreno, who played Anita in
00:55 '61, even returns as a new character, Valentina, and serves as an executive producer. Despite never
01:02 directing a musical before, Spielberg's remake is a cinematic achievement and one of the best
01:08 in the genre the last few years. "There's nothing for me but Maria,
01:14 every sight that I see is Maria." Number 19. The Ring
01:22 Thanks to streaming, today people around the world can watch Japanese horror with the click
01:27 of a button. But in the past, many fans were only able to see J-horror by swapping VHS tapes. Which
01:33 is exactly how director Gore Verbinski discovered Ringu. "Who made it? Where'd it come from?"
01:39 Instantly intrigued, Verbinski set out to make an American version of the film,
01:43 which, appropriately, centers around watching a scary VHS tape. The film took many American
01:49 fans of the genre by surprise, featuring innovative and unsettling visuals, rather than
01:54 the gore and shock value that most Western horror films were known for at the time. It would go on
01:59 to spawn a successful franchise and bring Japanese-style horror into the mainstream.
02:04 "Is that the only one?" "I made a copy."
02:10 Number 18. The Jungle Book There have been countless remakes of
02:14 Disney animated classics, some better than others. "Look for the bare necessities,
02:20 the simple bare necessities." For our money, Jon Favreau's reimagining of Mowgli's story is the
02:27 best of them all. It manages to recapture much of the charm of the 1967 film while updating the
02:33 visuals. The impressive CGI animals were created using motion capture, groundbreaking animation,
02:39 and state-of-the-art rendering from Weta Digital. "Look for the bare necessities,
02:45 the simple bare necessities. Forget about your worries and strife." An all-star cast provided
02:52 phenomenal voice work to really bring these incredible-looking characters to life. Favreau
02:57 also brought the themes of the film into the 21st century, keeping in mind how humanity's
03:01 view of nature has changed since Rudyard Kipling's time. Number 17. Living
03:08 Based on the Akira Kurosawa drama, Akiru, which itself was inspired by Tolstoy's novella,
03:14 The Death of Ivan Ilyich, this film has quite the prestigious pedigree. That might be a lot to
03:20 "live up to" for living, but with the screenplay from Nobel Prize-winning author Sir Kazuo Ishiguro,
03:26 the film rose to the occasion. "Daddy, you alright?" "Yes. I was just sitting here,
03:36 thinking things over." It follows a British bureaucrat dealing with a terminal illness
03:41 and searching for meaning at the end of his life. Bill Nye portrays the character with a profound
03:46 sense of weariness and melancholy. His performance and Ishiguro's script received near-universal
03:52 praise, and both were nominated for Academy Awards. Number 16. True Lies
04:09 Perhaps a bit of an outlier in James Cameron's filmography, this action-comedy starring Arnold
04:14 Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis is based on the French film, Le Total. It utilized
04:20 Schwarzenegger's skills both as an action star and a physical comedian in his role as an
04:26 undercover secret agent disguised as mild-mannered salesman Harry Tasker. Even his wife, played by
04:32 Curtis, is unaware of the ruse, thinking her ordinary married life is a little boring. To
04:38 spice things up, Harry plans a fake spy mission for her that, of course, turns into a real one.
04:43 The first movie with a $100 million budget, True Lies is a wild, fast-paced action romp.
04:50 Number 15. Ben-Hur
04:58 One of the great biblical epics of the 1950s, the spectacular stunts and sheer scale of this
05:04 historical tale had an immeasurable influence on cinema. At the time, few films looked as grand as
05:19 Ben-Hur, which broke records for the biggest budget and largest sets ever constructed. Much
05:24 of that came from the famous chariot race, but this wasn't the first time MGM had created that
05:29 set piece. The 1925 version of the film was also noted for its thrilling race sequence,
05:35 which has been imitated in numerous other pieces of media. It was incredibly impressive for its
05:40 time, but the remake helped usher in a new era of epic filmmaking.
05:45 Number 14. The Birdcage
05:58 After the French farcical comedy La Cage a Folle became one of the biggest foreign
06:03 successes in the United States, an American remake was probably inevitable. The Birdcage
06:09 follows a gay couple running a nightclub who struggle to impress their future daughter-in-law's
06:14 conservative family. The film earned praise from GLAAD for portraying the characters as more than
06:19 just shallow stereotypes. And of course, Robin Williams and Nathan Lane give side-splittingly
06:24 hilarious performances. While plenty of other films discussing similar subject matter have
06:39 become dated, many viewers believe that The Birdcage has stood the test of time.
06:44 Number 13. Invasion of the Body Snatchers
06:48 Released in a climate of McCarthyism and a blossoming Cold War with the Soviet Union,
06:54 the first adaptation of Body Snatchers has an enduring legacy.
06:58 That legacy is only eclipsed by the remake, which took those same anxieties and showed them through
07:08 the lens of 1970s paranoia thrillers. While it still focused on the inability to know or trust
07:15 your neighbor, the film's new setting of San Francisco in 1978 added another layer of depth.
07:20 Some critics have noted that the film mirrors the slow death of the counterculture that had risen
07:30 in the 60s. Before characters in the film are replaced by unfeeling duplicates, they've already
07:36 given up their revolutionary dreams, becoming corporate drones long before the aliens arrive.
07:41 Number 12. A Fistful of Dollars
07:45 Unofficially based on the Japanese film Yojimbo, this film was an Italian,
07:50 West German and Spanish co-production with an Italian director set alongside the US-Mexico
07:56 border. That made it a truly international affair. The film's visual style, which would come to
08:09 define Sergio Leone's distinctive technique, was a synthesis of Kurosawa's Japanese method and that
08:16 of American Western filmmaker John Ford. The stoic man with no name anti-hero played by Clint
08:22 Eastwood also helped launch the actor's career, with the film serving as the first in a legendary
08:28 Old West trilogy. Number 11. The Invisible Man
08:41 Originally intended to be part of Universal's ill-fated Dark Universe, this remake of a 1933
08:46 sci-fi horror was instead produced as a standalone film. Shifting the focus onto a former girlfriend
09:02 of the titular Invisible Man, the movie follows her as she deals with issues of gaslighting and
09:07 abuse. In fact, much of the film makes the audience question whether there even is an
09:12 Invisible Man or if this is all a horrible delusion. The creators used the film's low
09:27 budget to brilliant effect, making empty spaces a thing of pure dread.
09:32 Number 10. A Star Is Born The classic film from 1937 was so iconic
09:38 that it's been remade on three separate occasions. And the 2018 release deserves its own mention
09:44 here. But it's narrowly edged out on our list by the first remake from 1954. Starring Hollywood
09:57 greats Judy Garland and James Mason and directed by the legendary George Cukor, the film is full
10:03 of both grand cinematic set pieces and quiet personal moments. The leads give two of the
10:08 best performances of their career, showcasing emotional highs and lows as one rises to stardom
10:15 and the other tragically spirals out of control. Number 9. King Kong
10:31 Between direct sequels, spin-offs, crossovers and remakes, The King has appeared in quite a
10:37 few films since his 1931 debut. However, nothing following that first appearance quite recaptured
10:43 the magic as much as Peter Jackson's 2005 version. The film was a passion project for Jackson,
10:57 who'd been a lifelong fan of the original. Thanks to some innovative motion capture techniques that
11:02 showed Kong's facial expressions in detail, Jackson was able to imbue the gigantic ape with an even
11:08 bigger dose of pathos than his predecessor. This made the film's ending all the more heartbreaking.
11:14 Number 8. True Grit The first adaptation of Charles Portis' 1968
11:32 novel was released just a year after the book and is partly remembered for being the film that
11:37 finally gave John Wayne an Oscar. The remake came over 40 years later. And while Jeff Bridges' turn
11:50 in the role of the one-eyed lawman Rooster Cogburn is equally iconic, the film shifted its focus.
11:56 Like the novel, the 2010 version places Maddie Ross, played by Hailee Steinfeld, in her breakout
12:03 role as the main character. Her quest for revenge against the man who murdered her father is
12:07 portrayed with a balance of melancholy and dark comedy that we've come to expect from the directorial
12:13 team of Joel and Ethan Coen. Number 7. Ocean's Eleven
12:28 One of a number of films made by the Las Vegas-based performers known as the Rat Pack,
12:34 the original Ocean's Eleven follows a group of con men robbing a series of casinos.
12:39 That basic premise is one of the few things that carried over to Steven Soderbergh's remake.
12:44 But he took it and ran. Like the original, some of the biggest stars of the day
12:58 played the group of thieves, each with their own specialized set of skills needed for the heist.
13:03 Its twists and turns keep the audience guessing in one of the sleekest films set in Sin City.
13:10 The penultimate scene set at the Bellagio Fountain still holds a special place in our hearts.
13:20 Number 6. Scarface Directed by Howard Hawks,
13:25 the original Scarface was a violent twist on the American dream.
13:28 Released in the 1930s, the film featured many of the traditional gangster film tropes,
13:42 following an Italian immigrant rising to power in the mob in Prohibition-era Chicago.
13:47 When Brian De Palma and Oliver Stone remade the movie in the 1980s,
13:51 they updated it to reflect the times. Scarface is now a Cuban immigrant in Miami building a
13:56 drug empire in an ultra-violent, profanity-laced film. This did not sit well with critics initially.
14:03 However, over the years, the movie has become a cult classic,
14:06 earning a spot for its poster on countless dorm room walls.
14:10 Number 5. Heat Meant to serve as a pilot for a TV series,
14:17 the original version of L.A. Takedown failed to be picked up by NBC and was instead made into a TV
14:23 movie. Writer-director Michael Mann eventually came to believe that his story had more potential.
14:36 After the success of The Last of the Mohicans, Mann returned to his original script. With the
14:41 backing of a studio budget, he was able to give scenes like the armored car heist the punch they
14:46 deserved. The film's cast also got an upgrade. While the original had talented TV actors,
14:52 Robert De Niro and Al Pacino helped turn Heat into an all-time great crime thriller.
14:57 Number 4. The Fly A tale of scientific innovation gone wrong,
15:13 the 1958 version was a classic B-movie, producing the now-iconic scene of a fly
15:18 with a man's head screaming for help. By the 1980s, the fun but dated effects in those earlier
15:30 films had given way to realistic and horrifying prosthetics. With David Cronenberg in the
15:36 director's chair and the brilliant Jeff Goldblum in the lead role, the movie also transformed into
15:41 something fascinatingly grotesque. Both versions warned of the relentless march of dangerous
15:46 science in the name of progress. But Cronenberg's version swapped camp for something that would
15:52 haunt our dreams. Number 3. The Magnificent Seven
16:02 The parallels between Japanese samurai films and American westerns often lead people to consider
16:07 them two sides of the same coin. Nowhere is it more apparent than in Akira Kurosawa's Seven
16:20 Samurai and its American remake, The Magnificent Seven. Like the original, the story follows a
16:26 group of seven warriors who are hired to defend a small village against a group of nefarious bandits.
16:32 The remake moved the action from Japan to Mexico and turned the swordsmen into gunslingers.
16:44 The Magnificent Seven became almost as influential for American cinema as Kurosawa's classic was for
16:51 Japan, standing as one of the most iconic westerns ever made. Number 2. The Departed
16:57 Martin Scorsese has long been a champion of international cinema. So it should come as
17:02 no surprise that he chose to remake the 2002 Hong Kong crime thriller Infernal Affairs.
17:08 Scorsese's version infused the plot with his distinct style, reminiscent of his earlier
17:19 uniquely American crime tragedies while keeping what made the original great.
17:23 Now set in Boston, The Departed follows two men undercover, one a policeman and the mob,
17:29 and the other a mobster who has infiltrated the police. The two men's lives are intertwined with
17:34 violence, betrayal, and love, and the themes of identity and guilt provide a strong undercurrent
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18:00 Number 1. The Thing Like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, some critics
18:07 see a representation of western fears of communism in 1951's The Thing from Another World.
18:18 John Carpenter's remake expands those Cold War allegories even further. Taking cues from the
18:24 1938 novella, in The Thing, the alien is able to replicate itself into any creature it encounters.
18:30 Anyone can be an alien, but false accusations can get an innocent person killed.
18:35 Groundbreaking special effects and an eerie score further deepen the sense of dread and paranoia in
18:46 the film. Ultimately, The Thing is now regarded by many critics as one of the best horror and
18:51 science fiction films ever made. Which movie remake do you think outshines the original?
18:57 Let us know in the comments below. Did you enjoy this video? Check out these other clips
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19:17 [Music]