Sequels Better Than the Original

Proof that the second time, occasionally, someone knew what they were doing.

Entries
10
Category
Film
Updated
  1. Four mechanical tentacle arms coiled on a cluttered laboratory floor, a stack of pizza boxes and a pair of glasses beside them.

    10. Spider-Man 2

    Sam Raimi · 2004

    Alfred Molina's Doctor Octopus is a sad scientist with very bad arms. Peter loses his powers, quits, comes back and stops a runaway elevated train with his body. It won the Oscar for visual effects. Also the best pizza delivery in the genre.

  2. A pilot's helmet and aviator sunglasses on the wing of a grey fighter jet parked on an aircraft carrier deck at sunset.

    09. Top Gun: Maverick

    Joseph Kosinski · 2022

    Thirty-six years later, the actors flew in real F/A-18 Super Hornets at $11,374 per flight hour. It made $1.5 billion and got a Best Picture nomination, and Spielberg said it saved the entire theatrical industry. The volleyball became football.

  3. A chainsaw resting on a cabin table next to an old leather book and a mounted deer head, a cellar trapdoor rattling in the floor.

    08. Evil Dead II

    Sam Raimi · 1987

    Rights issues meant Raimi couldn't reuse the first film, so he remade it as the opening and kept going. Bruce Campbell fights his own possessed hand, swaps it for a chainsaw, and ends up in the Middle Ages. It made $5.9 million. The hand made it look easy.

  4. A playing card lying face-up on a wet Gotham-style rooftop at night, a burning pile of cash in the street below.

    07. The Dark Knight

    Christopher Nolan · 2008

    Heath Ledger won a posthumous Oscar for the Joker, the film made over $1 billion, and about 28 minutes were shot on IMAX. Its Best Picture snub is widely credited with the Academy expanding the category. A villain who gets results.

  5. A pink prison laundry pile beside a stack of marmalade sandwiches on a tin tray, a pop-up book of London open on the cot.

    06. Paddington 2

    Paul King · 2017

    Hugh Grant as a vain, failing actor who frames a bear for theft. It became the most-reviewed film ever to hold 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, until one critic in 2021 dragged it to 99. Marmalade sandwiches reform an entire prison. Unimpeachable.

  6. A battered fuel tanker roaring down an empty desert road under a huge sky, a steel boomerang lying in the dust in the foreground.

    05. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior

    George Miller · 1981

    Retitled The Road Warrior in the US because almost nobody there had seen the first one. A bigger budget bought a tanker chase every apocalypse since has borrowed. A feral kid with a metal boomerang growls instead of talking. Max barely talks either.

  7. A yellow industrial power loader standing in a dim hangar, a pulse rifle and a motion tracker on a crate beside it.

    04. Aliens

    James Cameron · 1986

    Cameron turned a haunted-house movie into a war movie, and confirmed in 2021 that he pitched the title with a dollar sign drawn through the S. Sigourney Weaver got a Best Actress nomination for a sci-fi sequel. The Academy blinked first.

  8. A pool of silver liquid metal on a factory floor reflecting orange molten steel, a pair of sunglasses and a shotgun beside it.

    03. Terminator 2: Judgment Day

    James Cameron · 1991

    The most expensive film ever made at the time, with a liquid metal villain that changed visual effects. It grossed about $520 million, won four Oscars, and ends with a thumbs-up sinking into molten steel. Personal growth, in a robot.

  9. A frozen slab of carbonite standing in a steam-filled industrial chamber, a single severed mechanical hand on the grate below.

    02. The Empire Strikes Back

    Irvin Kershner · 1980

    Lucas paid for it himself out of his Star Wars profits and handed directing to Irvin Kershner. Reviews in 1980 were mixed. Harrison Ford suggested the line I know. The good guys lose, a hand comes off, and it ends on a cliffhanger. Correct in every way.

  10. An orange on a white tablecloth beside an empty chair, a boat on a grey lake visible through the window behind it.

    01. The Godfather Part II

    Francis Ford Coppola · 1974

    The first sequel to win Best Picture, with six Oscars total. Robert De Niro won for playing young Vito Corleone, the same man Brando won for, mostly in Sicilian. Two actors, one character, two Oscars. Efficient family business.

Honorable mentions

  • A cardboard box of glowing snacks in a sleek corporate skyscraper lobby, wet footprints leading from a fountain to a broken film projector.

    Gremlins 2: The New Batch

    Joe Dante · 1990

    Joe Dante got full creative control and used it to mock the first movie. Leonard Maltin, who panned the original, appears trashing it on video until gremlins attack him. Hulk Hogan threatens the projectionist. It underperformed. Taste rarely wins.

Dishonorable mentions

  • A giant white cruise ship plowing slowly into a Caribbean harbor town, deck chairs and fruit stands scattered in its path.

    Speed 2: Cruise Control

    Jan de Bont · 1997

    Keanu Reeves turned down $12 million, which was the first clue. Jan de Bont built it on a recurring nightmare about a cruise ship hitting an island, then made a Speed movie on a ship that does a few knots. It won the Razzie for Worst Remake or Sequel.

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