Hollywood is addicted to remakes. This year alone, cinema-goers have been treated to new versions of The Naked Gun and I Know What You Did Last Summer, while cameras have just started rolling on the estimated £75m-per-episode TV reboot of Harry Potter.
While the recent Liam Neeson-Pamela Anderson Naked Gun has been widely acclaimed, the received wisdom on new takes on old ideas is that they’re tacky cash-ins that arrive reeking of desperation. Yet, as the Neeson-Anderson chortle extravaganza demonstrates, that isn’t necessarily the case. Done right, a remake can equal or even improve on the original. Here are 11 remakes that surpassed the source material and found an audience of their own.
A Star Is Born, 2018
Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga in ‘A Star is Born’ (Photo: Neal Preston/Warner Bros/AP)
The seemingly timeless tale of a musical protégé who eclipses her alcoholic mentor has been told on screen on four separate occasions – first in 1937, then in 1954 with Judy Garland and James Mason. Until 2018, the definitive A Star is Born was the 1976 Barbra Streisand film, in which Streisand and a grizzled Kris Kristofferson sizzled up the screen. However, in 2018, they were thoroughly eclipsed by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper, who threw up sparks as the musical ingénue plagued by doubt and the sozzled veteran who helps get her career off the ground.
As a country singer in decline, Cooper is the perfect mix of battle-hardened and booze-afflicted. His singing is wonderful, to boot, particularly during a scene shot at Glastonbury in 2017 (when he went on before Kris Kristofferson). Gaga is excellent, too – her performance elevated by her reliably electrifying voice.
Scarface, 1983
Al Pacino delivered a powerhouse performance in ‘Scarface’ (Photo: Universal Studios)
The 1932 Scarface, as directed by Hollywood icon Howard Hawks and loosely based on the rise and fall of mobster Al Capone, was hugely controversial at the time. It actually had to be reshot amid claims that it glamorised Capone. However, its depiction of life on the mean streets of Prohibition-era Chicago had turned quaint and dated by the time Brian De Palma revisited it in 1983. Never renowned for his subtlety, De Palma went in all pistols blazing on his Scarface – a fever-dream of cocaine-fuelled excess, elevated by Al Pacino’s powerhouse performance. He brought in the now-defining “say hello to my little friend” line, and nobody can do over-the-top as searingly as Pacino, who, as Cuban refugee turned Miami crime lord Tony Montana, delivered one of the most brilliantly excessive turns in Hollywood history.
Freaky Friday, 2003
Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan in adult/teen body-swap film ‘Freaky Friday’ (Photo: Ron Batzdorff/Walt Disney)
Much like A Star Is Born, this teenage/adult body-swap comedy has been brought to the screen on multiple occasions. Until Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan got their hands on it, the best-known take was the 1976 original, adapted from the 1972 Mary Rodgers novel and starring Jodie Foster and Barbara Harris as a daughter and mother who trade places for the day. With a screenplay by Rodgers herself, it’s perfectly adequate. However, Foster is not known for her comedic qualities and is thoroughly outshone by Lohan in the 2003 remake, alongside a brilliantly maniacal Curtis. The 21st-century Freaky Friday – which this year spawned the sequel, Freakier Friday – is the better film, any day of the week.
The Fly, 1986
Jeff Goldblum delivered one of his greatest-ever performances in ‘The Fly’ (Photo: Archive Photos Getty)
David Cronenberg’s The Fly is a masterpiece of body horror. It features one of Jeff Goldblum’s greatest-ever performances as an obsessive scientist transformed into a giant, mirror-eyed insect when his pursuit of knowledge takes a disastrous wrong turn (involving a wonky teleportation device and a crush on Geena Davis). It’s a remake of a 1958 B-movie that brims with guilty-pleasure charm but is unintentionally hilarious due to the amateurish fly suit – according to original Fly actor David Hedison, “trying to act in it was like trying to play the piano with boxing gloves on”.
The Mummy, 1999
Rachel Weisz and John Hannah in ‘The Mummy’ – a rip-roaring thrill ride of a film (Photo: Universal Pictures)
Boris Karloff is brilliantly beastly as a baddie in bandages in the 1932 Mummy, but the film itself is stodgily paced and falls flat when the mummy is off-screen. More thrilling, by far, is Stephen Sommers’ Indiana Jones-inspired 1999 remake – a rip-roaring, seat-of-your-pants thrill ride that features heroic turns by Brendan Fraser and Rachael Weisz as dashing adventurers chasing forbidden knowledge in 1920s Egypt. Fraser’s charisma, and his genuinely sweet chemistry with Weisz, helps lift this version far above Indiana Jones knock-off status – and its spirit makes it a classic to this day.
True Grit, 2010
Newcomer Hailee Steinfeld – pictured with Matt Damon – won an Oscar nomination for her role in ‘True Grit’ (Photo: Wilson Webb /Paramount Pictures)
The 1969 Western True Grit might have been a lot more memorable had Elvis Presley agreed to be cast as the Texas Ranger sidekick to John Wayne’s US Marshall, Rooster Cogburn. But he insisted on top billing, and so the part instead went to singer Glenn Campbell – a lacklustre actor who shares zero spark with Wayne.
Still, something about the story of these two grizzled lawmen and the young girl who hires them to hunt the men who killed her father appealed to gonzo cineastes the Coen brothers. In 2010, they turned the film into a Cormac McCarthy-esque meditation on the brutal lawlessness of 19th-century America – its raw power elevated by Jeff Bridges in the Wayne role, Matt Damon as Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, and a young Hailee Steinfeld as the teenager who pays them to track her father’s killers. Steinfeld was an unknown, chosen from among 15,000 applicants to play Mattie Ross – her reward was an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
The Parent Trap, 1998
A 12-year-old Lindsay Lohan played twins in ‘The Parent Trap’ (Photo: Buena Vista)
An early indication of the star power of Lindsay Lohan, the 1998 Parent Trap has so thoroughly eclipsed the 1961 Hayley Mills original that many younger fans are unaware the old film even exists. Lohan, then aged 12, is perfectly cast as mischievous twins separated at birth who pull out all the stops to bring their divorced parents (Natasha Richardson and Dennis Quaid) back together. Lohan is irrepressible and visibly an A-lister in the making. Mills, by contrast, puts in a mannered performance that lacks the gleeful zing of a young Lohan out to make her name.
The Wizard Of Oz, 1939
‘The Wizard of Oz’ was a remake of a 1925 silent movie (Photo: Silver Screen Collection/Getty)
The 1939 Wizard of Oz is one of the greatest movies ever made and an early example of how colour filmmaking could transport audiences to other worlds. It also marks a huge improvement on the largely forgotten 1925 Wizard of Oz, a silent flick that plays fast and loose with the Frank L Baum novel from 1900. Fair enough, the 1939 Oz made changes, too, but none so radical as the decision to turn the Tin Man into a villain, as the 1925 version does. And, because it is silent, that earlier Oz lacks the songs so central to the magic of the remake.
Little Women, 2019
Greta Gerwig brought modern sensibilities to her version of ‘Little Women’ (Photo: Sony Pictures)
The great innovation Greta Gerwig brings to her take on Little Women is to imagine it as a modern story rather than as a stylised costume drama. All previous versions of the 1868 Louis May Alcott classic – even the “peak 90s” Winona Ryder/Kirsten Dunst/Claire Danes version – are squeezed too tightly into their figurative corsets and struggle for air. Gerwig, by contrast, makes the growing pains of the March sisters feel urgent and alive, both through her brisk camera work and thanks to grounded performances by Saoirse Ronan, Timothée Chalamet, Florence Pugh and the rest of the cast.
King Kong, 2005
In Peter Jackson’s remake, the CGI monsters are breathtaking and often terrifying (Photo: Weta Digital Ltd.,Universal Pictures/AP)
Coming off his Lord of the Rings trilogy, Peter Jackson was always going to struggle to make lightning strike twice. Given the weight of expectation, it was all too predictable, then, that his 2005 tilt at iconic monster flick King Kong would be panned as both overstuffed and underwhelming.
Some 20 years later, though, the film’s genius is undeniable and it effortlessly surpasses the 1933 version, with its badly dated stop-motion animation. Jackson’s CGI monsters are breathtaking and often terrifying – and Naomi Watts strikes the perfect balance of vulnerability and steel as the actor who captivates Kong.
Dune Parts One and Two, 2021, 2024
Timothée Chalamet and Rebecca Ferguson in Denis Villeneuve’s ‘Dune’ (Photo: Chia Bella James/Warner Bros/AP)
Sci-fi fans have a soft spot for David Lynch’s bonkers 1984 Dune – more than Lynch himself, who immediately disowned his $45m adaptation of the Frank Herbert classic. But while Lynch’s Dune has its charms and is elevated by an excellent lead performance by Kyle MacLachlan as reluctant Messiah Paul Atreides, it would not be until Denis Villeneuve that the sheer, uncanny weirdness of the Dune universe would make it to the screen. Psychic nuns, space-age prophecies and giant worms – all are fantastically present and correct in the visceral Villeneuve films, while Timothée Chalamet is chilling as Paul, the teenage saviour destined to rule the universe.