The Best Movie Remakes That Beat the Originals

We know—a list of the best movie remakes might seem like a contradiction in terms. Conventional wisdom goes that most movie remakes and reboots suck — or, at the very least, that they’re unnecessary cash grabs conceived solely to line the pockets of movie studios looking to profit from existing nostalgia for the classics. It is the conventional wisdom because this has often been the case, as evidenced by every questionable Hollywood remake of a beloved horror film (see: 2006’s The Omen, 2007’s Halloween, or 2015’s Poltergeist; hey, at least the A Nightmare on Elm Street reboot tried to do something a little novel), foreign-language hit, or golden-age oldie that should’ve been left in its original form.

But on occasion, there are remakes that feel like they’re actually doing something new—perhaps even better—to innovate on the film they’re based on in meaningful ways. Some are even just flat-out improvements on the movies that have come before them. To compile the below list of ten, we haven’t hand-wrung too much over the meaning of “remake”—we’ve included some movies that are more like reimaginings of shared source material, like Edgar Wright’s recent adaptation of The Running Man, which hit theaters this past weekend. Do pause and think on that before sending me a furious email demanding that we remake this list.

10. The Running Man (2025)