Great film remakes
The remakes are always a controversial topic, which is a reasonable opinion among cinephiles, considering the quality of some of these films and the main reasons for making many of them. I share some of these opinions too, but it might be hard to accept for some people that there are film remakes which are equal or better in quality than the originals. I am generally not a big fan of today’s remakes, but through the history of cinema we had cases when the remake improved on the original film by giving it a new blood in the form of new themes and ideas presented in a meaningful way. Some of the remakes turned out better than the original films, some of them are equal in quality and fresh with new ideas, but each of the following films has its reason to exist, not just because of the usual, financial reasons.
So, some of my choices are:
The Fly (1986), directed by David Cronenberg – remake of The Fly (1958), directed by Kurt Neumann
The End of the Affair (1999), directed by Neil Jordan – remake of The End of the Affair (1955), directed by Edward Dmytryk
Sorcerer (1977), directed by William Friedkin – remake of The Wages of Fear (Le Salaire de la peur, 1953), directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), directed by Philip Kaufman – remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), directed by Don Siegel
The Thing (1982), directed by John Carpenter – remake of The Thing From Another World (1951), directed by Christian Nyby
Heat (1995), directed by Michael Mann – remake of the TV film L.A. Takedown (1989) – remade by the same director
The Maltese Falcon (1941), directed by John Huston – remake of The Maltese Falcon (1931), directed by Roy Del Ruth
Scarface (1983), directed by Brian De Palma – remake of the Scarface (1932), directed by Howard Hawks
The Blob (1988), directed by Chuck Russell – remake of The Blob (1958), directed by Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr.
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