Sequels often get a bad rap, for being too derivative or bloated or money hungry (I have a whole podcast dedicated to rewriting the worst offenders). But when done correctly, a good movie sequel is amazing to watch. The best episodes of a tv show are usually later in the series, after we’ve gotten to know the characters. We’re fully invested and appreciate the stakes involved. The same thing can be true with movies. So without further ado, here is a list of the 31 best sequels ever (as of July 2017, hopefully The Last Jedi will make the list in a few months) and what makes them so good. Strap in, because just like a good sequel, this is a long one, but at least it’s not an unholy slideshow that you have to click through fifty times.
31. The Purge: Anarchy (2014)
There’s no denying that the high-concept pitch of these movies is fantastic in its absurdity: in an attempt to save society, the government has decided that for one day a year, for 12 hours, all crime is legal (whether or not you agree that there’s a festering criminal inside all of us who’s itch simply needs to be scratched once in a while is really besides the point here). And while it does try to touch on deeper themes of class antagonism and fears of big government, it’s really best to turn your brain off to enjoy the viewing experience. There’s so much opportunity for world building here, but the problem with the first movie is that it was way too confined. We only followed one rich family whose home gets invaded, instead of seeing what it was actually like outside for the average person. This movie wisely goes the other route, following five people as they try to make their way across downtown LA. You are legitimately freaked out for them when they’re stuck outside as the Purge alarms start, and while it’s never actually that scary, it packs some good tension and twists. There’s a few silly moments, and the cast is uneven, but Frank Grillo is great as a man looking for revenge for his son. Even though it would be much cooler had it been directed by John Carpenter thirty years earlier, it is still a solid sequel that’s far superior to its predecessor.
30. The Exorcist III (1990)
Probably the scariest movie you’ve never heard of. Starring George freaking C. Scott (who famously rejected his Oscar for Patton, saying that he didn’t believe it was possible to compare different acting performances) and written and directed by the writer of the original Exorcist book, it’s got a surprising amount of pedigree given how bad the second movie was. Scott plays the detective from the first movie, who is now investigating a string of murders that appear to somehow lead back to a serial killer that was executed years earlier. Even though it came out in 1990, it has the look and feel of a much older movie. The plotting is a little slow, but Scott goes all in, elevating the material with him. And there are some pretty legit scary moments (including probably the biggest jump scare I’ve ever seen). It’s worth noting that serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was interviewed saying he would watch this movie before stalking and killing his victims, because it “put him in the mood.” If that’s not enough to get you morbidly interested, there’s also a pretty wild dream sequence with Fabio and Patrick Ewing. Watch this movie!
29. Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
While this is pretty easily the best movie with the cast of The Next Generation, that’s not saying much. The notoriously earnest and dorky show never translated that well into the summer blockbuster movies it tried to become. This one attempts to appeal to a wider audience by adding time travel and the terrifying Borg, easily the best villains from the show. But whatever it gains by being an accessible action adventure, it loses in being faithful to the source material. Picard has horror-movie nightmares and runs around blasting bad guys in a sleeveless shirt, Giordi doesn’t wear his signature visor, the leaderless Borg are given a seductive Queen, and somehow Whoopi Goldberg’s character Guinan isn’t brought back at all, even though her origin story is directly tied to the Borg (if none of this means anything to you, I forgive you). It’s still a guilty pleasure of mine, and like I said, it’s the best we got from Picard and the gang. And it’s notable for being the first time nobody from the original series was in a Star Trek movie, getting out of the shadows of Shatner and Nimoy (something even the JJ Abrams movies couldn’t really do).
28. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)
Since this movie just came out a couple months ago, I’ll steer clear of plot spoilers. But I wasn’t expecting much going into this one. I wasn’t a huge fan of the first movie, it was fun and different, but I didn’t care about Groot or Rocket like the rest of the world seems to. And I’ve also been feeling a definite overexposure of all things Chris Pratt, causing him to lose a lot of his ‘aw shucks’ charm. But this movie really works despite all that, because of the other characters involved. Specifically Yondu, pictured above. Michael Rooker does such a fantastic job making this weird side character become the heart of the movie. And director James Gunn uses the theme of family surprisingly well to dig deeper with all of the Guardians, without being too heavy handed or cheesy. You also get a great performance from Kurt Russell, and a fun cameo by a mumbling Sly Stallone. If you were so-so on the first one, give this a rent and be pleasantly surprised.
27. Fast Five (2011)
In professional wrestling, the term ‘kayfabe’ is used to describe the suspension of disbelief the wrestlers, announcers, and fans employ at all times. Everyone knows it’s fake, but kayfabe is the unspoken rule to never acknowledge it, because it will just ruin all the fun. I mention this because I think kayfabe also applies to the improbable success of the Fast & the Furious franchise. We all know these movies are absurd Vin Diesel vanity projects with no self awareness that aren’t actually good, and yet none of us want to admit it because they’re just too damn fun. It wasn’t always this way, and you have Fast Five to thank for the change in tone. Besides the genius decision to add The Rock, this movie scrapped the focus on drag racing and car stealing, and moved the gang firmly into Mission: Impossible territory. As long as the mission to save the world loosely involves cars, this crew of former street racers is somehow up to the task (in the most recent movie Michelle Rodriguez is literally running around with the Russian nuclear football). These movies aren’t exactly known for being socially aware or progressive (this one completely wastes Wonder Woman herself, who is just used for slo-mo bikini shots), but audiences don’t seem to care. Apparently they’re only making two more movies, and at this point, it’s not even a joke to guess that they will be racing cars on the moon before it’s all over. And I will be there opening night, playing my part in the kayfabe.
26. Rocky IV (1985)
On paper, this movie is everything I hate about bad sequels: a ridiculous blockbuster that’s comically out of touch with the indie original. A fourth film written and directed by its star, desperately returning to cash in on an already fading trilogy. How many times can we watch the same boxer win or lose? And yet, I unapologetically love this movie. Somehow Stallone kept things fresh by upping the stakes to a ridiculous degree. He introduces us to Ivan Drago, arguably one of the best villains in all of cinema, and proves he is the real deal by having him kill Apollo freaking Creed. As if the revenge angle wasn’t enough to get us into the fight, he also pits the all-American underdog Rocky against Soviet perfection, during the tail end of the Cold War. Of course it’s a corny, on-the-nose, outdated 80s time capsule. But it’s still a blast.
25. New Nightmare (1994)
Technically the seventh film in the Nightmare on Elm Street series, you would be forgiven if you’ve never seen it. But it’s actually a really cool movie! After seeing his creation Freddy Krueger get destroyed with four terrible sequels (not counting the amazing Dream Warriors), Wes Craven returns to write and direct, with a twist. The movie takes place in real life, acknowledging that the Freddy movies exist. Elm Street alums Heather Langenkamp, John Saxon, and Robert Englund (the guy who has always played Freddy) all play themselves (Craven even stiffly shows up as himself, too), which is really fun to see if you’re a fan of the series. Langenkamp’s son starts to have nightmares about Freddy, even though she’s never shown him the movies. The studio wants her to make another sequel, but she’s not so sure. Then people start to get killed in real life, and she starts to realize that some version of Freddy has made his way into the real world. It gets a little cheesy, but it’s also surprisingly self aware and meta. Craven steers Freddy back to his creepy roots, away from the one-liner slashers like Chucky and the Leprechaun. You can see the connection between this and Scream, which Craven would direct two years later (there’s even a stalker that keeps making creepy phone calls). I like Craven because he was clearly intrigued about the relationship between horror fans and the serial killers they root for in film. Just like the opening movie theater scene in Scream 2, he portrays the audience of a tv talk show as a bloodthirsty mob. He wanted to dig deeper, and had a fresh take on what was a very dead property, and it relaunched the “Master of Horror”s career. Which is pretty neat.
24. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
A hugely disappointing sequel (although technically a prequel, as it’s set before Raiders because George Lucas didn’t want Nazis as the bad guys again), this still makes the list because of Harrison Ford, some fantastic set pieces and my nostalgia from having watched it so many times as a kid. Not bringing back Karen Allen was a big mistake, as was replacing her character with an absurd stereotype of a helpless woman. What you don’t notice as a kid is that this is an extremely racist and sexist movie, which is pretty indefensible. It’s often labeled as too dark for Indiana Jones (this movie and Gremlins were the primary reasons for the creation of the PG-13 rating, because every kid had nightmares about their heart bursting into flames), but I don’t think that’s the real problem. After a fun opening that admittedly might be more James Bond than Indiana Jones, the movie goes down a pretty weird path. We want to see Indiana Jones on a quest for an artifact, instead of just stumbling into a black magic cult that’s enslaving children. You do get some great chase scenes, and the set designs are incredible. And it could have been a lot worse: Lucas originally pitched Spielberg on three other ideas involving a Chinese Monkey King, a haunted castle, and an island of fucking dinosaurs! It’s bizarre to realize how much they nailed the first movie without learning along the way what makes an Indiana Jones movie an Indiana Jones movie.
23. Spider-Man 2 (2004)
Rebooting Spider-Man has become a bit of a joke, but there was a time when this was considered one of the best superhero movies ever. The 90s belonged to Batman, but the early 2000s were up for grabs. And it was going to either be the decade of X-Men or Spider-Man, but both franchises put out disastrous third movies that killed all their momentum. then Batman Begins came out in 05, Iron Man in 08, and from there superhero movies exploded, leaving Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire in the dust. Which is a shame, because Spider-Man 2 is a really great sequel. This is due in large part to the wise decision to not overcrowd it with villains and side plots. Alfred Molina steals the show as Doc Ock, and the special effects of his tentacles still look great. It’s also fun to see Raimi get back to his horror roots in the scene where doctors attempt to surgically remove the metal arms. The big moment in this of course is when Peter stops the runaway train, but everyone inside sees his face. One passenger notes in disbelief, “he’s just a kid”. Then they all try to protect him from Doc Ock until he’s ready to continue the fight. It’s a great scene that captures the essence of Spider-Man. Some of the earnest and goofy moments make this feel a little dated already, but for the most part it really holds up.
22. Creed (2015)
This movie is an example of the exact right way to continue an old franchise, instead of being the greedy final straw that knocks the whole thing down. You take an event that is canon (in this case the death of Apollo Creed) and then build from that. Imagine what it would be like if, before he died, Apollo had an affair, and that woman had a son that eventually got into boxing himself. And this kid is torn between anger and pride, between hating and honoring the father he never knew. That’s not a desperate cash grab, that’s a real deal movie! Even though Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan essentially recreate a modern version of the plot of the original Rocky, the angle feels really fresh. And the heart of the movie comes from Adonis Creed’s relationship with Rocky (if Stallone wasn’t in this, it wouldn’t be nearly as good. And it also would technically be more of a reboot/spin-off than a sequel, and it wouldn’t make the list. like Mad Max: Fury Road won’t be on this since they didn’t bring back Mel Gibson). Everyone involved wisely realized we have no interest in seeing old man Rocky box, but he is still an interesting character if given the proper dramatic weight. When we catch up with him, everyone he cared about has died. He no longer has a purpose, until Apollo Creed’s son asks him to be his trainer. Michael B. Jordan is fantastic to watch in this, as he portrays a complex character who has much more in common with Rocky than we originally think. He’s grown up with everything Rocky never had, but both men care about making their own name. And Stallone also kills it in this, reminding everyone he can still act when the material resonates. It’s an incredibly well done movie. As for Creed II/Rocky VIII, the plot writes itself: a match between Adonis and Ivan Drago’s son, with Rocky and Ivan as the two corner men. Give me that movie Coogler!
21. A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)
In Scream 3, Randy Meeks has prerecorded a tape explaining the rules of the concluding chapter in a horror trilogy:
1. The killer is going to be super human. Stabbing him won’t work.
2. Anyone including the main character can die. It’s the final chapter.
3. The past will come back to bite you in the ass.
This is Wes Craven winking at us, directly referencing Dream Warriors, a movie he wrote. This isn’t exactly a good movie, but it is an extremely weird and fun 80s horror adventure that I love. After the bizarre choice to turn Elm Street 2 into a movie about possession instead of the fear of being killed in your dreams, Craven rights the ship with a great premise. Heather Langenkamp returns as Nancy Thompson, the final girl from the first movie. She is now a therapist helping troubled teenagers who have been hospitalized. The teens all start to have dreams about Freddy, and as he kills them in their sleep one by one, all the evidence points to suicide. Nobody believes Nancy, who takes matters into her own hands and trains the surviving teens how to fight Freddy in their dreams. The kicker is that one of the teens (Patricia Arquette in her debut) has the ability to pull other people into her dreams, so they can all fight Freddy together in the same dream. This is all great stuff, but the script is also overcrowded with too many other competing ideas. There’s a new drug that supposedly stops you from dreaming but it never comes into play, we halfheartedly explore Freddy’s mom’s disturbing backstory, and then Nancy’s dad has to track down Freddy’s buried remains and fight a skeleton. Still, the creativity with each Freddy dream sequence is worth the price of admission (ironically, in an attempt to properly close out the franchise, Craven resurrected it). Elm Street was always my favorite slasher franchise because of the brilliant device of having the characters (and the audience) never knowing what’s real and what’s a dream. When done correctly, it’s a great jump scare every time. This is probably too high on this list, but it’s a personal favorite.
20. Before Sunset (2004)
First off, if you haven’t seen Before Sunrise, it’s great. Ethan Hawke plays a jaded American bumming around Europe after a breakup, who meets an optimistic French girl (Julie Delpy) on a train, and convinces her to hang out with him in Vienna until his connecting train leaves early the next morning. The whole movie is them just walking around the town, getting to know each other. At the end, they go their separate ways, and you’re left wondering if they ever met again. Nine years later, Richard Linklater answered that question. Linklater is obviously fascinated with the passing of time, and how much we can all change. He has Hawke and Delpy reconnect in Paris after Hawke has written a best-selling book about their night together. At first this feels off, a little too self-aware and unrealistic (although Linklater did get the idea for the first movie after having a similar night with a woman he didn’t know). But then you keep watching, and you’re swept away even more than the first movie. As it goes on, and they start to become vulnerable with each other again, you see how that one night meant more to both of them then they realized. The genius of this sequel is in how much richer it actually makes the movie before it. There’s a great moment in Before Sunrise where Hawke finally convinces Delpy to hang out with him. He says “think of it like this: jump ahead, ten, twenty years, okay, and you’re married. Only your marriage doesn’t have that same energy that it used to have, y’know. You start to think about all those guys you’ve met in your life and what might have happened if you’d picked up with one of them, right? Well, I’m one of those guys. so think of this as time travel, from then, to now, to find out what you’re missing out on.” It’s surreal to see these characters nine years later, actually living through what he was only joking about. Amazingly it’s only 80 minutes long, and it takes place in real time. Everyone involved has stepped their game up considerably, and there are several scenes of fantastic dialogue where the camera runs for over ten minutes without cutting. Really can’t recommend enough.
19. Return of the Jedi (1983)
Lucas really blew it with this movie. Here’s the 7 biggest things I would change:
1. Let’s make the Yoda reveal “there is another” actually mean something. You gotta have Leia kill Jabba with force powers. She reaches out, and then the chain chokes him without her touching it!
2. Luke should show a flash of the dark side taking out Jabba’s guys, and leave feeling he doesn’t need to finish training with Yoda. Instead of going back to Yoda, Luke leaves to find Vader, and Han, Chewie and the droids go with.
3. Everyone hates the Ewoks, but I’m okay with them as long as they are only a side adventure. Luke and the gang should go to Endor because it is occupied by the Empire. They sneak in to find out where Vader is, and end up finding out that the entire fleet is headed to destroy the only remaining rebel forces. Then Ewoks attack the Empire base, kidnap our gang and cute comedy ensues with 3PO.
4. To help with Leia’s arc, let’s actually have HER go see Yoda instead. She’s worried about Luke and confused about her new powers. Yoda tells her she is Luke’s sister. There isn’t time to train her, but she asks him to come with her to help in the final fight.
5. Instead of a second fucking Death Star, the final battle should be at Ackbar’s home planet, the final rebel base.
6. We end with everyone converging on Vader’s star destroyer over the planet. Yoda uses the Force one last time, destroys a bunch of ships with his mind, and gets Leia onboard before dying. Han, Chewie and Lando all have dogfights. Lando dies heroically saving Han.
7. Luke ends up seduced by the dark side, and the Emperor is having him kill Vader. Luke knocks down Vader, about to give the killing blow, then Leia shows up and picks up a lightsaber, and gets the god damn Rey moment she deserved. Leia and Luke have an epic lightsaber battle. She holds her own and is able to convince him to abandon the dark side. Annoyed, the Emperor electrocutes her and Luke. Vader stands up and kills Emperor. Then he dies in the arms of BOTH of his kids with helmet off, telling them he’s sorry. Then everyone fucking parties at Ackbar’s house.
Tell me that’s not better!
18. Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995)
Even though this was originally a stand-alone script titled Simon Says (which was bought with the intention of becoming a Lethal Weapon sequel), there’s a lot that makes this movie work surprisingly well as a conclusion to the Die Hard trilogy (the last two movies do not exist). Not only did it learn from the mistakes of Die Hard 2 and make sure to have a memorable villain (sleeveless Jeremy Irons chews through the scenery. Hook, line….and SINKER!), the revenge plot really works to solve the nagging problem of John McClane somehow being in the wrong place at the wrong time yet again. Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson are great together, and from the first scene on, the movie doesn’t flinch from openly talking about race and racism (although it annoyingly wants to make the point that Jackson’s character is the one who needs to get over race, which is dumb). And although the plot of having them answering phone calls and solving deadly riddles all over New York would probably work better as a sequel to Speed, it is a really fun and fresh idea that correctly gambles a Die Hard movie doesn’t need to be in a contained environment. While the first two movies revolve around John McClane saving his wife, it was a brilliant move to have him be drunk and seemingly divorced in this. He becomes more of a noir detective character, tracked down and brought in to sober up for one last case. It’s also somehow the only movie where we get to see McClane actually being a cop, and it adds a lot to the character to see him interact with his co-workers and bosses. The climax unfortunately doesn’t hold a candle to Hans Gruber’s fall off Nakatomi Tower, but the whole thing is still a really fun ride.
17. X2 (2003)
This movie has unfortunately been buried under forgettable sequels, spin-offs and reboots, but for a brief moment it set the bar for superhero sequels. One of the biggest issues when you have a cast of characters this big is the juggling act of deciding how everyone fits into the plot. Bryan Singer wisely focused the story mostly around Wolverine and Jean Grey, and then gave everyone else their own moments when he could. Brian Cox also brings a lot to this as the villainous Col. Stryker that causes all of the mutants to ultimately team up against him. One problem I do have with X-Men movies in general is how each character is always given a situation seemingly tailor-made for their powers (i.e. because Storm can control the weather, there has to be a scene where a tornado is the only answer). It’s like much of the plot has to be reverse-engineered to cater to their exact strengths, which isn’t always that interesting to watch. Normally, good storytelling demands quite the opposite: a hero encountering a problem that he/she DOESN’T have all the answers for (like Batman facing the Joker). I understand the conundrum though, since the fans are showing up to see all of the X-Men use their extremely specific powers. And this does result in several fantastic action sequences (I remember being completely blown away in theaters by the opening scene of Nightcrawler attacking the White House and Magneto’s plastic prison escape). Singer took some good notes from Star Trek II (right down to a character sacrificing themselves at the end and getting a voice over before the credits), and this is still a really good sequel that holds up well.
16. Captain America: Civil War (2016)
I really loved the first Iron Man movie, and it seemed like any movie starring Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark was going to be awesome. Then both sequels were super uneven and forgettable, and both Avengers movies were epically disappointing CGI messes. I had definitely lost a lot of faith in the Marvel brand by the time this came out, thinking that I had aged out of its fandom, but the promise of seeing all these superheroes actually facing off against each other was enough to get me intrigued again (if you’re like me, you grew up wondering whose powers were actually better than whose). And unlike Batman v Superman, this movie actually gives everyone a good reason to be against each other. It deals with the real consequences of all these cities getting blown up time and time again, and boils down to a final showdown that is surprisingly personal. While B v S couldn’t figure out how to make time to actually develop Wonder Woman while introducing her, this movie expertly weaves in both Spider-Man and Black Panther, getting you excited to see these characters again. My main knock is that while this is technically the end of the Captain America trilogy, it’s really Tony’s emotional arc we’re following and ultimately siding with (RDJ does some really great work here for a comic book movie). This movie is a super impressive juggling act that delivers the stakes and thrills both Avengers movies couldn’t.
15. The Godfather Part II (1974)
When first released, this was hammered by critics, one noting that “the plot defied all rational synopsis.” Roger Ebert said the decision to have two time periods was “a structural weakness from which the film never recovered.” Somehow everyone’s opinions changed in the decades since, and now it is often listed as the best sequel ever made. I think the critics got it right the first time, and that this doesn’t hold a candle to the first movie. Besides not having the talents of Marlon Brando, James Caan, and Richard S. Castellano (Clemenza), you also miss great characters like Luca Brasi and Sollozzo. And while the original follows the gripping rise of Michael, it is frustrating to track his father’s origins in this. Not only does cutting back and forth lose momentum, Vito’s journey just isn’t very interesting to watch. After an amazing opening sequence, we assume we’re going to see him grow up with one purpose: revenge. But the next time we catch up with him, he’s 25 and living a very law-abiding life. It isn’t until a young Clemenza asks him to hold onto some stolen guns that he begins to discover his destiny. De Niro is impressive in the role, but I would have preferred to see this character’s younger years: scrapping as a homeless boy who slowly takes over his neighborhood with intimidation until he gets enough money to return to Sicily to avenge his family. As for Michael’s plot line, it just doesn’t have the character arc of the first movie. All of the Cuba stuff drags along, and the legal hearing is ultimately pointless. His main adversary Hyman Roth isn’t a very strong character (this is partly due to Lee Strasberg being sick during filming). John Cazale and Diane Keaton really save this movie (the scene where Keaton tells Pacino she had an abortion is incredible). Still, I think it’s a wasted opportunity. The film seems to want us to wonder at the end whether all of the tragedy the Corleone family has experienced has been worth its rise. I think a more powerful question would have been to ask if Michael made the right call giving up his civilian life for the mafia (or if he even had a choice).
14. Army of Darkness (1992)
The Evil Dead trilogy is one of the strangest and most unlikely franchises out there. The first film was an ultra-low budget gore fest that wasn’t really begging for a sequel, focusing on five college kids who get possessed in a cabin and have to kill each other. But writer/director Sam Raimi had the bizarre/brilliant idea to continue the story by somehow sending Bruce Campbell’s character Ash to the Middle Ages (which is about as crazy as having the sequel to Halloween involve Jaime Lee Curtis suddenly time traveling). When he couldn’t get the necessary budget, he decided to basically remake Evil Dead as more of a horror spoof, adding a lot more humor and ridiculousness. Same cabin, same basic plot, but this time he ended it with Ash getting sucked into a time portal and falling into the year 1300, hoping that he’d eventually get the chance to make the movie he actually wanted to. And then after the success of his next movie Darkman, he got 11 million dollars to do just that (not bad compared to the 90 grand he had to make the first movie). It took Raimi and Campbell three movies to discover the perfect tone and combination of horror and comedy, but the result is amazing. I like each of these movies for different reasons, but this one is easily my favorite.
13. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
Even though you don’t get to see Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort yet (and later films obviously have bigger moments), I still think this is my favorite Harry Potter movie start to finish. I’ve never read the books, but for me this is when I actually started to care about the story. You can really see the tone shift from basic children’s wish fulfillment to a much more character driven, tension-filled story. It doesn’t hurt that this was directed by Alfonso Cuarón, easily one of the best directors alive. A big part of what makes Harry Potter so rich and fun is all the brilliant world building J. K. Rowling does, and there’s some great stuff that gets introduced in this one, like dementors, Patronus charms, and the Time Turner. You also meet two of the best characters in the series, Sirius Black and my favorite Hogwarts professor, Remus Lupin (David Thewlis is so good in this role). And I know it’s unpopular to say amongst book readers, but I actually prefer Michael Gambon as Dumbledore. The plot unfolds in a very entertaining and satisfying way, with the reveal of Sirius’ true loyalty and his growing mentorship of Harry. The other big thing this one has going for it is you get a good dose of Hermione saving the damn day, and being the badass that she is. And for those interested, my ranking of the HP movies is:
3, 6, 8, 5, 4, 1, 7, 2.
12. Toy Story 3 (2010)
This is arguably the only franchise that gets exponentially better with each movie. The animation obviously improves a ton in this trilogy, but so does the storytelling. Each iteration gets closer and closer to the perfect idea for a movie about toys being alive. The first one mostly relies on all the initial comedy of this reveal, and the odd couple pairing of Woody and Buzz. It’s a fun classic, but it’s definitely for kids. The second movie expands into some interesting territory, offering up a lot more emotional depth by wondering how toys would feel about being cared for by collectors instead of played with by children. But then Toy Story 3 blows both of these out of the water by simply showing what happens to a toy after their owner grows up (the answer is some really sad shit that will make you cry). While the first one was barely 80 minutes long, this one is a real deal movie unconcerned with the attention span of children. It really is a perfectly executed story, and by the time the toys are all holding hands and closing their eyes in the face of certain death, you realize this isn’t even meant for kids (case in point, Quintin Tarantino went on record saying this was the best movie of 2010). This franchise has always worked better to me than any of Pixar’s other properties. The journey of the toys in this trilogy is so much more moving than adventures with talking animals or cars or monsters or dinosaurs, because we all have an emotional connection to the concept. We all remember playing with our toys for hours as kids, creating stories about them that nobody else knew about. And we also all eventually got rid of those toys. It’s an inherently sad idea, but this movie somehow also comes up with the perfect bittersweet ending, too.
11. Mission: Impossible III (2006)
I’ll admit that this is a personal favorite that is way too high on this list, but everyone seems to have forgotten how good this movie is (it probably didn’t help that this came out right after Tom Cruise’s couch-jumping phase). This franchise is mostly known now for showcasing Cruise’s fearless desire to do his own insane stunts, but this movie also has a great (and actually memorable) plot, too. This is J. J. Abrams first film (Cruise personally recruited him after binging Alias dvds lol) and you can immediately see Abrams mark. He makes some great choices, like turning Ethan Hunt into an actual character with a personal life. He’s also got a really great cast joining Cruise and Ving Rhames, with Michelle Monaghan, Simon Pegg (the start of a long partnership with Abrams), Keri Russell, Laurence Fishburne, Billy Crudup and Jonathan Rhys Myers (remember him?). Of course the main draw here is the scene-stealing villain played perfectly by Philip Seymour Hoffman. PSH absolutely kills it in this, reminding you what an amazing and versatile actor he was. There’s some legit action sequences (the whole part of the movie in the Vatican is so fun) and it made this franchise cool again, six years after John Woo tried to make slow-mo doves a thing in M:I 2. It’s also a really important movie in both Cruise and Abrams careers. This reinvigorated Cruise as a charming action star, and because of Abrams success with this he got Star Trek, which of course led to Star Wars. I’m an unapologetic fanboy of both of these guys, but love them or hate them, you have to admit they can both deliver an extremely fun popcorn movie. This is no exception, and is definitely worth a rewatch.
Now on to the top ten!
10. Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
Chris Evans is pretty great in Danny Boyle’s sci-fi epic Sunshine, but before this I just didn’t care about his Captain America. The first movie was so-so, and he wasn’t very memorable in the Avengers. So my expectations were low for this movie, and I was completely blown away. Evans is great, carefully balancing humor and stoicism (and agony when he realizes who the Winter Soldier is). The key here is it’s less a superhero movie and more like a spy thriller (they cast Robert Redford in an obvious nod to Three Days of the Condor). It also has some of the best action sequences I’ve ever seen (the attack on Fury’s car and the elevator fight in particular). It’s refreshingly less reliant on CGI and much more interested in developing the characters. Samuel L. Jackson finally gets to do something in this beyond showing up after the credits, Scarlett Johansson clearly makes the case that Black Widow deserves her own movie, and Anthony Mackie steals every scene he’s in. This was a huge movie for Marvel, an affirmation that they finally figured out how to make a sequel that could actually stand on its own. A movie that’s existence was justified beyond just filling a release date slot. The Russo brothers did such a good job directing this that they were basically handed the keys to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (which were correctly confiscated from Joss Whedon). It’s a tough call between this and the first Iron Man, but this very well might be the best movie Marvel has made.
9. The Road Warrior (1981)
Rarely does a sequel reinvent the world of its franchise so much that audiences actually forget the original film. When you picture Mad Max, you’re picturing post-apocalyptic, wide open Australian desert, eccentrically armored cars and everyone running around in hockey pads and S&M outfits. The thing is, none of this is in the first Mad Max. It instead tells the fairly straightforward (and extremely grim) story of Mel Gibson taking revenge against a biker gang that kills his family. There’s barely any costuming, a couple cars, and the biker gang only appears to be in control because of the rural setting. Then director George Miller was given a much bigger budget for the sequel, and his imagination ran wild. After a brief intro with a narrated montage explains that the world has turned into a wasteland, we catch back up with Mel Gibson, who now seems to just roam the desert and dispatch justice when he sees fit (this would be like making a sequel to Blue Ruin that’s inexplicably set after nuclear war). The plot is still bare bones again, but this movie is so much more fun to watch. It improves on its predecessor in every single way, with vastly better action sequences, crazier characters and beautiful cinematography. Vernon Wells (who you may remember as the guy in the chain mail vest who fights Arnold in Commando) deserves a shout out for playing the mohawked Wez pictured above. He turns a random henchman into probably the most memorable character in the whole movie. Highly recommend a watch if you’ve only seen Fury Road.
8. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
aka the movie J. J. Abrams failed spectacularly in trying to copy/reboot with Star Trek: Into Darkness. The main knock against Into Darkness (besides the misguided lies attempting to surprise fans with Cumberbatch being Khan) was that it didn’t stand on its own, relying too heavily on the original for its emotional payoffs. That of course is not the case here, since all of these moments work extremely well the first time around. This is widely considered the movie that saved Star Trek, revitalizing interest after audiences found the first film incredibly boring compared to Star Wars. This wisely returned to the adventure roots of the tv series, backing off of bigger questions about space and focusing instead on just having a killer plot. Which it pulls off wonderfully with the introduction of the Genesis device, which artificially creates planets, and one of the best villains ever with Ricardo Montalbán’s Khan. It’s a bummer he never gets to face Kirk in person, but Montalbán and his pecs chew up every scene (and if you saw this as a kid, his ear worms gave you nightmares for years). Shatner and Nimoy actually get some great material to work with, too (Shatner is actually good in this! He nails Spock’s eulogy and Scotty playing those damn bagpipes gets me every time). Of course, the trade off is that the majority of the crew doesn’t get to do much (one area Abrams did improve on is making sure each character gets a big moment), and they don’t exactly pull off the side plot of Kirk connecting with the son he never knew he had. Still, this is almost the perfect template for a sequel, and it has been the inspiration for numerous others besides just Abrams.
7. Logan (2017)
Given its unique style, and how well it works as its own contained story, you might not immediately think of this as a sequel. But the entire emotional payoff only really works because of how many times we’ve seen Hugh Jackman as Wolverine and Patrick Stewart as Professor X (somehow it’s been almost twenty years since the first X-Men movie). We as an audience have been burned by badly bloated superhero movies so many times, Logan is the redemption we didn’t think was still possible (and ironically, the proper send off these characters finally receive is so cathartic BECAUSE of all the bad X-Men movies that have come before it). We’ve seen every possible origin story at this point, and Batman Begins and Iron Man both made strong cases for why watching our hero become who they’re meant to be is so compelling. But I’d argue it’s even more interesting to see a character’s ending. The reason this works so well is the stakes. There aren’t any after credit sequences, or bigger bad guys with better ways to blow up New York waiting in the wings. This is Wolverine’s last shot to do something good in his life, and it’s incredible to watch that unfold. The lean plot and Western influences work perfectly, the bloody action sequences are super intense, and Dafne Keen nails her role. It’s a surprisingly emotional movie, and you can tell how much everyone involved cared about getting it right.
6. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
While it doesn’t meet the impossibly high bar of Raiders, this movie still gets points for righting the ship after Temple of Doom and properly closing out the trilogy. The Indiana Jones franchise relies a lot on old-timey humor that only works because Ford is so fun to watch. When you look at the difference between how he acts as Indy vs Han Solo, the main thing is that Indiana Jones has much more physicality. Han Solo isn’t even the main character of Star Wars, and yet he probably has twice as many lines as Indy, because so often Ford can say more with just a look when he’s playing Jones. His eyes go wide as he looks offscreen, and we know that whatever problem he thought he just solved has actually gotten worse. The recipe for success isn’t hard, and Spielberg and Lucas wisely return Indy to a race with Nazis in search of a powerful Christian artifact. The big difference is of course the addition of Indy’s father, the perfect sidekick played by Sean Connery. Connery was hesitant to take the part because he was only 12 years older than Ford (which is fine since Ford has always been good looking enough to play characters a decade younger). Overlooking his inexplicable Scottish accent, Connery does such a good job in this role. Despite Spielberg wanting him because he was Bond, the character is the exact opposite of Indy, bookish instead of adventurous (and it’s not like Connery was too old to punch, he was still kicking ass in The Rock seven years later). You could picture a version of this with Indy’s dad revealed to be just like him, an older, more fearless but still dashing type, played by Robert Redford or Clint Eastwood. I definitely think playing them as opposites was the right call (the only other actor I would be interested to see get a crack at the part is Marlon Brando, who was coincidentally coming out of retirement at the time). There’s plenty of great action sequences, and the opening with River Phoenix as young Indy is great. The only real bummer here is that Karen Allen doesn’t return. They bring back Sallah and Brody, but don’t find room for Indy’s true love.
5. Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)
J. J. Abrams was essentially given an impossible task: rebuild the Star Wars brand. He had to simultaneously honor the originals while still creating his own vision, and reboot the story with a new set of iconic characters. And I actually think he nailed all of it. The haters say this movie is too derivative, but I think they’re focusing on the wrong parts. Yes, there’s unfortunately another Death Star, and several story beats are obvious nods to the original. But consider the decisions Abrams makes that actually improve upon the Star Wars narrative:
1. Turning a random storm trooper into a main character. To Lucas, these guys were only ever cannon fodder with bad aim. Finn’s defection would have literally never crossed his mind.
2. Giving the villain Kylo Ren an actual personality. Darth Vader is probably the most iconic bad guy of all time, but he’s not exactly the most interesting character. In the original trilogy, there isn’t really an arc for Vader until his final moments with Luke (Lucas tried to over-correct this in the prequels by showing him go from being a cute lil’ podracer to a guy that murders a room of children). Here, we directly see how Kylo’s path down the dark side mirrors our hero’s journey.
3. He fully takes advantage of our emotional attachment to the original characters. Seeing Han, Leia and Luke onscreen thirty years later is incredible. There’s nothing like this in the original trilogy, it’s not like we saw a young Alec Guinness first play Obi-Wan thirty years before A New Hope.
4. The biggest key to TFA being good though is its lead, Daisy Ridley. Rey finally gives us the strong female character Lucas never could. He danced around the idea of turning helpless princesses into fighters, but he never committed to it (instead of trying to escape, Leia is straight up napping when Luke and Han go to rescue her). Rey gets to do everything in this movie that Leia never did, and it is extremely satisfying to watch her pick up a lightsaber.
This was probably the most anticipated sequel of all time, and it actually delivered. Given all the failed reboots out there, I think that’s pretty amazing.
4. The Dark Knight (2008)
Batman Begins laid a lot of the ground work, but this is the movie widely credited with changing the definition of what a comic book movie can be (and it also changed how a big budget movie can look in general. This was the first time IMAX cameras were used in a feature film). Christopher Nolan blew us all away when this came out, taking the gritty ensemble crime story of Michael Mann’s Heat and turning it into an escalating war between Batman and the Joker. There’s really nothing I can say about Heath Ledger’s performance that hasn’t already been said, but clearly Nolan was wise to make him front and center (Right from the start, too. Almost every other superhero sequel opens the same way: showing the hero easily dispatching a lower threat before we cut to our first glimpse of the real bad guy. Nolan flips these two scenes, opening with the Joker’s bank robbery instead of Batman defeating Scarecrow, so we know right away that this is Joker’s movie). One of the most interesting things about TDK is how surprisingly linear the plot is. The Nolan brothers are literally obsessed with time, usually finding it imperative to structure all of their other movies and tv shows with convoluted flashbacks and multiple timelines. Here, Nolan decides instead to master tension-building just by cutting back and forth between multiple scenes that are happening at the SAME time. The best example of this is how he simultaneously shows us Harvey and Rachel in danger, Batman and Gordon trying to rescue them, and Joker escaping all at once. The effect is breathtaking (a lot of this is also due to Hans Zimmer’s incredible score that escalates in intensity). The third act gets a little shaky, but this is the type of movie you only start to critique because you’ve watched it so many times. Nolan can get too grim and self-serious sometimes, and unfortunately his style hasn’t always been copied to the greatest effect (some critics have called this ‘creeping Nolanization’). But he is still one of the most interesting big budget directors alive, and to me, this will always be his masterpiece.
3. The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
A lot of the original trilogy blends together in your memory, but I’m willing to bet that when you picture Star Wars, you’re picturing a scene from this movie. A New Hope was revolutionary, but it is surprisingly small scale in comparison. We really only see one planet, Tatooine, and the Death Star (yes nerds, we do also see Yavin 4 at the very end during the medal ceremony). Empire is more epic and expansive in every way: you start out with the Wampa attack on Luke, then the big AT-AT battle on Hoth, then force ghost Obi-Wan tells Luke to go to Degobah to train with Yoda, while the rest of the gang flies the Falcon into that giant asteroid slug’s mouth. Then you get Boba Fett, Lando and Cloud City, Luke finding out Darth is his father and getting his ass kicked (and hand chopped off), and we end with Han frozen in carbonite! The bad guys win at every turn in this movie, which is the perfect formula for the second film in a trilogy. The budget didn’t change much, but George Lucas made sure everything about this sequel was bigger and better. There are so many iconic planets, characters and creatures introduced here that ended up being people’s favorite part of Star Wars. This movie is the real reason our parents wanted to show us the story of Star Wars, and why we’re all still obsessed. This could easily be first on this list, but the final two sequels I have are slightly more impressive to me because they weren’t planned franchises.
2. Aliens (1986)
Ridley Scott absolutely nailed the first Alien, taking a pretty basic horror/sci-fi idea and turning it into one of the most iconic movies of all time. But after its success, he didn’t seem interested in a sequel, and immediately moved on to making Blade Runner (ironically he can’t seem to help himself from meddling all these years later). So, the job was up for grabs, and after the success of Terminator, James Cameron was given a shot at pitching his idea for an Alien sequel. And holy crap did he hit it out of the park. He makes a few key decisions about how to improve things: it’s mostly an action movie this time, the characters are marines with heavy firepower who are actually trained to fight, and there’s gonna be way more aliens (including the big bad Queen). The biggest thing he did though is improve Ripley herself. It’s easy to forget that we don’t know anything about her in the first movie, her only characteristic is that she’s a smart leader who can survive. Cameron turns her into a real character here, telling us that she had a young daughter she has outlived (because she was adrift in space in hyper-sleep for 50 some years) and then giving her a surrogate daughter to protect in the form of Newt. Sigourney Weaver is so damn good in this she was nominated for a freaking Oscar, which pretty much never happens for stars of action movies (which is dumb). The supporting cast is also fantastic, and Bill Paxton’s delivery turned this into one of the most quoted movies ever. Cameron is a master storyteller, knowing how to perfectly up the stakes at every turn. The third act is amazing, mostly taking place in real time, and we actually get a happy ending after all the mayhem (which David Fincher unforgivably undoes immediately in Alien 3). It’s a tough call, but if I’m being honest I really do prefer the massive spectacle of this over the stripped down terror of the original.
1. Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991)
James Cameron is the unquestioned master of sequels, and the biggest trick in his arsenal is completely subverting your expectations. He takes everything you assume a sequel to The Terminator would have and flips it on its head (to him, picking things up right where you left off is just bad storytelling). Sarah Connor is a total badass now, no longer the helpless waitress from the first movie. But she’s been separated from her son and taken to a mental hospital for believing in killer robots from the future. And while we assume it’s only been six years since John Connor was born, Cameron sets the story four years ahead, in 1995, so an older actor can play the part (Edward Furlong is perfectly cast, too. A wide-eyed kid who is just as amazed at the plot as we are). But the biggest change of course is making Arnold the freaking good guy. The first Terminator is essentially a sci-fi slasher movie, with Arnold having only a few more lines than Michael Myers. He certainly looked the part of a menacing robot, but he wasn’t a good actor. But in the seven years since, he had not only become an action star, he also developed an extremely charming knack for self-aware, fish out of water comedy. Cameron saw this and turned Arnold into a good Terminator who had to stop the perfectly evil T-1000 (Cameron actually had the idea for a liquid metal Terminator in the original, but he didn’t think the special effects were possible until he did The Abyss). He finds real heart in the story through the relationship between John and the Terminator, and that damn thumbs up gets me every time. The effects still look great, the action sequences are amazing, and this blows the first movie away. This is not just a great action movie, this is one of the best movies ever made, period. It’s a shame Cameron had to turn to weepy historical romance to finally get the proper recognition he deserved.
And that’s it! Think I missed something? Lemme know in the comments. Hope you guys enjoyed following the countdown of my favorite sequels, and thanks for reading!
FORREST GUMP FAN CLUB 