24 Movie Remakes That Are Better Than the Original Now Available to Stream

The original 1957 Western stars Glenn Ford as an outlaw taken prisoner by a desperate rancher (Van Heflin) needing money. According to Critics Consensus on Rotten Tomatoes, the well-paced, tension-filled reboot improved on the original because of the “fiery” performances by Russell Crowe and Christian Bale and the direction from James Mangold. Audiences agreed, delivering 86% positive reviews for the remake compared to 79% for the original.

Critics freaked for the 2003 remake of “Freaky Friday,” bestowing upon it an 88% Freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The original, starring Barbara Harris and Jodie Foster, received a 70% rating. The site’s Critics Consensus cites the charming performances of Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan in this fun body-switching movie. A third, made-for-TV version of “Freaky Friday” was also made and released by Disney in 1995.

Jeff Bridges received an Oscar nomination for his performance as Rooster Cogburn, the liquored-up U.S. marshall tracking the killer of the father of the teenage girl who hired him. The role won an Oscar for John Wayne in the original movie. While many movie fans love the original, the Coen brothers-directed remake has higher ratings from both critics and users online. Notably, the later film received a Freshness score of 96% among critics on Rotten Tomatoes compared with the original’s 88%.

Neither the original film in 1981 starring Brooke Shields nor the 2014 reboot that starred Alex Pettyfer were critics’ favorites. Both did better among audiences, with the more recent version getting a 6.3 rating out of 10 among IMDb users, who awarded the original just 4.9 out of 10. On Rotten Tomatoes, the more recent “Endless Love” received an audience score of 58%, topping the 52% audience score of the original.

“Ben-Hur” stars Charlton Heston in the title role as the man seeking vengeance against the Roman Empire that ruined his family. It is perhaps the most famous biblical-themed epic in film history. The 1960 version of the film was the third iteration of the story, and it is also among the most honored of any movie. “Ben-Hur” won 11 Academy Awards, among them Best Picture, Best Director (William Wyler), and Best Actor (Charlton Heston). Critics on Rotten Tomatoes gave the epic a Freshness rating of 86%, and audiences gave it an 89% approval rating.