Nowadays, it seems as if nearly every new movie is either a sequel or a remake. And while we have no issue with this per se – some of those new Marvel movies are a whole lot of fun – the level of creativity sometimes leaves something to be desired. Thankfully, there’s no shortage of remakes that are actually better than the original. 

Movies have been remade for nearly as long as movies have existed. Believe it or not, the first remake dates all the way back to 1896, when pioneering French director Georges Méliès remade a one-minute film of three men playing cards – the “original” having been made by the Lumière brothers, also pioneering French filmmakers, earlier that year.  

Over the years, films have been remade for a wide variety of reasons. In some instances, the film didn’t perform as well as anticipated when initially released and filmmakers believe that they can fix the original film’s problems. On the other hand, if the film did do well when initially released, studios might believe that there’s already a built-in audience of fans who will go see the new version. Some films have a timeless formula that can easily translate to a modern retelling. And then there are the films that were remade for no apparent reason at all – 1998’s ill-advised “Psycho” remake, for instance. (These are the worst movie remakes of all time.) 

To assemble a list of movie remakes better than the original that are available to stream, 24/7 Tempo developed an index using average ratings on IMDb, an online movie database owned by Amazon, and a combination of audience scores and Tomatometer scores on Rotten Tomatoes, an online movie and TV review aggregator, as of May 2022, weighting all ratings equally. We only considered remakes whose index scores are greater than those of the original movie they are based on, and that are streaming on Netflix, HBO Max, Amazon Prime, Hulu Plus, Disney+, Tubi, Pluto TV, Plex, Amazon Freevee, Peacock, Vudu, or Crackle. Movies are ranked based on total index score. (Data on streaming availability, current as of June 2022, comes from the streaming guide Reelgood, and directorial and cast credits are from IMDb.)

 Click here to see 17 movie remakes to stream that are better than the original