What impressed me enough to blog it was that it didn't do what I thought was inevitable and put "The Godfather II" at #1.
I think this link will work without a subscription, so check it out.
Another thing I like is that it didn't get too stuck in the last 20 or 30 years, though there is a lot of Superman/Batman/Spiderman dross. It's got some old-timey trashy stuff, notably "Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy" (#96). And it's got "The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years" (#74), "O Lucky Man!" (#66), "Return to Oz" (a surprising #20), and — at #11 — the movie that had me texting "possibly the most artistic and sophisticated thing I’ve ever seen" — "Playtime."
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56 comments:
No Wrath of Khan...
...into the trash it goes.
What does the "Orientalism" of Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy refer to?
FYI, Link not working for me (a non-subscriber).
No, Mad Max Fury Road is not the greatest sequel of all time, it was a terrible movie. Essentially just one excruciating car chase.
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, OTOH, was terrific, and much better than what preceded it.
I don't understand all the love for The Godfather 2. It's fine, but it's not even in the ballpark of The Godfather.
Bride of Frankenstein is listed as #6.
My "Frankenstein, Part II" is much, much better. If only I can get Frank Darabont to produce and direct it.
Most sequels are garbage. I guess we have to make an exception for Godfather II. It may not have been as tightly-plotted a film as the original, but the historical sweep gave it an epic quality that moviegoers appreciated.
I doubt that Max Max was that great or that Fury Road was very good, but the actual sequel was Beyond Thunderdome, which probably wasn't that great either.
It might be an interesting thought experiment to think of movies with the same writer, director, cast and crew as de facto sequels.
There are plenty of those and some aren't so bad.
I'm still waiting for Titanic II.
I haven't clicked through yet. I'm guessing it's not Die Hard 2.
Wont let me read without a subscription. Anyway, best sequels are "The Empire Strikes BacK" "star Trek III" and The Dark KNight. After the thin man is pretty good too.
Is Goldfinger a "Sequel"?
OMG, how did i forget GF II, its even better then GF I. Didn't miss Brando - at all. "Help" isn't anywhere near as good as "Hard Days Night". don't know what happened on that one.
You could consider "On the Town" a quasi-sequel to "Anchors Aweigh" and its a much better movie. And Top Hat is the 2nd or 3rd Astair-Rodgers movie.
Although I disagree with most of the list, it was an enjoyable read and I thank Ms. Althouse for pointing it out. I never would have found it myself. I had no trouble reading the link--Safari on Mac OS 14.6.
If I had more time, I'd explain why Beyond Thunderdome was such a terrific movie. I always thought Russell Hoban was an uncredited inspiration, for his book Riddley Walker. I'm going to have to watch it again, now that my attention has been called to it.
Looking at the list, there is way more horror than I ever would want to watch.
Ocean's Twelve? Aw, Hell no!
They are right about Aliens, though. I think it's actually better than Alien.
Lurker21, you forgot The Road Warrior which is the best of the Mad Max series. As such, and since this is so low stakes, I take umbrage with Jim Gust suggesting Beyond Thunderdome is the best of the Mad Max series. The first half is good. The second half is Mel Gibson interacting with a bunch of annoying teenagers followed by an inferior rehash of The Road Warrior's climatic chase sequence.
Beyond Thunderdome is just the Cheese Nips to Road Warrior's Cheez-Its. Case in point, compare Vernon Wells' Wez from Road Warrior to Angry Anderson's Ironbar in Beyond Thunderdome. Ironbar is clearly the direct to DVD mockbuster version of Wez.
Surprised a Back to the Future sequel isn't listed. Also, I would take Red II over a lot of those films but I'm a sucker for Helen Mirren.
Deevs is correct. The Road Warrior is a much better film than Thunderdome. (It also explains why Bruce Spence shows up Thunderdome. He was in Road Warrior and had a much bigger and more significant part.)
For sequels, I've learned that all the best lines, and stunts are presented in the trailer.
Agree with MadisonMan on Red II. And for the same reason. Both Reds were hilarious. On the list, other than the usual choices like Godfather, I thought Kill Bill2 was excellent. There is a scene where David Carradine, the young daughter and Uma were in the kitchen and Carradine was cutting the edges off sliced bread- it was chilling.
A solid 80% of the films listed are absolute trash. If trash follows trash is that a good sequel?
Shit, that could be a Hollywood koan...
Good, quality movies rarely have sequels. That is largely the domain of crappy ones. Accordingly, this list is choked with superhero, explosion, space, comic book, CGI, and car chase stuff. Dreck begets dreck.
If Toy Story 3 isn’t on the list it’s incomplete
I'm fine with much of this list, but the rankings are bizarre. It's like they dropped 101 index cards on the floor and then published them in random order.
I’m thinking that not placing GF II as the #1 sequel was just a premeditated move to seem ‘different’, ‘controversial’, and ‘unexpected’ by the list’s authors. Just think of all the shock this has generated among the cinephiles!
Temple of Doom? No. Just. . . .no. If it weren't for Crystal Skull, Doom would be by far the weakest. The Last Crusade is just plain better by a wide margin.
Wrath of Khan was way better than any of the other Trek-based movies. Period. It was a big-budget Trek that captured everything that made the original good, and added some.
Terminator 2 and Aliens: Definitely. Predator 2 was just awful.
Creed????? Nah. II and III were far better. They only like it because it's got Michael B. Jordan in it.
Fury Road was just plain dumb, nothing more than a vehicle for a Strong, Powerful Woman with all the wild and necessary suspension-of-disbelief that it entails.
It looks to me that they did put “Godfather II” as number 1, but Vulture being Vulture, they needed something controversial to generate discussion, so they went down the list and grabbed something and pulled it to number 1. Not only is their number 1 not a good movie much less a good sequel, it is not the best sequel in that franchise.
When “Babe, Pig in the City” is in your top ten, your tastes are really bad in my book.
If Toy Story 3 isn’t on the list it’s incomplete
#32
Joe biden's open border policy just killed a black man.
It's hard to argue that many of these are actually sequels. "Mad Max: Fury Road," with its all-new cast, is a reboot. Krzysztof Kieślowski's "Three Colors: Red" is part of a trilogy, all of which are meant to be viewed as a piece. "Mission Impossible: Fallout" is number 6 in what will eventually be a series of 8. Truffaut's romantic comedy "Stolen Kisses" has an older version of the same protagonist (a stand-in for the director as a young man), but it's an entirely different genre from his drama "The 400 Blows." And calling 1985's dark "Return to Oz" a sequel to the famous 1939 musical fantasy version of "The Wizard of Oz" is just kind of silly.
Henry IV, Part II is a downer. It's not just that Falstaff gets banished at the end, but Shakespeare also kills off Hotspur, who's the real action hero. Worse than when they offed Han Solo.
I've only seen about 15-20 of the originals, and maybe 1 or 2 sequels.
That listicle was written by about a dozen and a half dumbass kids, too . . .
Has any artform ever spent so much, and received so much adulation and respectful attention as film, and delivered less of quality?
Wrath of Khan isn't a sequel. It's a stand-alone entry into a canon. Search for Spock, on the other hand, is the sequel to Wrath of Khan.
'Debbie Does Dallas Part II'
You can tell it's classier by the use of Roman numerals in the title.
'Surprised a Back to the Future sequel isn't listed.'
The original is as near a perfect movie/casting/script as you will ever see...
I agree with Ted that the definition they used for "sequel" is too off to be of any use.
No Magnum Force? A list-maker's got to know his limitations.
Also, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, with Sean Connery stealing the show as Indiana's dad, was by far the superior sequel to Temple of Doom.
No one has ever seen Return to Oz, but it’s quite good, scarier than the original, but not quite as fresh. The plot is a combination of two Oz books, The Marvelous Land of Oz and Ozma of Oz.
Babe II was horrible. If you have not seen it, don't. You have been warned.
'Debbie Does Dallas Part II'
I'll take Taboo II over DDD II.
Return to Oz" (a surprising #20)
Sure, she's no Judy Garland, but Fairuza Balk deserved more respect and love from Hollywood than it gave her.
I'd argue that Kill Bill Vol. 2 and The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers were actually the continuation of the first movies and not sequels.
I'd imagine Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo just missed their list at #102.
'Babe II was horrible. If you have not seen it, don't. You have been warned.'
The original 'Babe' is a fantastic movie. I know it's supposed to be for kids, but I love it.
One of the best reviewer quotes of all time called it 'The Citizen Kane of talking pig movies.'
: )
I liked the picture that they used for the #1 movie. I like seeing an old Benz.
Coincidently I’ve been driving around in one of my 190E Mercedes today. And I ended up having an employee as a passenger. He kept remarking re how nice the car is.
Yup. Old stuff can be the best stuff.
IMHO.
"I ended up having an employee as a passenger. He kept remarking re how nice the car is."
As opposed to, "So, you paid HOW much for this piece of shit, boss?"
Best sequel never made was for Master and Commander.
Not familiar with most of these, but After the Thin Mn is the best of the ones I am familiar with. And, pace Dave B, Bride of Frankenstein. But I'm a sucker for 30's movies.
--gpm
Temple of Doom? No.
Agreed. At my house, we call Temple of Doom Indiana Jones and the Screamer because that's all Kate Capshaw does in the movie.
I was scrolling and scrolling looking for Mad Max II, the Road Warrior, one of my favorite movies of all time. Fury Road isn't a bad choice, IMHO. Yes, both are pretty much car chase movies, but I love them. High drama for me.
BTW, I'm glad Tokyo Drift was included ... I would have rated it higher.
Ooo! Ooo! What -Gordon Pasha said.
Meh.
Yawn.
Unimpressed.
Horseshit list.
"No, Mad Max Fury Road is not the greatest sequel of all time, it was a terrible movie. Essentially just one excruciating car chase.
"Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, OTOH, was terrific, and much better than what preceded it."
I thought Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome was disappointing. Not terrible, but far from being as good as The Road Warrior, (much less "much better") and it diminished the character's aura.
The Road Warrior may be the greatest sequel of all time, (it being a sequel to Mad Max, and titled Mad Max 2 everywhere outside the US). He is an inscrutable figure seemingly without history--the first movie notwithstanding--and his fate is left a mystery in the end. The voice of the aged man telling the story of the Road Warrior, who was the Feral Kid in the time of the Road Warrior's story many decades earlier, ends the story saying they never saw the Road Warrior again, and that he "lives now only in legend."
Nothing can beat that for creating an evocative tale.
Any follow up stories about the Road Warrior, however good, removes the haunting mystery of the character, and renders him only a banal action character, (not even very active in Mad Max Fury Road.)
There should never have been any sequels to The Road Warrior.
I will readily agree with all those who consider The Road Warrior to be a fantastic sequel.
My comparison was Beyond Thunderdome to Fury Road, to argue that Fury Road was inferior. Road Warrior was the best of the three.
However, Mel Gibson interacting with "annoying teenagers" was one of the best features of Beyond Thunderdome, and is what reminded me of Riddly Walker, one of the better post-apocalyptic novels (though very hard to read, as it is written in Hoban's "future English language"). My wife and I had to read it aloud to understand the evolution of the words and phrases.
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