Movie remakes of the past decade you simply can't miss

Remakes often get a bad rap.

A lot of times, that’s more than fair — we’ve seen countless cash-grab remakes of classic movies come out less than stellar. Total Recall, A Nightmare on Elm Street, that Psycho remake that was a shot-for-shot do-over of the first one, the list goes on and on.

That, perhaps understandably so, has caused a lot of people to dismiss all remakes and even cringe just at the mention of the word.

I’d like to make a case for remakes though. I don’t think the idea of them is necessarily an evil one.

I hate bad remakes as much as the next person, but they usually don’t stay in the public eye for all that long when a less than amazing one comes along. You don’t really hear people talking about the 2014 RoboCop these days anymore, do you?

Yet, the 1987 RoboCop is one that’s still great and people do talk about.

Sometimes you do get good remakes too — Scarface, The Thing, The Departed, all of them remakes.

What’s even more important, I think, is the idea of bringing more attention to the original when a remake is announced.

Last week, the trailer for Suspiria was released. I, sadly, had never seen and knew very little about the original Suspiria prior to this trailer, but watching it immediately made me want to go check out Dario Argento’s original. I watched the film a couple days ago and instantly fell in love with it. Now, I’m on an Argento kick as I’ve added films like Phenomena and Opera on the list of movies I need to watch ASAP.

Point is, without the Suspiria remake, that wouldn’t have happened. I probably would have come across Argento eventually, sure, just because I’m a film-lover at heart. That’s not true for everyone though, and I’ve heard of a lot more people besides myself who have now gone back to check out the original Suspiria.

With that in mind, remakes don’t have to be dismissed just because they are remakes. It really comes down to a matter of quality and the mindset behind making them — did the studios green-light the project just to make a quick buck or is there an actual story and signs of filmmaking involved with the project?

To further prove the point, we thought it would be appropriate to list some truly great recent remakes of the past decade.

Here’s our list:

Editor’s note: I didn’t include any super-hero movies, just because that seemed like a cheap shot. We all know Batman Begins and Wonder Woman are great, but I really wanted to focus on other genres too.