Remakes themselves are often pointless  - assuming you can find the film to watch with your own language subtitles then it is better to watch the original...a recent example is Let The Right One In - an excellent deconstruction reconstruction of the vampire myth but its Swedish - the original movie is near perfect bar a few scenes...so we get an American version as Let Me In which mainly misses the point - people owe it to themselves to find the source

The moviefone link Rich provided does cite some pretty good remakes. The Magnificent Seven was a damn good remake of the Seven Samuri as was A Star is Born (mostly for the Judy Garland songs) and I enjoyed the Departed although Jack Nicholson gets less charming with every performance.

I think any attempt to remake a Hitchcock or Kubrick film is a waste. I was surprised to see how many French films had been remade.  I've heard that Bievenue chez les Chetis will be remade...

I must be weird as I think Hitchcock was terrible - this is not trolling - great casting but very dreary movies

If a remake does not really add something new or improve the source then there really is no point

lets take a few

Italian Job - original iconic British movie remade to achieve...not  a lot

Death Race 2000 - cult cult classic blackly funny...remade to have Jason Statham star in it for what?

and so on

there are only 2 films which I would consider slight re-makes that are worth watching...Reservoir Dogs - which is largely a new angle on the Japanese film City On Fire and Twelve Monkeys which is a logical extension of La Jetee

If the original is available its lazy and less rewarding to watch the re-make

This reminds me of a quote - too lazy to Google it...so from memory...there were film executives talking about films and discussed re-making The Wiz , a black version of The Wizard Of Oz - one said "This time we can have white people in it" asiif it had never been filmed before

Some remakes can be good like the one made by european production for "War and pace" with french actress Clemence Poesy and the hot italian actor Alessio Boni who played very well the russian prince !

Not like Hitchcock!

To add my 5 cents worth, I have to include Peter Jackson's remake of the 1933 version of King Kong. I am a massive fan of the original and it's obvious so was Jackson and you could see he genuinely wanted to fill in some of the blanks and add a few inventive touches to try to improve upon a true classic.

And as good as CGI is when used in the right context, this was just too much. I have to be honest and say I though that Willis O'Brien's stop-motion models actually had personality as opposed to what was depicted on the screen this time. It's a shame as in the Lord of the Rings trilogy; I felt this was a director who had used CGI to absolute perfection.

But my biggest problem with this film was the relationship between Ann Darrow and Kong. In the original this was a marauding ape who smashed his way through New York, killing hundreds of people, kidnapping her and leaving her terrified.

Then we have this version. Where they go skating in central park. Honestly??? For me after that the whole thing just became farcical. What was next? Is there a scene in the directors cut of them in a Jazz club followed by a moonlit carriage ride?

After that it just became uncomfortable to watch. When he finally dies, she turns into the stereotypical battered girlfriend. You almost expect her to come out with the line, "Leaf it! E ain't wurf it! You didn't understand `im or see `is sensitive side. `E never `ad nuffink on Skull Island." All that was missing was the "Croydon facelift" haircut. Jesus!

Other remakes that, in my subjective opinioin, shouldn't have been made: The Fog, The Wicker Man complete my top three.

Rich

Oh good old Jason Statham! The Transporter, The Transporter II, The Transporter III, The Italian Job, Death Race, The Mechanic...think there's a risk of him becoming typecast? Especially given the title and tag line of his new film due out in Dec 2011:

Cockney Death Race Cabbie Two-faaasaand: This time 'e's really goin' dahn the Strand!

(I might have made that last one up!)

Movie remakes are like song remakes, some song remakes are fantastic, even better than the original while others are horrible.

I remember when I heard that they were remaking the movie psycho, I thought it was going to be a disaster but to be honest I was pleasantly surprised.

I think Remakes can be good if they manage to recreate the atmosphere of the old movie, the new psycho for example was a modern version but for some reason it had that 60's feeling to it, which made it very cool in my book!

Other remakes are garbage; Remakes like the 50's movie 13 ghosts which sucked in the modern version, or the ones Hollywood make of Japanese horror films usually suck (the original Japanese version of the Ring is much much better, or dark water in the original Japanese version was horrifying!)

with music I cite Miley Cirus remaking Cindy Lauper's songs ignoring the 80'ishness of the songs while giving to the remake this modern beat makes me wanna vomit!)

interesting re-makes - The Fly - David Cronenberg LOL I thought I had a few in memory but nooo

Maybe more interesting to name films which deserve a re-make

Watchmen - great looking but plot missed by a mile

The Jackson remake - well they did another Kong film in the 80s which everyone forgets about  - had Jack Black in it which was a BIG BIG red flag to avoid watching the movie!

@rich curse you for telling me about and then *showing* the skating in central park scene. That's just ..... vile. I'm glad I didn't see the movie, then.

I'm am truly sorry for inflicting that one you. Hopefully this should go some way to redressing the balance...

SPOILER ALERT: Kong and Ann Darrow don't marry and he dies in the end!