The Best Movie Ever | Belated Sequels

Usually, when a movie is popular, the studio is eager to move a sequel into production as quickly as possible. The idea is to strike while the iron is hot, before audiences stop caring. But that’s not always how sequels work. This summer alone we have multiple sequels that are following in the footsteps of films that are at least a little older than their new target demographic: Finding Dory, and Independence Day: Resurgence.

But when you have to wait many years for a sequel to a movie you like, expectations can get in the way, and filmmakers can sometimes fall into narrative traps, copying the original movie instead of doing something new with it. There aren’t that many belated sequels that seem to stack up against the original, but we asked our panel of critics – Crave’s William Bibbiani and Witney Seibold, and Collider’s Brian Formo – to pick one anyway. 

Find out which belated sequels they each picked, let us know your favorites, and come back every Wednesday for more all-new, highly debatable installments of The Best Movie Ever!

Witney Seibold’s Pick: Saraband (2003)

Sony Pictures Classics

In 1973, when Ingmar Bergman made his epic TV miniseries Scenes from a Marriage (released theatrically in the U.S.), he was in, one may posit, a cynical mood. He was working on his fifth (and eventually final) marriage, as his previous four had ended in divorce. Over the course of the show’s nearly five-hour running time, we witness two very smart, often bitter, emotionally aloof people – played by Bergman regulars Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson – slowly saunter toward a separation. Much of the show is devoted to the changing state of their relationship. If they still love each other, if they not hate each other, if they can be friends, and how painful this should all be. There’s a lot of talking and subterfuge in sterile, bourgeois environs.

In 2003, a full 40 years later, Ingmar Bergman presented the world with his final film, Saraband, a gentle follow-up to Scenes from a Marriage, and one of the best films of the year it was released. Ullmann and Josephson are now aged grandparents, and they reunite over the emotional state of their horrid son (Börje Ahlstedt), who is has become a bitter bastard and who emotionally abuses his at-risk teen daughter (Julia Dufvenius). There is a sense that their son is beyond help – the bitter old man cannot be made sweet – but Ullmann and Josephson conspire to save their granddaughter from cynicism. 

Along the way, the two of them also discuss whether or not it’s right to be friends at their age, especially after a divorce. But there is little in the way of emotional obfuscation and elusiveness. Bergman has no other recourse than to be honest anymore, and he lets his characters speak plainly and honestly. They are not necessarily at peace, but they’ve reached an age where bullshitting would be unseemly. They are refreshingly direct, and their emotions are powerful. This is the final masterwork from one of cinema’s greatest auteurs. It is to be savored and beloved. 

Brian Formo’s Pick: Tron: Legacy (2010)

Walt Disney

In a rare move, I’ll begin with a caveat, Mad Max: Fury road is clearly the best for this category but Mel Gibson’s replacement Road Warrior, Tom Hardy, makes this Max feel more like a new entry into a new series than a complete sequel to Beyond the Thunderdome. It is shiny, chrome and NEW after all. So, if I’m removing Fury Road, I am looking at a wasteland of choices. Usually the decision to revive an old franchise comes not from the arena passion, but the name recognition one desires for easy money. And the result is often massive wreckage. But there is a pleasurable sequel that greatly enhanced an average film that was made 28 years prior AND includes the original cast member. That’s TRON: Legacy.

Did 1982’s TRON have a long legacy? It was the butt of a joke in The Simpsons where Homer gets sucked into the third dimension and asks his 2-D living room if anyone has seen that movie TRON—to which everyone, from his family, doctor, and even the local police, responds “No.” But when computer technology and 80s nostalgia were taking off in the 2000s, TRON re-emerged in a VHS chic package (wow look at that minimal computer technology! And The Dude when he was young!) and Disney decided it was time to revisit. The 2010 version traps Jeff Bridges in an arcade game and has him act like The Dude (“bio-digital jazz, man“) for his very Un-Dude son (Garrett Hedlund), who’s ventured into the game to find his bio-digital papa.

Where Legacy amazes is in its design and original score. The backdrops and costumes are defined by their blackness and highlighted shapes that come from sterile neon tubes or the monied-aughts (and MacIntosh’s) new favoritism of vacant white lights. From Olivia Wilde’s costume to motorcycle races through sparse digital roadways, this look gives TRON a new Legacy. Oh, and the original score was produced by Daft Punk. And they are the definition of bio-digital jazz, man.

William Bibbiani’s Pick: Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Warner Bros.

Unlike Brian, I have absolutely no issue with declaring Mad Max: Fury Road a proper sequel. Franchises change cast members all the time, and if I’m being honest, the transition from Mel Gibson to Tom Hardy may even have been a step up. 

Mad Max: Fury Road was my pick for the best movie of 2015, and it places high on my list of the greatest action movies ever made. It’s a brilliantly produced action thriller featuring one astounding action sequence after another, all of them wrapped in an efficient story with relevant, feminist overtones. Not a nut or bolt is out of place in Mad Max: Fury Road. Every piece keeps the fire-breathing engine running strong.

But I think the reason why, more than Star Wars: The Force Awakens or Tron: Legacy for example, George Miller’s sequel is the best belated sequel ever made is that it doesn’t seem to hold the previous films in the highest regard. Fury Road doesn’t feel like a nostalgia throwback to the original Mad Max movies, it feels like an all-new Mad Max movie, capturing the energy of the original without ever simply rehashing anything. 

Mad Max: Fury Road is exactly the film we needed, a propulsive action thriller that reminded us why the old days were great without getting its head stuck up its own ass in the process. Best belated sequel ever.

Previously on The Best Movie Ever:

Top Photos:  Sony Pictures Classics / Walt Disney / Warner Bros.