A new list of the 100 Best Sequels Ever Made over at Indiewire by critic David Ehrlich has seen an eyebrow-raising winner, “Magic Mike XXL,” taking the crown and beating the perennial favourite of these kinds of lists – “The Godfather Part II”.
The Coppola film came in second, but other big surprises were in store with James Cameron’s “Aliens” at #10, Irvin Kirshner’s “The Empire Strikes Back” all the way down at #12, Chris Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” at #38 and Nicholas Meyer’s “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” at #41.
The Top 50 are included below with some welcome surprises, such as multiple George Miller movies, “Paddington 2” at #9, Rian Johnson’s “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” at #19, opting for “For a Few Dollars More” at #33 as the best of the Man with No Name trilogy, and Guy Hamilton’s Agatha Christie adaptation “Evil Under the Sun” at #44.
Quite a few notable titles didn’t make the top 50 including “Return to Oz” at #51, “Batman Returns” at #54, “Top Gun: Maverick” at #57, “Wes Craven’s New Nightmare” at #59, “Addams Family Values” at #69, “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” at #72, “The Bourne Ultimatum” at #80, “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift” at #81 and “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” at #97.
Here’s the top 50:
1. Magic Mike XXL (Gregory Jacobs)
2. The Godfather: Part II (Francis Ford Coppola)
3. 2046 (Wong Kar Wai)
4 .The World of Apu (Satyajit Ray)
5. Dawn of the Dead (George Romero)
6. Through the Olive Trees (Abbas Kiarostami)
7. Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller)
8. The Look of Silence (Joshua Oppenheimer)
9. Paddington 2 (Paul King)
10. Aliens (James Cameron)
11. Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale)
12. The Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner)
13. Before Sunset (Richard Linklater)
14. Three Colors: Red (Krzysztof Kieslowski)
15. T2: Judgment Day (James Cameron)
16. Mission: Impossible Fallout (Christopher McQuarrie)
17. The Souvenir: Part II (Joanna Hogg)
18. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (David Lynch)
19. Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Rian Johnson)
20. The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Fritz Lang)
21. Spider-Man 2 (Sam Raimi)
22. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Peter Jackson)
23. Sanjuro (Akira Kurosawa)
24. The Wayward Cloud (Tsai Ming-liang)
25. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Steven Spielberg)
26. Supercop (Stanley Tong)
27. Ivan the Terrible Part II (Sergei Eisenstein)
28. 35 Up (Michael Apted)
29. Dracula’s Daughter (Lambert Hillyer)
30. Stolen Kisses (François Truffaut)
31. Ocean’s Twelve (Steven Soderbergh)
32. The Road Warrior (George Miller)
33. For a Few Dollars More (Sergio Leone)
34. Toy Story 2 (John Lasseter)
35. Before Midnight (Richard Linklater)
36. After the Thin Man (W.S. Van Dyke)
37. Quatermass and the Pit (Roy Ward Baker)
38. The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan)
39. The Decline of Western Civilization Part II (Penelope Spheeris)
40. The Color of Money (Martin Scorsese)
41. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (Nicholas Meyer)
42. Creed (Ryan Coogler)
43. Triad Election (Johnnie To)
44. Evil Under the Sun (Guy Hamilton)
45. Swordsman II (Ching Siu-tung)
46. Babe: Pig in the City (George Miller)
47. Avatar: The Way of Water (James Cameron)
48. Gremlins 2: The New Batch (Joe Dante)
49. The Revenge of Frankenstein (Terence Fisher)
50. The Matrix Resurrections (Lana Wachowski)
Head over to Indiewire for the full list.
