A Star Is Born & 9 Other Movies That Have Been Remade Multiple Times

Remakes aren’t anybody’s favorite kind of movie. If a story’s already been told, there’s usually no reason to tell it again. But, of course, Hollywood can’t resist returning to familiar classics every now and then, because their storylines and characters are tried and true, and making another version of a movie that already exists is a lot easier than going into the uncharted waters of an original story.

Some movies are such a perfect template for a hit movie – like A Star is Born, a tale of showbiz with two substantial roles for A-list stars – that they’ve been remade more than once.

10 A Star Is Born (1937)

William A. Wellman’s A Star is Born stars Janet Gaynor as an aspiring actor and Fredric March as a fading movie star who helps her get her foot in the door. The movie’s three remakes have switched out the film industry setting for the music industry.

It was first remade in 1954 with Judy Garland and James Mason in the lead roles. Then, it was remade in 1976 with Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson and again in 2018 with Bradley Cooper (in his directorial debut) and Lady Gaga.

9 Dracula (1931)

Just as Bram Stoker’s original Dracula novel popularized the vampire myth in modern literature, the 1931 movie adaptation with Bela Lugosi – which kickstarted the iconic Universal Monsters franchise – popularized the vampire myth in modern horror cinema.

Stoker’s novel has since been re-adapted a bunch of times. Francis Ford Coppola’s adaptation is one of the most famous, marked by its gothic visuals and Gary Oldman’s creepy portrayal of the Count.

8 The Jungle Book (1967)

The first adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s seminal literary classic hit screens in 1942, but Disney’s 1967 animated musical version of The Jungle Book turned it into a cash cow rolled out by the House of Mouse and its imitators every couple of decades.

Disney remade its own animated musical in live-action form in 1994 and again in 2016. Andy Serkis directed a similarly star-studded version in 2018 titled Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle.

7 Little Orphan Annie (1932)

After Little Orphan Annie wowed audiences in 1932, the movie was remade in 1938, in 1982, in 1995, in 1999, in 2006, and in 2014. There will likely be more Annie remakes to follow.

The 1982 version turned the story into a musical based on the 1977 Broadway production, immortalizing songs like “It’s a Hard Knock Life” on the big screen.

6 The Longest Yard (1974)

Burt Reynolds starred in Robert Aldrich’s original 1974 version of The Longest Yard as an NFL star who’s sent to jail and puts together a football team with a bunch of his fellow inmates to take on the prison guards.

There was a British remake of The Longest Yard in 2001 called Mean Machine, starring Vinnie Jones and Jason Statham, which swapped out American football for English football. In 2005, there was an American remake with the original title. This version was a broad Happy Madison comedy starring Adam Sandler alongside his regular cohorts.

5 Brewster’s Millions (1914)

George Barr McCutcheon’s comical novel Brewster’s Millions, in which a man is taught the meaninglessness of money by being forced to spend a ton of it to earn his inheritance, has been adapted for the screen a handful of times.

The first movie adaptation arrived in 1914, just over a decade after the original novel was published. The most famous version stars Richard Pryor and John Candy and hit theaters in 1985.

4 Frankenstein (1931)

James Whale’s black-and-white 1931 adaptation of Frankenstein is still one of the most revered horror movies of all time after all these years, thanks to groundbreaking production design and a surprisingly sympathetic portrayal of the monster by the great Boris Karloff.

There have since been dozens of Frankenstein movies, ranging from straight re-adaptations of the Mary Shelley classic to bold reimaginings like setting the story in modern times.

3 Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1956)

Don Siegel adapted Jack Finney’s sci-fi horror classic The Body Snatchers into an incisive critique of McCarthyism in 1956. Philip Kaufman’s 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers starring Donald Sutherland is another gem.

The most recent Body Snatchers remake was The Invasion, a disappointing dud that starred Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. It has a fraction of the original’s title and also has a fraction of the original’s genius.

2 Yojimbo (1961)

Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo set the template for the lone wolf action hero. There are a bunch of loose remakes of Yojimbo: Django, Last Man Standing, Omega Doom, Incident at Blood Pass, The Warrior and the Sorceress. Kurosawa himself made a comedic reimagining of the movie called Sanjuro in 1962.

Sergio Leone shamelessly made A Fistful of Dollars as a shot-for-shot unofficial remake of Yojimbo, watching the movie religiously during production so he could translate it into a Wild West setting as directly as possible. This led to a lawsuit by the production company behind Yojimbo.

1 King Kong (1933)

One of the greatest monster movies ever made, King Kong follows a film crew that travels to the mysterious Skull Island, discovers a giant ape named Kong, and captures him and brings him back to New York to charge people to see the “Eighth Wonder of the World.” It’s a love story at its core, as Kong falls for leading lady Ann Darrow.

The seminal 1933 original has been remade a bunch of times. John Guillermin directed a version in 1976, while Peter Jackson employed performance-capture technology to helm a big-budget version in 2005.

About The Author

Ben Sherlock
(3473 Articles Published)

Ben Sherlock is a writer, comedian, independent filmmaker, and Burt Reynolds enthusiast. He writes lists for Screen Rant and features and reviews for Game Rant. He’s currently in pre-production on his first feature (and has been for a while, because filmmaking is expensive). You can catch him performing standup at odd pubs around the UK that will give him stage time. Previously, he wrote for Taste of Cinema, Comic Book Resources, and BabbleTop.

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