Kevin Wozniak
The legacy sequel isn’t just another entry in a franchise; it’s a crafted revival that brings us back to beloved cinematic worlds years, sometimes decades, after we were introduced to them. The legacy sequel typically brings back classic characters and themes from the original film while introducing new actors to continue the film universe.
In today’s cinematic landscape, legacy sequels are becoming more popular than ever, offering familiar comfort in a world obsessed with nostalgia. It feels like over the past five years, we keep getting more and more legacy sequels. Just in 2025 alone, we’ve gotten such legacy sequels as Final Destination: Bloodlines, Karate Kid: Legends, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and The Naked Gun.
With more legacy sequels in the pipeline, it doesn’t look like this subgenre is going to stop. These are my picks for the best legacy sequels.
The Color of Money (Martin Scorsese, 1986)
Martin Scorsese’s sequel to Rossen’s 1961 classic The Hustler is arguably the first great legacy sequel. Paul Newman reprises his role as “Fast” Eddie Felson, who has given up hustling in pool halls and is a liquor salesman in Chicago. After beating one of his friends in a game of nine-ball, Eddie pitches the idea of hustling to Vince (Tom Cruise) and his girlfriend, Carmen (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), who both agree. This brings Eddie back to old ways as the three of them go on a journey to several pool halls, hustling for money.
The Color of Money sets the template for a great legacy sequel. It brought back the main character from the first film and continued their journey, while also introducing us to new, exciting characters who rightfully could have had a spinoff. It makes references to The Hustler while having a singular tone and story. Newman won the Oscar for Best Actor for his performance in The Color of Money, and Cruise established that despite being young and new, he could hang with the best. The Color of Money is a sharply entertaining sports film and one of Scorsese’s most underrated films.
Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller, 2015)
It had been thirty years since we visited Max in the Wasteland. But director George Miller, the brains behind the Mad Max universe, took us back for what could be considered the greatest action film of the 21st century.
Tom Hardy replaced Mel Gibson as our titular Wasteland wanderer Max, but Mad Max: Fury Road is less a movie about Max and more a movie about a new character, Imperator Furiosa, played marvelously by Charlize Theron, as they try to escape the clutches of Wasteland leader Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne). Mad Max: Fury Road is as non-stop, adrenaline-fueled thrill ride that only George Miller could have made.
Creed (Ryan Coogler, 2015)
Ryan Coogler came out swinging with his 2015 sophomore feature, which expands the Rocky universe in a way nobody saw coming. Michael B. Jordan gave a star-making performance as Adonis Creed, the son of Apollo Creed (portrayed by Carl Weathers in the first four Rocky films). Adonis, a hot-headed, but talented boxer trying to make a name for himself outside of his father’s legacy. Adonis travels from Los Angeles to Philadelphia to enlist the help of Rocky Balboa (a remarkable Sylvester Stallone).
Taking some cues from The Color of Money and classic sports tropes, Creed is a hard-hitting and emotional look at legacy and earning your place in the world. It’s a movie that took the Rocky franchise to a new level while also launching a new franchise around Creed (which now has three movies). Creed is a knockout and was one of the very best movies of the 2010s.
Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, 2017)
Ridley Scott’s 1982 Blade Runner is a sci-fi classic that I don’t think many thought needed a sequel. But following his Oscar-winning masterpiece Arrival, director Denis Villeneuve brought us back to the dystopian future Scott established for us 35 years earlier. The result was a visually stunning spectacle.
Blade Runner 2049 mixed in a new Blade Runner world with the old one. Ryan Gosling stars as a young Blade Runner who discovers long-buried secrets that lead him back to former Blade Runner Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford). This is one of the best-looking films of the 21st century, with jaw-dropping sets and costumes and masterful cinematography from Roger Deakins, who won his first Oscar for the film. It’s epic in size and story, and further deepens the themes of humanity and identity already established by the first film. Blade Runner 2049 is as epic as sci-fi movies get.
Doctor Sleep (Mike Flanagan, 2019)
Doctor Sleep, a sequel to 1980’s The Shining, finds Dan Torrance (Ewan McGregor), still coping with the events of what took place at the Overlook Hotel, as he tries to protect a young girl with similar powers as him from being taken by child-preying cult called The True Knot, led by the charming and menacing Rose the Hat (Rebecca Ferguson).
Adapted from Stephen King’s 2013 novel, Doctor Sleep was criminally underseen and underappreciated when it was released in October of 2019. It is the best film of director Mike Flanagan’s career and does an outstanding job of honoring The Shining, both King’s novel and Stanley Kubrick’s film, while also looking at addiction and recovery, childhood trauma, and familial trauma. It also features a devilishly great performance by Ferguson.
The Matrix Resurrections (Lana Wachowski, 2021)
As the credits rolled at the end of The Matrix Revolutions, I believed that the stories of Neo, Trinity, and Morpheus had been completed and that the cinematic world of the Matrix was over. But I was wrong, and I was never so happy to be wrong in my life. Though Warner Bros. wanted to make more Matrix movies for years, Lily and Lana Wachowski had absolutely zero interest.
But following the death of her parents and a close friend, Lana Wachowski found solace in bringing Neo and Trinity back to the big screen and thus became The Matrix Resurrections. Resurrections might not have been as revolutionary as the first Matrix film (not many films in the 21st century are, to be frank), but it features exciting action, biting meta-text about the overabundance of legacy sequels and studio heads who would rather remake something than make something original, a slew of exciting new characters working with the old ones we know and love, and a moving love story between Neo and Trinity.
Divisive upon its release, The Matrix Resurrections is an awesome movie that brought us back into an iconic world.
Scream (Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, 2022)
The Scream franchise has always been a franchise that has commented on the state of horror movies and their tropes. Scream (2022) came out eleven years after the previous film, Scream IV, but the horror genre changed so much in that time. Studios like A24 and Neon rose in prominence, and arthouse and “elevated” horror seemed to dominate the culture. Scream comments on this change in the opening scene of the film, as one of our characters, Tara (Jenna Ortega), answers a phone call from a mysterious voice who is drilling her about movies. Tara brings up titles like The VVitch and Hereditary, a change from the usual Friday the 13th and Halloween.
But directors Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, who took over the franchise following the passing of the great Wes Craven, gave a giant middle finger to the idea of “elevated horror” and showed that the Scream franchise will never go down that route. Scream is a true slasher like the films before it. It brought back Sidney (Neve Campbell), Gale (Courtney Cox), and Dewey (David Arquette) and introduced us to a new group of serial killer-hunted teens, led by Sam Carpenter (Melissa Barrera), who just happens to be the daughter of Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich), one of the killers from the first film. Scream is a smart, funny, bloody, and biting slasher and was a worthy entry into one of the most consistent movie franchises we have today.
Top Gun: Maverick (Joseph Kosinski, 2022)
I felt it appropriate to bookend this list with The Color of Money and Top Gun: Maverick. Besides the fact that they both star Tom Cruise, these two films represent how far great legacy sequels have come. The Color of Money was the old standard and set the template for what a legacy sequel could be. Top Gun: Maverick is now the gold standard of modern legacy sequels. It is what all legacy sequels are striving to be. It gives a new story for a classic character, introduces us to new characters, some of whom are brand new to the franchise, some of whom represent the previous film in some way, does a good amount of fan service, but is also a film that someone who hadn’t seen the first Top Gun could watch and enjoy. It’s also just a great movie. It’s insanely entertaining, is filled with action, comedy, drama, has thrilling action scenes, and features an all-time movie star performance by Tom Cruise.
Top Gun: Maverick is also one of the most important movies of the 2020s. It was one of the major movies that brought audiences back to the movies following the COVID-19 pandemic, and it was a phenomenon, staying in theaters for nearly 30 weeks, grossing over $1 billion at the worldwide box office, and earning six Oscar nominations, including Best Picture.
