This analysis was made for this Reddit thread. The data source for this analysis was taken from these Wikipedia articles.
The original question this analysis was endeavouring to answer was, 'How have remakes of old moves been trending over time?'. To answer this, I obtained the data from the above Wikipedia page and then looked at the movies that are classed as remakes; i.e Movies that were released after an original movie of the same name/plot. This data doesn't take into account movies that were remakes of books, it is also not clear if the data obtained is a comprehensive or exhaustive list. However, it does give some insight into the trend of movie remakes. As you can see from the chart below, there has been quite a ramp up in the number of movies that are remakes. We see an average of between ~5 to ~7 in the years from 1904 to around 1980. From 1980 things really start ramping up and we seek a peak of 28 movies in 2005 being classed as remakes. Interestingly, in more recent years there has been a decline the number of remakes and a return to a more modest average of between ~6 to ~7.
But when were the originals made? 1939 and 1932 was the year with the most movies inspiring remakes with 22 Movies in total. If you look at the trend you can see that the 1930s was the most popular period of cinema we have looked to re-create. However, overall we're not looking to newer movies for re-hash which is not surprising.
There are a number of stories and plotline that you probably feel you've heard and seen before. But what are the movies that have had the most adaptations and remakes on screen? And is there a stand out one you should watch if you haven't seen the story before? Well, here are the most remade movies and which ones people rate the best.