10 Best Movie Prequels Ever

Because sometimes you just can't beat a blast from the past.

By Andrew Pollard /

Barely a week goes by these days where you don't hear about some sort of sequel, remake, reboot, reimagining, reimaging, or whatever the cool 'phrase of the week' is. Either way, films have plenty of follow-ups or even do-overs.

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One thing that's far less commonplace than any of those other movies is the notion of a prequel.

It's rare that a franchise, or even standalone movie, will take the plunge to travel back in time and check out what was happening before established present-day canon. Even rarer, is any such prequel actually being any good.

Hollywood has a horrible habit of doing prequels just to be a money spin, and the majority of the time it ends up in some unwatchable movie that has wasted the time, money, and reputation of all involved. Luckily, that's not always been the case with prequels, of course.

To shine a more positive light on proceedings, then, it's always good to think of the great prequels that cinema has served up over the years. They may have been few and far between for stretches of time, but here are the ten greatest movie prequels ever.

10. Bumblebee

For those with warm 'n' fuzzy memories of the Transformers cartoon of the '80s and the subsequent comics, toys, video games, etc. that followed, it was ridiculously cool to hear that Michael Bay was making a big-budget Transformers movie back in 2007.

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Only for those same fans, that '07 offering was horrible.

As audiences struggled to identify each Transformer amongst a myriad of overly-slick CGI beings who looked nothing like our childhood favourites, Bay decided to focus the majority of his time on blowing sh*t up and zooming in on Megan Fox's backside. Four further films followed, and none of them ever managed to capture the charm of this property.

That is, until Bumblebee arrived towards the end of last year.

An '80s-set prequel, Bumblebee encapsulated the spirit, the energy, and the excitement of the Transformers property and perfectly brought it to life on the silver screen. Going for a more minimalist approach, with Transformers that look like, shock horror, Transformers, and a brilliant blend of '80s music and the feel-good fist-pumping spirit of such '80s coming-of-age movies, Bumblebee was a triumph.

Finally, Transformers fans were given the Transformers movie that they'd for so long craved.

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