10 Best Movie Prequels Ever

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

Temple Of Doom Black Sleep
Paramount Pictures

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.

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

Temple Of Doom Black Sleep
Paramount

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.

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.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.