10 Movie Sequels Better Than The Original

6. Paddington 2

Paddington arrived back in 2014 in very unassuming manner - he is a polite bear, after all - and it was nice. It's a lovely little film, and you'll have a good time watching it with a cup of tea and a marmalade sandwich on a rainy afternoon.

But Paddington 2 is an experience. And that experience specifically is pure, unadulterated joy.

Paul King's Paddington 2 takes everything great about the first and improves it, making a movie that's whimsical and smart, creative and charming, warm and hilarious, and absolutely bursting with heart. It's the perfect antidote to both a movie business obsessed with churning out empty entries in franchises and to the real world bleakness too, with timeless lessons of how we should treat each other, not judging books by their cover, and the importance of family and friendships.

All of this is done with such sincerity it's impossible not to fall in love with it; the movie will plaster a grin on your face that you cannot remove for the duration of its runtime (or for long afterwards), but it's capable of bringing a tear to your eye as well. It's a movie that just makes everything better, and I haven't even mentioned *the greatest performance of Hugh Grant's career* as the show-stopping, scene-stealing, musical-performing villain.