Godzilla, everyone’s favorite mutated sea lizard, will be stomping his way back onto American screens for the first time in over a decade this May. You can watch the trailer for the Gareth Edwards-directed flick above. Remakes of cinematic classics tend to be unfairly judged even before they’re released, but not all remakes and reboots are created equal. And because this particular remake of Toho Studios’ iconic monster movie runs the risk of actually being good, let’s take a look at other remakes and reboot that have defied expectations and stood the test of time.

Dawn of The Dead (2004, Zack Snyder)

One of the two classic satirical zombie flicks from George A. Romero (the other being “Night of The Living Dead”), no one expected anything special when Universal Studios announced it would be re-telling the story of survivors of a zombie outbreak taking shelter in a local mall back in 2004. The visual inventiveness, dark sense of humor, and thrilling action proved that the scenario still had life in it almost 30 years later. That and the great Ving Rhames taking pot shots at infected from a rooftop.

Ocean’s Eleven (2001, Stephen Soderbergh) 

This big caper tale was first told back in 1960 with Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. Director Stephen Soderbergh decided to give it another go with George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Don Cheadle in 2001 with all the heist thrills, cool style, and one-liners in tact. In other words, pure entertainment.

The Thing (1982, John Carpenter) 

Bet you didn’t know that this chilling piece was a remake of the 1951 film “The Thing From Another World,” itself an adaptation of the short story “Who Goes There?” from 1938. This film about an alien life form that can mimic any human it kills is still considered to this day a pinnacle of practical effects. And yes, that is a young Keith David starring alongside Kurt Russell. 

Scarface (1983, Brian De Palma) 

This endlessly quotable gangster film is a modern (for the 1980s, anyway) imagining of the film of the same name from 1932. Changing the focus from Italian  immigrants moving beer in 1920s Chicago to Cuban immigrants moving cocaine in 1980s Miami, the Al Pacino-starring flick is remembered today for its over the top violence, rags-to-riches storyline, and Pacino’s turn as Tony Montana.

Evil Dead (2013, Fedé Alvarez)

Treading the line between reboot and re-imagining, ‘Evil Dead’ blended the old-school funhouse horror of the Sam Rami-directed original with contemporary splatterporn horror to viscerally compelling effect.

The Departed (2006, Martin Scorsese) 

This Boston-area crime thriller, the movie that finally won director Scorsese an Oscar back in 2007, is in fact an Americanized remake of the 2002 Hong Kong film ‘Infernal Affairs.’ Both films revolve around moles planted in both the mob and the police force who desperately try to figure one another out before they’re snuffed out.