The Naked Gun actually kept going, but the sequels never stuck the same way. The first movie’s jokes felt sharp and perfectly timed, while the follow-ups leaned more on familiar beats that didn’t hit as hard years later. When people think of Frank Drebin, they usually stop at the original and leave the rest as fuzzy background noise. | © Paramount Pictures
Die Hard set such a high bar that every sequel was destined to live in its shadow. Die Hard 2 made plenty of noise at the time, but it leaned harder on bigger action and thinner character stakes. When the original keeps defining the franchise year after year, the follow-up tends to blur into the background. | © 20th Century Studios
The Last Jedi was supposed to set the stage for a clear final chapter, but its sequel never really owned the moment. The Rise of Skywalker arrived surrounded by fan backlash, rushed rewrites, and the pressure to course-correct instead of continue the story. When a finale feels more like damage control than a natural follow-up, it’s no surprise people stopped talking about it almost immediately. | © Walt Disney Pictures
The Mask worked because Jim Carrey’s chaos was the whole point. When a sequel finally happened without him, the spark was gone, and the result felt forced and forgettable. Son of the Mask landed so badly that it pretty much erased itself from pop-culture memory. | © New Line Cinema
The Lion King feels so complete that most people remember Simba’s journey ending right there. A direct sequel did arrive, but it never matched the original’s villain or soundtrack, which made it easy to overlook. Simba’s Pride leaned heavily on nostalgia, and that’s mostly how it’s remembered today. | © Walt Disney Pictures
Sicario hit hard in 2015, earning its reputation as a tense, morally murky crime thriller. A sequel did arrive a few years later, but without Denis Villeneuve or Emily Blunt, the focus shifted toward more conventional action, losing some of what made the original stick. That change, plus a quieter buzz at the time, made Day of the Soldado easier to forget than you’d expect. | © Lionsgate Films
Grease became such a pop-culture juggernaut that anything following it was bound to live in its shadow. Grease 2 tried flipping the formula with new leads and a gender-reversed setup, but audiences weren’t ready to move on from Danny and Sandy. Between that and a short-lived prequel series decades later, it’s easy to forget the original ever had a sequel at all. | © Paramount Pictures
Lethal Weapon didn’t just get one follow-up, it quietly turned into a full franchise. The sequels kept coming through the ’90s with the same core duo, getting bigger and louder each time, which made them blur together in hindsight. Between multiple films, a later TV reboot, and endless talk of a fifth movie that never quite materialized, it’s easy to forget how many times Riggs and Murtaugh actually came back. | © Warner Bros. Pictures
Donnie Darko carved out cult status with its eerie tone and offbeat take on teenage dread. A sequel followed years later, shifting focus to Donnie’s sister and arriving without Richard Kelly’s involvement, which made it feel more like an imitation than a continuation. That disconnect helped S. Darko slip past audiences almost unnoticed, especially compared to the original’s lasting grip on pop culture. | © Newmarket Films
Venom stuck around mostly because audiences found it goofy fun, even when critics didn’t. The sequel did arrive, but landing outside the main MCU and dropping during a pandemic-era release window meant it never became part of the bigger superhero conversation. When louder Marvel projects kept stealing the spotlight, Let There Be Carnage ended up feeling like a side note people stopped talking about. | © Sony Pictures Releasing
Joker felt like a lightning-in-a-bottle moment, which made the sequel’s disappearance feel oddly fast. Folie à Deux drifted between awkward musical numbers and dull courtroom scenes, never quite giving viewers a reason to stay invested. When a follow-up leaves people forgetting it even exists, that usually says more than any bad review ever could. | © Warner Bros. Pictures
Saturday Night Fever turned John Travolta into a superstar and pushed disco straight into pop culture history. He came back as Tony Manero in Staying Alive, but the follow-up traded grit and character for glossy dance numbers and a thinner story. It made money at the time, yet the strange tone and shallow approach helped the sequel fade from memory. | © Paramount Pictures
The Judy Garland version of The Wizard of Oz feels so final that most people assume the story ended there. More than three decades later, an official sequel finally appeared, this time as an animated film that continued Dorothy’s journey. Voiced by Liza Minnelli, Journey Back to Oz was a solid follow-up that simply got overshadowed by one of the most famous movies ever made. | © Warner Bros. Pictures
Bambi is so emotionally tied to childhood trauma that most people assume the story ended there. A sequel quietly arrived decades later, set during Bambi’s early years and focused on his distant, uneasy relationship with his father. It didn’t hit with the same emotional force, so Bambi II slowly faded away despite actually adding context to what happened after that famous loss. | © RKO Pictures
American Psycho hit so hard that it quickly became a cult favorite, thanks largely to Christian Bale’s performance. The sequel showed up years later, barely felt connected to Patrick Bateman at all, and mostly left viewers wondering why it existed in the first place. When even Mila Kunis later said making American Psycho 2 was a mistake, it became easy to forget the movie ever happened. | © Columbia Pictures
Some movies feel so definitive that anything after them quietly slips through the cracks. The originals become cultural landmarks, while their follow-ups blur together or vanish from memory altogether. Not because the sequels didn’t exist, but because the first films did the job a little too well.
