Empire Strikes Back, Aliens, and Blade Runner 2049 would be my picks.

This is 40 as sequel to knocked up.

The Two Towers?

I won’t go so far as to say this is better than Terminator 2, but Gremlins 2 is such a great sequel. Some people are turned off by the zaniness, but I love how it’s basically a parody of unnecessary sequels and that they just swung for the fences with it.

I saw another comment that spurred my thinking. There are (how many?) sequels in the Terminator series that have only been increasingly worse all because Terminator 2 was so good.

The same goes for Star Wars. Empire Strikes Back is a damn good movie by any measure. I’m confident none of the Star Wars movies since have managed to even come close, and I’d even say the only ones really worth watching are the first, the second, and the immediate prequel (Rogue One)

Hate on Michael Bay and his Transformers movies all you want, but there is only one movie with more robots that turn into more things than cars, more explosions, more ridiculous destruction, more awesomeness, more movie than 2007’s Transformers, and that movie is Transformers: Age of Extinction.

A giant robot that turns into a semi-truck painted with red flames, wielding a sword while riding on the back of another giant robot that turns into a flame-breathing T-rex robot. It’s unparalleled in the stupid dumb action movie genre.

I qualify a good sequel as a movie that can be enjoyed without having to watch the previous. Not that the previous isn’t important, just not required.

Terminator 2 clearly fits into this category. As do a lot of sequels. Here is my short list:

• Terminator 2
• The Dark Knight
• Finding Dory
• Toy Story 2
• Spider Man 2 (Toby Maguire)

Do Casino Royal or Rogue One count for anyone?

Hot shots! Part deux.

I wouldn’t say they are better, per se, but these are some sequels I think are on the same level, when compared to the original film in the series:

• Austin Powers 2

• Die Hard With a Vengeance

• Operation Condor 2

• Back to the Future Part 3

• Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome

cars 2. Nothing better than a spy movie where the protagonist is literally a car

Mad max 1 was a revenge cop story nobody watched outside Australia

Mad max 2 was the apocalyptic Mad max everybody know

• Empire Strikes Back
• Star Trek II

I’m guessing you don’t mean “film better than T2 that also happens to be a sequel,” but rather “sequel that is better than the first film by an amount greater than T2 was over T1.”

I haven’t seen T1 in a while, so I’m not sure how it would hold up. I want to say it was like a 7/10? And T2 a 10/10?

So, is there a sequel that is more than 3/10 better than the first film?

Inside Out and Bladerunner are both better than 7/10 in the first place, thus their sequels cannot be the answer regardless of how you would rate them.

I’ve never seen the Twilight films, but wasn’t the 2nd one said to be a huge upgrade over the 1st?

Same with Shrek. I never made it through the 1st one, it was so bad.

Inside Out 2

Terminator 3