The first Jurassic Park movie is all time one of the greatest films ever made with the special effects still holding up to this day. The 2nd film was still very enjoyable in my opinion but it was just a cookie cutter sequel not bad, not good. The 3rd film wasn’t great at all. But compared to the rest of the series the 3rd film is basically the godfather.
As another personal pick the 1st blade movie is a hood classic good. The other 2 not so much.
Is there any what gets better? There are good sequels, but once it becomes movie franchise, it all turns to shit. Sometimes faster, sometimes slower.
Dark Knight
It being filmed together is it being a 6+ hour movie in 3 chapters. I think it’s a single project not successive films. Just how I frame it, I concede to technicalities if you must
Franchises where the second film is more broadly acclaimed than the first: Star Wars, The Godfather, The Dark Knight, arguably Alien, Terminator, Star Trek, Paddington, Rocky, James Bond, The Pink Panther, Mad Max. Ones where the third film is the most acclaimed: arguably Indiana Jones, maybe Toy Story, LOTR (kind of all a merged movie so doesn’t count), The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Star Wars prequels
Hahaha. Now do a set where the second movie was better than the first but the third movie was absolutely awful.
The Sergio Leone trilogy with Clint Eastwood arguably gets better. The first one was almost a shot-for-shot remake of Yojimbo - good but derivative. The third movie stood up well against the early ones and the music was maybe the best.
Die Hard 3 is arguably the best of the 3.
I’d argue the original Evil Dead trilogy get progressively better with each movie.
Sister Act 2
Ouija 2 Origin of Evil by Mike Flannigan is the rare exception where the sequel trounced the OG in every way.
The Librarian also all three movies are good, with the third being arguably the best.
Toy Story 3 and 4. Far superior to 1 and 2 if you put aside the groundbreaking CG of the first.
James Bond. Because each bond had it’s fans.
Tron, if you care about the music. Going from peak (Wendy Carlos) to peak (Daft Punk) to peak (Nine Inch Nails) even if the movies are bad.
Top gun I guess. Second one was better than first one.