Terminator 2 was better. Ouija 2 was better. Empire strikes back. Back to the future 2.

I can't think of any more.

I'm of the opinion that the Austin Powers series got better with each film.

Dark Knight

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.

Evil Dead, at least for me. I enjoyed the first movies but absolutely love Army of Darkness.

The James Bond franchise gets better over time arguably. It has ups and downs, but I definitely wouldn't say it's downward trend overall.

Mad Max.

I'd argue the original Evil Dead trilogy get progressively better with each movie.

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

Not a fan of the Scream movies, but just saw a video of a guy talking about how each one gets better than the last one mainly because they are self aware of being sequels and use that to enrich the narrative

Theres an argument that The Godfather Pt 2 is the best of the 3

Spiderman 2 was arguably better than Spiderman 1. 3 was worse tho.

And being extremely malicious, I like two towers and return of the king more than the fellowship of the ring :)

Die Hard 3 is arguably the best of the 3.

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.

James Bond. Because each bond had it's fans.

Toy Story 3 and 4. Far superior to 1 and 2 if you put aside the groundbreaking CG of the first.

Sister Act 2

so most franchises usually have a product Decline?

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.

So long as you can put yourself in the headspace, the fast and furious movies do get better when you realize that every movie is the exact same film (besides Tokyo drift anyway), but with higher stakes than the last one, to kind of absurd levels - starts with street racing, ends up in space, through so many movies.

But that's kind of a meta analysis based on what they are, not the actual quality, none of them are amazing, but fine if you can turn your brain off for a bit

Top gun I guess. Second one was better than first one.