Feuds are nothing new among dedicated fans of anything. You'll hear arguments among comics fans about which was the best Batman that are no different from sports fans arguing about which lineup of a team was the best. Movies are no exception, and the "which is better" discussion comes up a lot when the same story is told by wildly different creative teams. Take for example the two movies above, Manhunter & Red Dragon. Both are adaptations of Thomas Harris' first Hannibal Lecter novel Red Dragon, a prequel to Silence of the Lambs about FBI profiler Will Graham coming out of retirement and working with the infamous cannibal to catch a brutal serial killer called the Tooth Fairy.
Having watched both for myself recently, the "which is better" question came to my mind. Initially I felt Red Dragon was the better movie, but that Manhunter was the better-made movie. That conclusion got me wondering though, if Manhunter was made better why did I think that Red Dragon was the superior film? After all, if Manhunter was better made shouldn't it also just be better? So I rolled the question and the two films around in my head for some time and came to what I thought was an interesting conclusion. Which movie was better depended on my own personal criteria for what made a good movie.
