Every Film Franchise, Ranked

by Jason Dietz, Metacritic Features Editor – August 9, 2018

Well, maybe not every franchise. But most. We have taken every film franchise for which we have data, calculated an average Metascore for each one, and then ranked the results in the gallery above from worst to best. To be eligible, a franchise must have a minimum of four films with Metascores. That rules out trilogies, obviously.

What else is excluded? A few things:

* Horror film franchises. There are so many of those that we will gather them in their own separate list, which we'll publish later this year. (A few franchises that span multiple genres, like the Alien films, will appear in both lists.)

* Animated films. We are only including live-action movies in this list (mainly to keep the list a somewhat reasonable size—sorry to all you Pokemon and Shrek fans). Note that if a franchise is mostly live-action but has one animated release, the animated film is not included in the average Metascore for that franchise.

* Made-for-TV movies.

* A few franchises where most of the releases were mainly straight to video

* Some very old franchises for which there aren't many reviews still available.

Don't worry: That still leaves over 60 film franchises to rank. Happy browsing!

19 of 64 photo by Artisan Entertainment

47.8#44: Rambo

Sylvester Stallone's second-most famous film franchise has its origins in a 1982 adaptation of David Morrell's novel First Blood in which Stallone stars as troubled (but skilled) Vietnam vet John Rambo.

First Blood is the only film in the series to receive positive reviews from critics. But it was the 1985 follow-up that turned Rambo into an enduring big-screen hero and cemented Stallone as a major box-office draw. In fact, that film remains Stallone's highest-grossing release to date (unless you count his ensemble role in the most recent Guardians of the Galaxy film).

Stallone rebooted the Rambo series in 2008 after a 20-year hiatus with a film that he directed and co-wrote. He will again handle those duties (as well as starring once more) in Rambo V, due in 2019.

The films:
62 First Blood (1982)
47 Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985)
36 Rambo III (1988)
46 Rambo (2008)

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