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!

2 of 64 photo by Warner Bros.

26.3 #61: Police Academy

Talk about a downward trend. After getting off to a deeply mediocre (if beloved by some) start in 1984, the comedy series about misfit cop recruits returned with six additional installments—most at a one-per-year pace—and each received even worse reviews than the film before it.

After seemingly reaching its nadir in 1989 with City Under Siege, the Police Academy series took a five-year break, only to emerge from hibernation in 1994 with an even worse chapter, Mission to Moscow. Distributor Warner Bros. gave that film little more than a token theatrical release—it grossed under $150,000—and the franchise has not been seen since, save for a short-lived syndicated TV series in 1997. Though it's not for a lack of trying: Various attempts to revive the franchise have been ongoing for the past dozen years.

The films:
41 Police Academy (1984)
39 Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment (1985)
33 Police Academy 3: Back in Training (1986)
26 Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol (1987)
18 Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach (1988)
16 Police Academy 6: City Under Siege (1989)
11 Police Academy: Mission to Moscow (1994)

Where To Buy