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!

30 of 64 photo by Paramount Pictures

54.5 #33: Jackass

Originating as an MTV series in 2000 (and before that, as an offshoot of a skateboarding magazine), the gross-out/extreme stunt franchise jumped to the big screen in 2002 as its creators and perpetrators (including director Jeff Tremaine, producer Spike Jonze, and star Johnny Knoxville) opted for more freedom away from the limits imposed by commercial-supported television.

The Jackass brand has proven surprisingly enduring, with four films reaching theaters and several others (basically compilations of unused footage from the films) released straight to video. But only the second film received positive reviews from critics.

The films:
42 Jackass: The Movie (2002)
66 Jackass Number Two (2006)
56 Jackass 3D (2010)
54 Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa (2013)

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