Every Film Franchise, Ranked
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!
It is one of cinema's longest-running and most prolific ongoing franchises, with 26 films (including two that are not part of the official series) based on the British spy character created by novelist Ian Fleming, and never longer than a 6-year gap between releases. Casino Royale has actually been made three times (including once in the 1950s for television, which is not included in the list below), and Thunderball twice (the second time as Never Say Never Again); otherwise, there are no repeats in the series.
Despite the volume of films, there has never been a flat-out terrible installment, though A View to a Kill—despite the great theme song—comes close. But how do the scores break down for each actor who has portrayed 007 on screen? Here are the averages by star:
1. Sean Connery (7 films) : 71.7
2. Daniel Craig (4 films): 69.8
3. George Lazenby (1 film): 61
4. Timothy Dalton (2 films): 59
5. Pierce Brosnan (4 films): 57.5
6. Roger Moore (7 films): 53.7
7. David Niven (1 film): 48
Daniel Craig will return for his fifth Bond film in 2019.
The films:
78 Dr. No (1962)
85 From Russia With Love (1963)
87 Goldfinger (1964)
64 Thunderball (1965)
48 Casino Royale (1967) *
61 You Only Live Twice (1967)
61 On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)
59 Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
55 Live and Let Die (1973)
43 The Man With the Golden Gun (1974)
55 The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
66 Moonraker (1979)
54 For Your Eyes Only (1981)
63 Octopussy (1983)
68 Never Say Never Again (1983) *
40 A View to a Kill (1985)
60 The Living Daylights (1987)
58 Licence to Kill (1989)
65 GoldenEye (1995)
52 Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
57 The World Is Not Enough (1999)
56 Die Another Day (2002)
80 Casino Royale (2006)
58 Quantum of Solace (2008)
81 Skyfall (2012)
60 Spectre (2015)
* not part of the official Eon-produced series