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!

44 of 64 photo by Warner Bros.

62.3 #19: Batman

The Caped Crusader has been appearing on screens big and small since a pair of serials in the 1940s. The first proper feature film centering on Batman was a 1966 release featuring the same cast as the television series debuting that year, with Adam West as Batman.

Since then, there have been eight live-action films centering on Batman (not including ensemble films in which the character has made an appearance, like Justice League). Tim Burton directed a pair of well-received films with Michael Keaton as Batman before handing the reins over to Joel Schumacher. He had less critical success with Val Kilmer taking over from Keaton in Batman Forever—and then directed the worst Batman film ever made (Batman and Robin), starring George Clooney.

It took eight years for Batman to return to theaters, but it was worth the wait. Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy was (appropriately enough) much darker than the Batman films that came before it, and both critics and audiences loved the results. Nolan's three films (starring Christian Bale as Batman) averaged 76.7 and grossed a combined $2.46 billion worldwide.

Since then, Ben Affleck has been the only actor to play Batman on film, making his debut in the disappointing DC Extended Universe entry Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. Next up for the Batman is (probably) The Batman, a long-delayed DCEU project that at one time was to feature Affleck as writer, director, and star (but now is likely not to include him in any capacity).

The films:
71 Batman (1966)
69 Batman (1989)
68 Batman Returns (1992)
51 Batman Forever (1995)
28 Batman and Robin (1997)
70 Batman Begins (2005)
82 The Dark Knight (2008)
78 The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
44 Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)

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