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!

62 of 64

77.8 #1: Mad Max

It's not often that the best film in a franchise comes four titles in after a 30-year hiatus—and after ditching its star, no less—but George Miller's post-apocalyptic action series isn't really like other franchises.

From modest beginnings in the taut low-budget 1979 thriller Mad Max, the series has gradually evolved, taking on ever-larger production budgets, deepening the development of its dystopian setting (while establishing the genre's stylistic template that countless other movies would follow), and gradually shedding its cult status.

Thunderdome, perhaps the least essential film in the series but the first to get a truly wide release in the United States, seemed to put an end to things in 1985, leaving a solid trilogy that became a must-watch on home video.

But Miller surprisingly decided to reboot the franchise (without star Mel Gibson). The result, 2015's spectacular, best picture-nominated Fury Road, is on the short list of contenders for the title of greatest action movie ever made.

The films:
73 Mad Max (1979)
77 The Road Warrior (1981)
71 Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)
90 Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

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