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!
To recap, here is the complete list of film franchises, ranked by average Metascore:
1. Mad Max 77.8
2. Middle-earth (LOTR/Hobbit) 76.0
3. Harry Potter/Wizarding World 73.0
4. Mission: Impossible 69.7
5. Star Wars 69.6
6. Bourne 69.0
7. Marvel Cinematic Universe 68.4
tie/8. The Hunger Games 68.3
tie/8. Millennium Series 68.3
10. Indiana Jones 68.0
11. Spider-Man 67.8
12. The Muppets 65.6
13. Ocean's Eleven 63.8
14. X-Men 62.8
15. Star Trek 62.5
tie/16. Hannibal Lecter 62.4
tie/16. Planet of the Apes 62.4
tie/16. Terminator 62.4
19. Batman 62.3
20. James Bond 62.1
21. Barbershop 61.3
22. Rocky 61.1
23. Dirty Harry 60.8
24. View Askewniverse (Jay & Silent Bob) 60.0
25. Jack Ryan 59.6
26. Alien 59.5
27. Die Hard 58.4
28. Spy Kids 57.8
29. The Bad News Bears 56.5
30. Superman 56.0
31. Jurassic Park 55.8
32. Fast and the Furious 54.6
33. Jackass 54.5
34. Lethal Weapon 53.8
35. DC Extended Universe 52.0
36. Twilight Saga 51.0
37. RoboCop 50.3
tie/38. Diary of a Wimpy Kid 50.0
tie/38. Pirates of the Caribbean 50.0
40. The Karate Kid 49.6
41. Cheech & Chong 48.7
42. American Pie 48.3
43. The Pink Panther 47.9
44. Rambo 47.8
45. Transporter 47.5
46. Herbie the Love Bug 47.4
47. Universal Soldier 46.8
tie/48. Benji 46.2
tie/48. Step Up 46.2
50. Mummy 43.0
51. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 41.4
52. National Lampoon's Vacation 41.0
53. Predator 40.0
54. 3 Ninjas 39.5
55. Transformers 39.4
56. Tyler Perry's Madea 39.3
57. Resident Evil 39.0
58. Underworld 36.8
59. Ernest 34.8
60. Death Wish 30.3
61. Police Academy 26.3
62. Highlander 26.0