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!

8 of 64 photo by DreamWorks LLC/Paramount Pictures

39.4 #55: Transformers

Executive produced by Steven Spielberg and based on the Hasbro toy line, the sci-fi action series has grossed over $4.3 billion so far despite fairly savage reviews for all but the first film. That green Metascore for 2007's Transformers, by the way, marks the only time director Michael Bay received positive reviews for one of his films.

The reviews may have finally caught up to Transformers, as the most recent (and worst) installment was also the lowest-grossing in the franchise. Bay isn't directing the next film in the series, Bumblebee, a spinoff set for a December release.

The films:
61 Transformers (2007)
35 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)
42 Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)
32 Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)
27 Transformers: The Last Knight (2017)

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