The Top 10 Movie Franchises
With the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie coming out this weekend, I thought it would be a great time to make a new movie list. Considering that the new Pirates movie will be the 5th in the franchise, today we will be focusing on… movie franchises. Once again, this is personal preference list based on the overall quality of the movie franchise. Also because we are focusing franchises, I am only focusing on franchises with at least 4 films. Trilogies will be another list for another day. Let’s begin boys and girls.
Honorable Mentions: The Fast and Furious Franchise, The X-Men Franchise, The Star Trek Franchise, The Planet of the Apes Franchise, The Alien Franchise
10. The Terminator Franchise- Kicking off our list is the story of man vs. machine. With 5 films total, the Terminator franchise gets off to a great start and a disappointing finish. In a way, it’s very similar to the Alien Franchise. The first two are amazing but everything after is pretty bad. The best is T2: Judgement Day and it’s arguably the greatest action film of all-time.
9. The Batman Franchise- Batman has been to the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. With 13 total films, there have been many different interpretations of the Dark Knight. From the campy Adam West to the grizzled Ben Affleck, different generations of fans have loved this superhero. For me, my Batman will always be Christian Bale and I’ve said this 100 times so I’ll say it again; The Dark Knight is the greatest superhero movie of all-time. While the Joker stole that movie, Bale is still excellent as Bruce Wayne/Batman.
8. The Mission Impossible Franchise- Mission Impossible has probably been the most consistent franchise on this list. With 5 films total, other than the 2nd, all of movies have been from good to great. With a focus on practical stunts and superstar actor Tom Cruise, the recent movies have been getting better and better. Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, where Cruise is LITERY hanging out the side of a flying plane, is the best one.
7. The Rocky Franchise- It’s hard to imagine now, but the original Rocky is now over 40 years old. But still, it has its place in the hearts and minds of millions today. With the original winning Best Picture, 5 sequels followed. To me, they all got progressively worse and I thought the franchise was dead. But then, 2015’s spin off Creed came out and it was amazing. It was so good that it got Sylvester Stallone his 2nd best acting nomination for the role of Rocky Balboa. Out of the 7 total films, it’s hard to top the original but Creed isn’t that far behind.
6. The James Bond Franchise- James Bond truly has seen it all. With a record shattering 24 films in the entire series, Bond has spanned generations. 6 actors have portrayed the British spy and while some haven’t been, some have been legendary. Sean Connery and Daniel Craig are the best 007s in my opinion and Craig’s Skyfall is the best Bond film by far.
5. The Indiana Jones Franchise- Indiana Jones is my favorite character of all-time and I am glad to say that he has some of the best movies ever made. While this franchise only has 4 films to its name, the quality of those movies (except for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) can’t be understated. While The Last Crusade is an amazing movie, I don’t anything comes close to beating the original Raiders of the Lost Ark. Harrison Ford will be returning as the archaeologist in the 5th outing in a few years and all I hope for is that it properly sends off the greatest movie character of all-time properly.
4. The Harry Potter Franchise (J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World)- Harry Potter will always have a special place in my heart and especially my generation. We grew up along with Harry as he learned how to become a Wizard and how to become a man. While the 8 films (9 with Fantastic Beasts) in the series are different in tone as they progressively get more mature, but they are all good. To me, everything in the middle is really good but the two best in the series are the first one with The Sorcerer’s Stone and The Deathly Hallows: Part 2.
3. The Lord of the Rings Franchise (The Middle-Earth Saga)- Other than The Godfather trilogy, The Lord of the Rings trilogy is the only trilogy in which every film was nominated for Best Picture. Tons of iconic characters came out of this adventure on the mission to destroy the Ring of Mordor. While the Hobbit trilogy didn’t live up to the hype of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, there still a lot of cool moments in the prequels and all 6 movies. Out of all these epics, The Return of the King stands above the rest as it was the perfect end to a perfect trilogy.
2. The Star Wars Saga– There is not a person living today who hasn’t heard of Star Wars. Star Wars truly is unlike anything we have ever seen. Not just because of the movies themselves, but also because of the way they were released. The original trilogy was back in the 70s and 80s, the prequel trilogy came out in the early 2000s, and now 10 years later we have are new trilogy in the works. Star Wars has had countless iconic moments and characters to pick from and it’s hard to argue against the original trilogy from being the greatest trilogy of all-time. It’s a dead tie between Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back as the best in the series. But in terms of a franchise, 2 of the 8 films in this series are outright bad films so it doesn’t get the top spot for me.
1. The Marvel Cinematic Universe– I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the MCU is my favorite movie franchise ever and it not really that close. With the recent release of Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 2, the MCU is now up to 15 films. While some are better than others, there is not one bad film in the entire series. Iron Man, Captain America, Thor and the rest of the superheroes part of the Avengers world has shaped the current pop culture world as we know it. It’s also changed the way how Hollywood makes franchises today as everything needs to be a shared universe (for better or for worse). For me, I said this a few weeks ago in my list of the best MCU films (currently on this website), but the best movie in this massive series hast to be The Avengers.
Well that’s it guys, hope you enjoy the list and look out for that Pirates review.
Written By: Steven Santoro (SVS_1993)
