Every Tim Burton film ranked

is Tim Burton’s reimagining of the 1960s gothic soap opera of the same name. In this 2012 dark fantasy film, Johnny Depp plays Barnabas Collins, an 18th-century vampire released from his coffin prison in 1972 who returns to his ancestral Maine home to protect his descendants (including Michelle Pfeiffer, Jonny Lee Miller, and Chloë Grace Moretz). Eva Green—a later-career Burton muse who never said no to playing a bonkers character—is a scream as Angelique Bouchard, a vengeful witch who just can’t get over Barnabas. A lot of critics seemed confused as to whether Dark Shadows wanted to be a comedy, horror or drama film, but hard-core Burton fans embraced the wacky vibe and appearance by Alice Cooper as himself. Depp said that he drew inspiration for his performance from Max Schreck in 1922’s Nosferatu. Our favorite bits are when Depp leans into the humor of the fish-out-of-water story, like how Barnabas reacts to 1970s pop culture.

Some would place 1999’s lower on this list, but we’ll go to bat for what remains Tim Burton’s only straightforward horror film. Yes, there are moments of humor from Johnny Depp as jittery New York City police constable Ichabod Crane, but this atmospheric movie adaptation of Washington Irving’s “The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow” has some genuinely frightening moments as the Headless Horseman decapitates numerous victims in the foggy Dutch hamlet. Sleepy Hollow won the Academy Award for Best Art Direction and deserves a second look from those who dismissed it upon its initial release for not being as whimsical as Burton fans expected. This isn’t Beetlejuice funhouse horror, this is gothic HORROR horror, and it holds up.

is a stop-motion musical fantasy co-directed by Tim Burton and Mike Johnson with characters created by Burton and Carlos Grangel. Some might argue that Corpse Bride doesn’t belong on this list because Burton co-directed it, but the characters SCREAM (in all caps) Burton, so it counts. Johnny Depp voices Victor, a shy groom who practices his upcoming wedding vows in front of Emily (Helena Bonham Carter), the titular corpse bride, who rises from the grave with his promise to wed. In true Burton fashion, the underworld is depicted as lively and full of color, music, and dancing, while the real world of Victorian England is shown as dreary, gray, and miserable. Corpse Bride was critically and commercially successful, and even got nominated for a Best Animated Feature Oscar.

It’s difficult to remember a time when cinemas weren’t carpet-bombed with a new superhero flick every month, but back in 1989 the Superman franchise starring Christopher Reeve had run its course and there were no tentpole superhero movies in sight until Tim Burton directed starring Michael Keaton as Gotham City’s Dark Knight. The movie was an immediate box office smash, earning over $411 million worldwide and winning the Oscar for Best Art Direction. Not only was Keaton a hit as Batman, Jack Nicholson received much praise for becoming completely unhinged as the Joker—a role he seemed born to play.

2012’s is a remake of Tim Burton’s 1984 short film of the same name about a young boy named Victor Frankenstein who brings his beloved bull terrier Sparky back to life via an electrifying science experiment. The black-and-white, stop-motion animated movie is a simultaneous homage and parody of the 1931 film Frankenstein. Burton finally had the Disney-sized budget in 2012 to make a version of Frankenweenie that matched his vision, and this joyously weird movie is chock-full of lovable, big-eyed, goth-looking, misfit characters for which Burton is known. The underlying message about the importance of scientific curiosity is even more relevant today as people debate if the Earth is round or whether or not to get the latest vaccine. The 3D film was nominated for a Best Animated Feature Oscar and we still think it deserved to win more than Brave.

The 1985 gem is Tim Burton’s first feature-length movie and it made a star out of the late Paul Reubens, who played the titular bow tie-wearing man-child who goes on a wild nationwide search to retrieve his stolen bicycle. The cult favorite gave audiences a feel for Burton’s unique visual style and fondness for adorable misfits. This cinematic parody of 1948’s Bicycle Thieves spawned two Pee-wee sequels (not directed by Burton) and its success (along with that of Beetlejuice) led to Burton being offered to direct Batman.

After the success of Batman, it made sense that both director Tim Burton and star Michael Keaton would be invited back for a sequel. In , which arrived in 1992, Burton really put the “goth” in Gotham City for this moody follow-up featuring the Penguin (Danny DeVito) as a societal outcast who grew up in the sewers and Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer) as a mousy secretary who transforms into a patent leather-clad vixen with a whip and sharp claws. The latter and Batman have an instant animal attraction, and the doomed romance that percolates between the two masked characters adds another intriguing layer that was missing from the 1989’s Batman. Sadly, Batman Returns was Burton’s final Batman film and the last time we’d see Keaton as the character until he returned in 2023’s The Flash.

is Tim Burton at his magical best—completely in his goth-adjacent comfort zone. The romantic gothic fairy tale with a story cowritten by Burton features Johnny Depp as the titular artificial man whose creator died before completing him. Edward does the best he can with his scissor hands by giving haircuts to the nearby suburban residents, but he knows he will never fit into their colorfully manicured world with his pale, scarred face and a tousled mop of hair reminiscent of the Cure’s Robert Smith. Edward is a gentle misfit who is just too much of an outsider to get the girl of his dreams (played by Depp’s then-girlfriend Winona Ryder), which makes Edward Scissorhands a timeless, heartbreaking romance even if the characters don’t ride off together into the sunset. Stan Winston and Ve Neill received an Oscar nomination for Best Makeup, and Danny Elfman received a Grammy nomination for his hauntingly beautiful score.

It’s no surprise that Tim Burton would be drawn to making a film about an oddball cult director. stars Johnny Depp as the director of Plan 9 From Outer Space—considered by many to be the worst film ever made—and the movie follows Wood as he tries make his filmmaking dreams come true despite a lack of funds and questionable talent. Martin Landau won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his brilliant performance as Dracula actor Bela Lugosi, and the movie also won a Best Makeup Oscar. Although Ed Wood didn’t recoup its production budget at the box office, it remains one of Burton’s most critically acclaimed films and we can think of no other director better suited to viewing Wood’s life and career through a more sympathetic lens.

Tim Burton’s best (and signature) film is the 1988 fantasy-horror-comedy . In the movie, a ghost couple (Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin) hire a devilish spirit named Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton) to scare off a family that moves into the couple’s former home. Winona Ryder plays the family’s gothic teenager Lydia Deetz, who memorably says, “Live people ignore the strange and unusual. I myself am strange and unusual.” Burton didn’t write the screenplay, but those words could have come out of his mouth as a description of his life philosophy. Beetlejuice is funny, spooky, whimsical, weird … everything a Burton movie should be. It won the Oscar for Best Makeup and spawned an animated series, video games, a stage musical, and—at long last—an upcoming sequel that Burton is currently working on with Ryder and Keaton set to return.