The 15 best, and the 15 worst, movie threequels ever made

Every entry in the Mission: Impossible franchise has something to offer, but the always blockbuster-friendly J.J. Abrams did something especially effective with the . The dark, high-stakes mission to capture an arms dealer (Philip Seymour Hoffman) provided Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt with new emotional depth, and helped set the table for the increasingly ambitious sequels that followed.

When your series villain is an undead demon who haunts your dreams, you’re allowed to take some chances. Thankfully for all of us, is a film full of big swings, with an ensemble cast, the return of original Nightmare star Heather Langenkamp, and some of the best kills in the whole franchise. Throw in a killer theme song, and it’s one of the most fun horror flicks of the 1980s.

Though it’s often overshadowed by the films on either side of it in the Star Trek franchise, still lands as a thoughtful, impressive sci-fi adventure in its own right. This is a film, after all, that sought to reverse the tragedy of Spock’s death in , and not only made it feel worth it, but made it feel absolutely essential to the nature of Star Trek from that point forward. That’s quite an achievement.

It might not be the gut punch of , but as the conclusion of a story about fathers and sons, hope and heartbreak, still works even if you don’t like the Ewoks. From the redemption of Darth Vader to the demise of Jabba the Hutt, it’s wall-to-wall adventure that feels like it expands a world even as it’s wrapping up a narrative.

The Toy Story franchise might still be going, but any ending it devises will never be as perfect as the one that capped the original trilogy. In the dynamic, inventive, and even devastating , Woody, Buzz, and their friends face evil toys, stare their own deaths in the face, and find a new home in one of animation’s most tearjerking final scenes.

The story of how happened is almost more interesting than the film itself, and that’s a problem. Despite the presence of Sigourney Weaver and the early promise of director David Fincher, the third film in the franchise fails to capture either the haunted house menace of Alien or the war movie mayhem of Aliens, leaving it in a stilted limbo of unfulfilled potential.

There’s some fun to be had with ’s tale of the Lang/Pym family venturing deep into the Quantum Realm, and Jonathan Majors is terrific as Kang the Conqueror. Still, the film suffers from classic Marvel Studios overreach, expanding in all directions at once until it starts to lose its way.

Joel Schumacher’s inimitable style and sense of camp shine through the weak points in , but the film never quite comes together in the way Tim Burton’s previous two films did. Val Kilmer’s underwhelming work in the title role doesn’t help matters, although watching the film alongside Schumacher’s followup, , makes Forever look like a masterpiece.

When viewed in the context of the larger Fast Saga, is an indispensable piece of worldbuilding that adds a lot to the bigger picture. As a standalone entry, though, while the film has its defenders, it just never rises to the level of many of the films around it. Still, we got Sung Kang’s Han out of the deal, so it was probably worth it.

There’s an operatic, richly textured quality to that makes it better than a lot of stuffier dramas and flashier crime films of its era. The problem is that it has the burden of following two absolute masterpieces, and while there’s loads of ambition to be a masterpiece, this film never really gets there. A bit better is Francis Ford Coppola’s 2020 re-cut of the film, which was released with the inelegant and unmemorable title of The Godfather, Coda: The Death Of Michael Corleone.

Carrying on a blockbuster franchise without your original stars is a tricky proposition, and is proof that even solid execution can’t always pull you out of that hole. The cast is charming, the premise is far fetched even by Home Alone standards—but still fun—and many of the gags retain John Hughes’ impish playfulness. Without the McCallisters and the Wet Bandits, though, it’s just not the same.

One of the most famous poster children for cinematic cash grabs, has a certain obviousness to it in retrospect. Of course someone was going to try to make this movie at some point, but the absence of any original cast members after , the use of SeaWorld as the central location, and the lackluster visual effects all sealed this film’s doom from the start.

The Matrix sequels aren’t as bad as you remember, they just had the misfortune of following the action movie perfection that is . With , though, something feels especially off, even in its best moments, like a whole trilogy of new films is being shoved into one story. While it never stops giving you new stuff to look at, by the end you’re left overwhelmed and maybe even a bit confused.

plays like a classic trilogy-capper in many ways. It’s big, it’s fun, and it looks better than a lot of blockbusters made a decade later. But that doesn’t stop the film from feeling overstuffed and studded with tired jokes that started to show their wear and tear the moment the first movie hit home video. Captain Jack’s weirdness only takes you so far, and At World’s End is proof.

Bringing back Norman Bates for a 20-years-later sequel worked for and its often subversive storytelling, but misses the mark despite the creative control of director and star Anthony Perkins. There’s still a lot of talent involved, to be sure, but when this film goes back to the original well of Psycho it doesn’t find much there.

Paul Verhoeven’s is one of the most incisive action movies ever made, a sci-fi spectacle that also says a lot about America in the 1980s. Sequels were inevitable, but by , Peter Weller had bailed—replaced by a walking jaw whose name we can’t remember—and the shine had really started to wear off the franchise. You can give RoboCop a jetpack, but you can’t replicate the original’s power.

While it set the template for the triumphant , and featured a fearless Mr. T as Clubber Lang, there’s still something about that doesn’t quite land. It’s not as grounded as the films that came before it, nor is it as bombastic as the films that came after, leaving it in a kind of middle-of-the-road limbo that’s still entertaining, but winds up feeling like a weak link.

Let’s be clear: is a Sam Raimi movie, so even in its worst moments it’s at the very least interesting. There are even flashes of greatness in there, but after the powerhouse that is , this jam-packed, often wobbly third installment was always going to feel like a letdown, even if it did give us .

It’s not that is a terrible movie. Christopher Reeve is still great in the title role, and while Richard Pryor might feel out of place, he’s still Richard Pryor operating at peak comedic expressiveness. The problem is that the film can’t decide if it wants to be a comedy or a big-spectacle superhero movie and that makes it feel imbalanced, even after the often jagged .

Like Spider-Man 3, has the disadvantage of following one of the best superhero films of its era in . And like Spider-Man 3, it’s a film that tries to do too many things, cramming a franchise’s worth of ideas into a single movie. Unlike Spider-Man 3, though, it doesn’t have the visual dynamism and wit of Sam Raimi, which makes it an even rougher example of trilogy fatigue.