What Are the Greatest Sequels of All Time? A Statistical Analysis
What are the best movie sequels, and why?
Intro: How Everything Became Sequels
In 2024, 18 of the 20 highest-grossing films were sequels or prequels. The year's top-rated movie was Dune: Part 2, the highest-grossing film was Inside Out 2, and the biggest box office surprise came from Terrifier 3. It was yet another banner year for recycled ideas.
Since the early 2000s, there has been a sharp increase in sequels, remakes, and prequels, with franchise installments consistently dominating the 50 highest-grossing films of any given year.
This phenomenon can be traced to several industry trends, including:
High-quality at-home entertainment options
Consolidation among Hollywood studios
Wall Steet's need for ever-increasing earnings (via blockbuster hits)
Movie studios seeking to imitate the runaway success of other sequels
This final point lies at the heart of our analysis today: Hollywood thrives on imitation, constantly chasing commercial trends through relentless copy-catting. The entertainment industry's reliance on franchization didn't occur overnight—rather, it emerged via a half-century of well-received sequels and subpar mimicry.
So today, we'll explore the serialized stories that inspired a generation of studio executives and the modern franchise fare that dared to exceed expectations. We'll identify cinema's greatest sequels based on a range of criteria, including:
Rankings from Online Databases: The wisdom of film-loving crowds.
Box Office Success: Movies are a for-profit industry 🙃.
Oscar Recognition: The Oscars stink, but sometimes they're useful.
We'll deconstruct aspects of cinematic legacy before pinpointing a handful of consensus selections. Will the internet agree with these rankings? Absolutely not—the internet never does. Will we better understand the series of events that spawned "superhero fatigue" and "sequel-itis"? Certainly.
Criterion #1: Online Ratings
The "wisdom of crowds" argues that the collective judgment of a diverse group often outperforms that of an individual expert. For example, if you ask 500 people to guess the number of marbles in a fishbowl, the average of these guesses will come remarkably close to the actual number.
In theory, online movie ratings reflect the wisdom of crowds—though this dataset comes with some notable caveats. Internet reviews may skew toward certain demographics (male, younger, etc.), and these decisions are not made independently (since a reviewer can see a film's current score). That said, online databases like Letterboxd, IMDb, and TMDb offer an encyclopedic collection of moviegoer sentiments (and no dataset is perfect).
So, which franchise fare do these somewhat-wise internet crowds enjoy? Our list of highly-rated follow-ups highlights a group of sequels that spawned an army of subpar imitator sequels.
Some Observations:
The Sequels That Forged a Template for Copycats: Few films have influenced Hollywood project development more than The Dark Knight, Return of the King, and Avengers: Endgame. These films exemplify franchise filmmaking at its best and were rewarded with boatloads of money. So, what happens when studio executives clumsily attempt to replicate these projects? For every well-received sequel, we're inundated with dozens of imitator dumpster fires: The DC Cinematic Universe, Madame Web, Kraven the Hunter, Morbius, Eternals, Joker: Folie à Deux, Catwoman, Battleship, and the live-action adaptation of The Last Airbender.
The 2020s Have Delivered Some Outstanding Franchise Installments: Sequels have become synonymous with a lack of imagination and substandard quality, but that's not always the case. In the right hands—like those of James Cameron or Denis Villeneuve—a follow-up film can delight diehard fans, casual moviegoers, and cinephiles. Post-pandemic, several franchise works have achieved critical acclaim and box office success, including Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse, Dune: Part 2, and Top Gun: Maverick. There is hope!
Criterion #2: Box Office
I've performed several analyses investigating the "best" and "worst" of something, including greatest actors, best movie year, and worst actors. Over time, I've settled on a formula for evaluating cinematic legacy that combines online sentiment, commercial performance, and critical acclaim. It's not perfect, but I am mostly satisfied with the results.
With this in mind, I considered omitting commercial performance from this analysis. While sequels often dominate at the box office, they frequently disappoint critics and casual audiences. However, it's impossible to explain Hollywood's dependence on intellectual property without mentioning ticket sales, so I chose to keep this criterion.
Paradoxically, I enjoyed many of our highest-grossing sequels in isolation, but, as a whole, this list bums me out.
Some Observations:
This Is a List of the Highest-Grossing Movies of All Time (Not Just Sequels): Barring Gone With the Wind, Avatar, Titanic, and Star Wars: A New Hope, this group is nearly 1:1 with the highest-grossing movies in film history. There's a reason why Wall Street has pushed Disney, Paramount, and Warner Brothers toward franchise storytelling.
Most of These Movies Were Released Post-2010: Hollywood has a rich history of successful sequels predating the 21st century, including classics like The Godfather Part II, Aliens, and Terminator 2. However, most films on this list were released in the past 15 years. The most straightforward explanation is that the film industry steadily grew its box office revenues up until 2019—but there are other factors at play. Many blockbuster sequels of the 20th century were unexpected—a product of serendipity rather than a pre-planned franchise strategy. The Godfather Part II was made in response to the success of its predecessor and happened to be surprisingly great—Paramount was not planning on a Godfather trilogy before Coppola's first installment. Now, consider Avengers: Endgame, a movie that culminated a decade of elaborate world-building. Present day, a studio like Disney develops its Marvel and Star Wars properties to be a part of a greater whole in an attempt to maximize the potential of its IP.
Sidenote: Could you imagine if Paramount tried to launch a Godfather Cinematic Universe (GCU)? That would be a tough pill to swallow.
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Criterion #3: Oscar Recognition
Historically, the Oscars have been allergic to franchise fare. The Academy Awards will gladly recognize each and every music biopic but stop short of rewarding a film that is explicitly derivative. When the academy does acknowledge a sequel, it's because that film is inevitable—so good it can't be ignored.
To assess critical acclaim, I counted Academy Award nominations for top-line Oscar categories, which include Picture, Director, Acting, Writing, Cinematography, Art Direction, and Editing. Why did I omit below-the-line awards like sound design and special effects? Well, traditionally, big-budget films can rack up numerous craft nominations agnostic of the movie's critical reputation. For instance, a film like Alien: Romulus might earn nods for special effects, sound design, and sound mixing, which are worthy achievements but not indicative of overall acclaim.
These Oscar-recognized sequels mostly match our list of projects with high online ratings.
Some Observations:
The Supremacy of Two Best-Picture-Winning Sequels: The Godfather Part II and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King are the only two sequels to win Best Picture. Many consider Coppola's Godfather follow-up superior to its predecessor, while Return of The King is a triumphant conclusion to an exceptional franchise.
Big Jim (Cameron) Does Not Miss: Director James Cameron (who is often referred to as "Big Jim") simply does not miss. This man has repeatedly helmed "the most expensive movie ever made," to the dismay of the press, and has subsequently produced "the highest-grossing movie of all time." Cameron's filmography is remarkable: Titanic, Avatar, Aliens, Terminator 1 & 2, True Lies, and The Abyss. I really cannot stress how good this guy is at making movies and money (at the same time). He has propelled three separate franchise sequels—Avatar: Way of Water, Terminator 2, and Aliens—to significant Oscar recognition and box office success. What a guy.
And the Winners Are...
To achieve our final result, we'll stack-rank every film according to our three criteria and then take an average of these rankings. A major caveat to this methodology is its punishment of films with a significant gap in performance (like a lack of box office).
Our final ranking favors The Lord of the Rings franchise, Star Wars, and Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight. The Godfather Part II just barely makes our top 10—which I'll address (so please avoid throwing your phone/computer on the ground).
When I first developed this methodology, I had no idea what the final outcome would be. I knew Lord of the Rings would rank highly but assumed little beyond that. Ultimately, I'm a bit disappointed with our results—though maybe this was inevitable given my deep-seated disdain for sequels. That said, our final rankings provide a compelling snapshot of Hollywood's evolution, capturing its past and present (and future?):
The Triumph and Templatization of Lord of The Rings: The success of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings marked a significant turning point in Hollywood project development. To replicate Jackson's trilogy, studios began targeting intellectual property with built-in fanbases, focusing on grand spectacles laden with CGI effects that could be expanded into multi-installment franchises.
Why Does The Godfather Part II Rank So Low?: The Godfather Part II was considered a major commercial success (in its time), though its (inflation-adjusted) box office pales in comparison to MCU entries and Star Wars prequels. Put simply, Hollywood has gotten better at making money. In the 1970s, movie studios often bet on a portfolio of small- to mid-budget films. Studios did not require tentpole hits to prop up their entire operation and were not gearing their release calendars around two or three crucial projects. Over the past six decades, Hollywood has mastered the art of the blockbuster—from franchise development to overseas marketing to infantilizing fan service. If The Godfather Part II came out today, it would likely top this list.
Final Thoughts: Why Can't These Movies Be Good?
Since I'm a stats nerd who likes movies, I'm frequently told I should develop a proprietary formula for "what makes a movie good." Surely, given my superior data prowess, I should be capable of spotting trends that Hollywood executives cannot, right? Unfortunately no.
If I were to build a predictive model optimizing for commercial performance, it would likely justify Hollywood's reliance on sequels. Familiarity, spectacle, CGI, existing fanbases, and serialization capture the most box office. An original story can make $1B, but franchization will continue as a cornerstone of modern entertainment.
I'll admit this reads as deeply cynical—and that's because it is—but it doesn't have to be all bad. If we're destined for another decade of big-budget sequels, then I'll pose this groundbreaking (perhaps deeply subversive) question: why can't these movies be good?
If anything, this analysis is a testament to the creative potential of franchise fare, so why do so many of these films stink? How can James Cameron elevate three sequels into some of the greatest movies of all time while Vin Deisel's Fast franchise farts out imagination-less car garbage?
Perhaps the cynical environment that breeds these sequels is the problem. In many cases, the content of a single movie is subordinate to the commercial maximization and never-ending existence of a franchise asset. Hitting a certain release date and generating Comic Con buzz are paramount, while a solid Rotten Tomatoes score and Oscar nominations are futile. Jurassic Park is beloved by generations, so who cares if the newest installment lacks originality, has underdeveloped characters, and is laden with subpar CGI? People want to see T-Rex go "roar" because they enjoyed seeing T-Rex go "roar" in the first five Jurassic Park films.
We've lost the ability to tell standalone stories or mint new intellectual property. Every movie serves as a cog in Disney's ten-year corporate strategy or exists to set up Universal's next round of uninspired car garbage.
With that in mind, I'll offer this plea to Hollywood: could we at least get some thoughtfully-crafted, creatively-inspired car garbage (perhaps directed by James Cameron)? That would be a refreshing twist.
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Regarding the commercial performance of Godfather Part 2, have you considered using a film's box office ranking for the year it was released, or something along those lines, as a more universal metric of commercial success? Obviously a #1 film of the year that makes $3 billion isn't the same as one that only made $100 million, even adjusting for inflation. But it might make comparisons between older and newer films a little more equivalent in that arena. I agree that commercial performance is an unavoidable part of judging a film's quality, but I'd be interested to see what other kinds of metrics could be used to capture that aspect.
Also, I'll echo the sentiment that the LOTR films aren't really sequels, since LOTR is technically a single book, and they were even filmed all at once. It's really a three part movie. Not to say you shouldn't include them in this discussion necessarily, but they definitely have a bit of an asterisk next to them in my mind.
Forgive me, I'm bewildered. How does Paddington 2 not show up anywhere here, even if only love from audiences and critics?