The best and worst third films of various trilogies

The best and worst third films of various trilogies

Updated on October 15, 2022 14:41 PM by Michael Davis

Top and Bottom Third Films in a Series

The increasing number of Hollywood trilogies and sequels demonstrates how challenging it is to wrap up a series of events. For examples, see our rankings of the best and worst third parts of film trilogies. The "worst of" list was simple to complete. They could have picked from a wide pool of qualified ones. The hardest part was filling in the greatest spots, as it's also difficult to make a strong third picture in a trilogy.

Keep in mind that we only counted "trilogies" if there was a distinct set of three films that worked together seamlessly. If a franchise consistently produced sequels, any three in a row may be considered a trilogy. However, doing so felt like cheating. For instance, after Dr. No and From Russia With Love, some may consider Goldfinger to be the final instalment in the first James Bond film trilogy. If so, it's a fantastic conclusion to the trilogy. However, Thunderball, the fourth 007 film, was released only 14 months after Goldfinger, indicating that the series was planned to continue indefinitely. However, we felt it was important to include franchises with clear-cut trilogies, even if they included more than three films, such as Star Wars.

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THE WORST THIRD FILMS IN MOVIE TRILOGIES

It's hard to make a good ending to a movie trilogy for some reason. And here's the evidence.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2015)

The Hobbit never had enough story for three full-length movies, but why worry about silly things like that when you can make money? The ending is really just one long, repeated battle scene, and the main character, played by Martin Freeman, is just an extra. Then, after all that fighting, a few key players fight it out on top of a mountain, but the conflict doesn't really end; it just stops. After that, I guess everyone was tired and went home. Some parts of this movie are pretty cool, like when Legolas fights an orc in a crumbling tower. But watching the whole thing is like ordering a 72-ounce steak at a restaurant and being told you can't leave until you eat it all. The steak is cooked well, but what about the rest? And it's all just steak? Can't I order something like a baked potato or steamed broccoli? The Battle of the Five Armies is just a steak, and it's a steak that's been overcooked.

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Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)

J.J. Abrams did not come back to an easy job. Rian Johnson's The Last Jedi didn't always follow Abrams' plans from The Force Awakens, and Abrams himself had to build on what Colin Trevorrow had done before he quit The Rise of Skywalker just before filming was supposed to start. But that doesn't explain why the movie is always afraid to do something meaningful or emotional with its characters—anything! It keeps getting closer to big plot points, only to back away from them right away. Chewbacca dies for three minutes and then comes back to life by some miracle. C-3PO loses his memory and then gets it back right away. Finn has a secret he needs to tell Rey but never brings it up again. Everything about it feels weak, like Abrams, Lucasfilm, or Disney were more worried about hurting their IP than making a satisfying end to an epic science-fiction fantasy story.

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Allegiant (2016)

How bad was the movie? So bad that the planned fourth film in The Divergent Series, based on the popular young adult books by Veronica Roth, was soon taken off Lionsgate's production schedule, turned into a TV film, then turned into a TV series, then got cancelled altogether. That meant that Allegiant was the last book in an unplanned trilogy. If you want to know how its dystopian world got better after the bad Bureau of Genetic Welfare messed with it, you will have to read the first book.

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RoboCop 3 (1993)

One of the best science fiction films of the '80s spawned a series of duds, culminating in this franchise-killer in which RoboCop doesn't even appear until the first act is almost finished. Once he does, he becomes an insignificant side character in a conflict between OCP and a neighbourhood watch group in Detroit that is trying to force a group of people out of their homes. (Robert Burke, not Peter Weller, plays him, which is a major downgrade.) RoboCop receives a new jetpack, which should help promote the sale of flying RoboCop action figures. Although it seems like an oxymoron, RoboCop 3 was also the first RoboCop film to be given a PG-13 rating.

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Inferno (2016)

Although all of the film adaptations of Dan Brown's historical conspiracy thrillers were subpar, Inferno was particularly bad. Tom Hanks is back as Robert Langdon, the heroic history professor from Brown's novels, and he's just as miscast as he was the first time around as they race to prevent the introduction of a deadly virus. When the protagonists find a new piece of information that could lead them to the source of the virus, they examine it and read it aloud; when they reach the next piece of information, they repeat the previous one, and it appears onscreen again. If you're playing Wordle on your phone while watching Inferno, you won't need to glance at the screen at all to understand what's going on; the movie seems tailor-made for distracted spectators. (The only way to make it through Inferno with any semblance of entertainment is probably to play Wordle.)

The Bad News Bears Go to Japan (1978)

The Bad News Bears worked because it had grumpy Walter Matthau and a team of annoying outcast kids. Seeing him "coach" them in a rough way was good for a few laughs. By the time of the third movie, The Bad News Bears Go to Japan, Matthau was long gone, and Tony Curtis took his place as a shady sports promoter who wants to make money off of a big game between the Bears and Japan's best Little League team. Curtis's relationship with the young actors is all wrong—even he's more annoying than the actors—and the basic premise is ridiculous. It's one thing for a careless jerk to be left in charge of a group of kids on a baseball field for a few hours. In this movie, the whole team goes to a different country without anyone to watch over them except for Curtis' character, whom they just met. Where are the parents of these kids?!

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Blair Witch (2016)

People thought The Blair Witch Project was real, or at least they could put aside their scepticism and pretend what they were seeing was real. And it's hard to make a sequel, let alone a trilogy, that is based on real life. The second Blair Witch movie didn't even try to copy the first one's "found footage" gimmick. The third movie's "gimmick" was that it was filmed in secret and was first marketed as a different movie called "The Woods." When people saw The Woods in a theatre for the first time, they didn't know it was a stealth sequel called Blair Witch until they saw it for the first time. Always a good idea to trick someone into going to the movies.

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The Cloverfield Paradox (2018)

Bad Robot came after two horror sci-fi movies that were well received by critics and did well at the box office. In the end, Paramount sold it to Netflix. Its big selling point was that it was advertised in a Super Bowl trailer in 2018 and then put on Netflix that same night. That was a good idea, but it was the only good thing about The Cloverfield Paradox, a movie in which an accident with a particle accelerator starts to make strange things happen on a space station in orbit. Could the same accident change how people remember it? Because I saw The Cloverfield Paradox and I can't remember anything else about it.

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Fifty Shades Freed

The ending of Fifty Shades Freed was exactly what you didn't want from the last movie in a trilogy about sex. By the time Freed started, most of the big problems from the first movies about this shockingly boring BDSM couple had been solved. This left little for this movie to do besides show a bunch of mild sex scenes. Fifty Shades Freed also had to deal with something that a lot of third movies in trilogies do: cast members leaving. Kim Basinger didn't come back to finish her storyline in Fifty Shades, but her character is very important in the third act of Freed. This is why the two leads are fighting over a conversation that the audience hasn't seen and that involves someone who isn't even in the movie. Drama!

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Little Fockers (2010)

Meet the Parents was such a hit as a movie that it didn't work as a franchise, which it really couldn't do anyway. Once Greg (played by Ben Stiller) and Jack (played by Robert De Niro), the story didn't have many more places to go. The name of this one makes it sound like it's about how hard it is to raise kids, but the little Fockers are just used as props. Instead, Greg and Jack are fighting again about who will become the new patriarch of the family. After this, the show finally stopped messing around with Focker.

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Austin Powers in Goldmember

Austin Powers should have been the start of a series, since the James Bond movies it made fun of have been a series for 60 years. However, for some reason, the sequels were never as good as the first movie. The first movie had a point of view and a goal that was worth aiming for. Mike Myers spends 90 minutes of the sequels giving himself what he wants. He riffs through scenes that have no point, plays characters with heavy makeup for no reason, breaks into song or dance every few minutes, and even does a hip hop parody. Myers has said for years that he would make another Austin Powers movie, but why? In the meantime, the James Bond movies got better, and Austin Powers went from being a great way to make Bond jokes to being a joke itself.

The Hangover Part III

Nothing in the supposedly edgy Hangover series is half as offensive as calling this movie "Part III," as if this plate of cold, stale movie leftovers was always the plan. This time, there is no hangover, of course. Instead, there is a crazy plot in which the same three friends wander around Mexico and Las Vegas looking for Ken Jeong's character and some stolen gold. That's what makes The Hangover so good, right? Gold heists? Even though it was based on a cheap idea, The Hangover Part III still made more than $360 million around the world. Thankfully, no one ever tried to make Hangover Part IV... at least not yet.

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Beverly Hills Cop III (1994)

Word on the street is that a fourth Beverly Hills Cop movie might be coming out soon. Even if it does happen, Beverly Hills Cop III was so bad that it killed a once-popular movie series. (Beverly Hills Cop made $234 million in the United States. $153 million for Beverly Hills Cop II. $42 million. Beverly Hills Cop III. Yikes.) This movie doesn't continue the series' look at what happens when a cop from Detroit moves to Beverly Hills. Instead, most of it takes place at an amusement park. Murphy even said a third Cop wasn't a good idea years before it was made. He told Rolling Stone, "The only reason to do a Cop III is to beat the bank, and Paramount ain't going to write me no check as big as I want to do something like that." I guess they did give him a check for as much money as he asked for.

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Taken 3

The first Taken made Liam Neeson, who was 56 at the time, an unlikely action star. By the time Taken 3 came out, Neeson was well over 60. He needed a lot of help from the editors and stuntmen to make him look like a man with a certain set of skills. He also got help from Olivier Megaton, who is possibly the most confusing action director of the last 25 years. His shootouts, hand-to-hand fights, and car chases are never clear at all. What you're left with is a bad action movie with a terrible plot and bad action. This time, it wasn't Neeson's daughter or wife who were taken, but the money from the audience.

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Blade: Trinity

Patton Oswalt, who co-starred with Wesley Snipes, claims that the actor and the film's director, David Goyer, had a contentious working relationship, to the point that they would only exchange Post-It notes (which Snipes would sign "From Blade") during production. Over time, his stand-in was used in any shot that didn't call for a close-up of Snipes. Even if you pay close attention to the screen while the movie is playing, you might not notice. Blade was an early example of a superhero film. Blade II is a daring and original sequel that helped launch the career of filmmaker Guillermo del Toro in Hollywood. It's safe to say that Blade: Trinity put a dagger in the chest of a once-great series.

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THE BEST THIRD FILMS IN MOVIE TRILOGIES

These films pulled off the impressive feat of concluding a fantastic trilogy.

Return of the Jedi (1983)

In comparison to some of the obnoxious creatures that appeared in the prequels, the Ewoks are positively Shakespearian in their cuteness. It's true that Jedi has almost no plot (Luke and company rescue Han from Jabba the Hutt and then take down the new Death Star), but it does have something essential to a good trilogy: it builds off the accumulated character development of the first two films, especially in the dynamics between Luke, Vader, and the Emperor.

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Back to the Future Part III (1990)

Back to the Future Part III is by far the worst of the three movies in the Back to the Future series, but that's not a big deal since the first one is one of the best science-fiction movies of all time and the second is one of the best movie sequels. If Back to the Future Part II is about the dangers of making a good sequel, with Marty (Michael J. Fox) literally tiptoeing through scenes from the first movie, trying desperately not to ruin what he'd done before, then Back to the Future Part III is about the freedom that comes with going beyond what you've made to honour the things that inspired you to make it in the first place. Marty and Doc (Christopher Lloyd), who had been watching sci-fi movies, end up in Hill Valley in 1885. There, they pay tribute to movies like "The Great Train Robbery," "The General," and "The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station." Director Robert Zemeckis uses his love of old movies to make a charming western adventure with a romance that works surprisingly well.

The Godfather Part III (1990)

When compared to the other two parts of this trilogy, which are both among the best films that have ever been produced, this one, despite being a very fine movie in its own right and possibly even a fantastic one in the version of The Godfather that was just just made available, falls short. It is impossible for The Godfather Part III to compete with the quality of the first two pictures. It really suffers because Robert Duvall's Tom Hagen isn't in it, and Sofia Coppola, who is a superb filmmaker in her own right, doesn't live up to the reputation she has as Michael Corleone's daughter. Aside from that, it's a powerful story about wrongdoing and repentance that also functions quite well as a statement of Coppola's personal ambivalence about the criminal genre that launched his career. He would have liked to have done something else with his time. However, just as he was about to leave, they dragged him back in. He was confused.

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The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)

The amnesiac espionage series starring Matt Damon was supposed to come to a close at the conclusion of the third Bourne film. (Taking into consideration how both The Bourne Legacy and Jason Bourne ended out, it most likely ought to have.) It also had an interesting structure, beginning just after the events of The Bourne Supremacy and continuing on to fill in scenes between the climax of Supremacy and its epilogue. Both of these incidents occurred shortly after the events of The Bourne Supremacy. The Bourne Ultimatum, as is the case in many trilogy enders, especially ones with mysterious protagonists, also reveals new details about its hero's past. However, in contrast to the majority of trilogy enders, the details about Jason Bourne are actually quite intriguing. This is because many trilogy enders tend to focus on the antagonist rather than the protagonist.

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War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)

The first time the Planet of the Apes story was tried again, it didn't go well. The second franchise, thankfully, lived up to the legacy of a great science fiction series. War for the Planet of the Apes brought this version of the Planet of the Apes story to a close with big ideas, sad themes, and mind-blowing special effects, just like the first movie did. Rod Serling couldn't have come up with a more satisfying or bitterly ironic ending for Caesar and his group of smart apes as they battled the humans who had survived an apocalyptic disease.

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The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King brought J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy epic to an exciting conclusion, despite the fact that it may have five or six endings that were unnecessary. After having followed Frodo and Sam for around six hours, it was an absolutely exhilarating experience to watch them finally arrive at Mount Doom to destroy the dangerous One Ring. In other words, it was the complete opposite of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.

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Toy Story 3 (2010)

Toy Story 4 is fine, but the Toy Story franchise worked better as a whole when it concluded with the emotional gut-punch of Toy Story 3, which directly addressed the concepts of mortality and death. Toy Story 4 is OK, but the Toy Story franchise worked better as a whole. Andy is now old enough to attend college and is no longer interested in playing with his toys. As a result, Woody, Buzz, and the rest of Andy's toys are given to a daycare centre, where they eventually meet their end in an incinerator for garbage. Even if they were able to avoid that unfortunate outcome, the movie doesn't shy away from confronting some heavy topics, such as growing older and the inevitable obsolescence that lies ahead for all of us. What else could you want from a cartoon movie that's bursting with vivid colours and aimed towards children?!

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Army of Darkness (1992)

Sam Raimi's skills as a director grew with each part of the Evil Dead trilogy, and so did the budgets. By the time he made Army of Darkness, Raimi knew exactly how to make his unique horror-comic vision come to life, and he had everything he needed to do it. Army's first 30 minutes could be used to teach a whole class on how to make movies because of how well the camera, editing, and sound were used. All of that, plus the fact that Bruce Campbell gives one of the best comedic lead performances of all time, makes Army of Darkness a classic that isn't as well known as it should be.

Before Midnight (2013)

Too many sequels just try to be the same as the first movie. The Before movies are a rare and beautiful example of a series that shows how the relentless march of time makes it impossible to recreate the past. This idea is most clear in the last movie, Before Midnight, where the young lovers Jesse and Celine, played by Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, have grown up and are now an older couple with children. Even though they got everything they wanted, they seem to be very close to breaking up for good. The fact that these scenes are hard to watch is what makes this last book in the trilogy so special.

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The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966)

Even the best movie trilogies, like most on this list, tend to be at their best early on. The Godfather Part III is a lot better than people think, but it's still not as good as Parts I and II. This is why The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is such a great last movie in a series. It's a great ending to the Man With No Name trilogy, but it's also the best of the three. It has the biggest scope, the most beautiful spaghetti western vistas, the toughest frontier dialogue, and the best trio of stars: Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach.

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