Death comes for us all, but in Final Destination, it arrives in ridiculous fashion. The horror franchise has turned dying into a nihilistic Rube Goldberg machine of fatal absurdity. But which installments have had audiences wishing for death and which ones have given us a reason to live? To find out, we ranked every Final Destination movie from worst to best.
6. The Final Destination
This list is quickly going to anger some fans, but this entry definitely won’t. The fourth installment is far and away the worst. It starts with the series’ lamest opening vision, the race track disaster, and gets more boring and trite from there. This movie isn’t fun, scary, or even that interesting. The Final Destination is just a joyless slog from start to finish. The only “compliment” you can give it is that it wasn’t bad enough to kill the entire franchise for good.
5. Final Destination Bloodlines
See? You’re mad, because the highest rated entry got the second lowest spot on this list. But this is where Final Destination Bloodlines belongs. It definitely has a great premise and a fresh perspective. Its opening scene visionary isn’t the main character. The problem is that this movie isn’t very good. It does very little with its promising idea, as the familial element is woefully underused. It also clearly tries to elevate what a Final Destination film can be, but instead of feeling like a truly great, suspenseful horror movie or even a compelling drama, it’s just really boring. The only times it’s not are the very few times it embraces the ridiculous fun of what this franchise does best: over-the-top death sequences. A very underwhelming (at best) ending solidifies this as a one-and-down watch.*
*Except Tony Todd’s last scene. That is always worth seeing again.
4. Final Destination 5
Final Destination 5 has some of the best scenes in the franchise, thanks to Miles Fisher’s Peter going full horror movie villain after he realizes Death truly is coming for him. The film also features some great lore, as it established that you gain someone’s lifespan when you kill them. (Just make sure you don’t accidentally murder someone who is secretly on Death’s door already.) And, of course, this film also has the great twist ending when we learn this all happened before Flight 180, which is also where this story ends. It can’t go any higher on this list, though, because in-between all the good stuff is a lot of mediocrity.
This installment easily could have earned the number three spot, and might technically be a better film than what comes next. But it’s not nearly as re-watchable or fun, so it ended up fourth.
3. Final Destination 3
When people think of what a Final Destination movie is, they’re thinking of the third entry. It has the best collection of deaths, a series of creative, hilarious fatalities that make Final Destination 3 more like a pure comedy than a horror film. It’s also where the franchise turned nihilistic, as it’s the first to end with no survivors. It’s also somehow both not very good but also excellent, a very fun, very re-watchable movie that most accurately represents the franchise.
2. Final Destination
The film that began it all still holds up. In fact, it’s better than you remember. The original is the entry that feels most like a horror movie thanks to its dual plots. Devon Sawa’s Alex tries to save his surviving classmates while also evading the police. It’s also tense in a way few other Final Destination movies are, because at the onset, it was actually possible for characters to survive for at least one more sequel. Once these movies started killing everyone off no matter what, it simply became about the fun of seeing their demise. In Final Destination, the stakes are much higher. Death is also a lot less of a silly grim reaping goose.
1. Final Destination 2
The easy number one on this this is Final Destination 2. It’s the best paced, scariest installment in the series. It features the best cast, the best script, and the most interesting lore. The movie also shows it’s possible to cheat Death, which gives it the kind of needed stakes none of its followups contain. It also boasts some truly gruesome, over-the-top deaths without any of them feeling like they’re taking place in live-action Looney Tunes. (Well, at least not until the final BBQ.) This is a compelling horror movie that also makes us care about the people dying. It has a real legacy in a way the other sequels don’t. And if you don’t believe so, ask anyone who has seen it how they feel about getting stuck behind a logging truck on the highway.
The opening vision is not just the best in Final Destination history, it’s one of the most terrifying sequences in horror movie history. The fact that the rest of the movie lived up to its opening is why it’s the best film in the franchise.