the new halloween movie review

Bathed in blue light, Michael Myers twists Laurie’s arm in the kitchen in Halloween Ends

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Halloween Ends is brutal, in the bad way

Jamie Lee Curtis’ horror trilogy-ender is more like a franchise burial

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2021’s Halloween Kills was the Infinity War of the contemporary Halloween franchise — an ambitious movie that expanded the scope of its predecessor, but ultimately felt like an incomplete story. But instead of bringing things home with an Endgame equivalent, Halloween Ends plays out more like Game of Thrones season 8: a rushed entry that skips over important character development, kind of just forgets about plot points from the last two movies, and ends up betraying what made this reboot worth watching in the first place. David Gordon Green’s trilogy-capper does feel like a definitive ending to the Halloween series led by Jamie Lee Curtis, but fans might be begging for someone to take another stab at it rather than ending Michael Myers’ reign of terror on such a sour note.

Did you remember that Michael was a kid who stabbed his sister, killed a few babysitters, left one survivor who spent decades preparing for his return, then found himself trapped in her burning house, but somehow survived, and escaped to murder the survivor’s daughter? Green and co-writer Danny McBride, working this time with Paul Brad Logan and Chris Bernier, assume you don’t, as Halloween Ends kicks off with a whole flashback sequence recapping the entire story so far. The trust issues only get worse from there, as the horror movie constantly reminds viewers not just of moments in Halloween history, but of things that literally happened minutes before, and of character relationships that should be obvious by now.

Everything that isn’t bluntly pointed out is swept under the rug. Michael’s slaying of Karen (Judy Greer)? Don’t worry about it. The whole town enacting mob justice against Michael Myers at the end of Halloween Kills , then losing miserably? What matters is everyone’s still scared and paranoid. Instead of resolution, Halloween Ends picks up four years after the events of Kills , with everyone having forgotten about Michael, and the Strodes mostly on the sidelines. Green and his cohorts reframe the action on an unrelated character, Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell). And as for the Shape, he’s been in hiding, until Corey stokes his thirst for blood.

Michael Myers in his raggedy white mask holds a bloody knife in the foyer of a rustic home in Halloween Ends

Despite this entire trilogy supposedly riding on the shoulders of Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode and her trauma, Halloween Ends never dives deeper into the trauma’s significance. It has multiple characters, including Laurie’s granddaughter, Allyson (Andi Matichak), to guilt Laurie into thinking that somehow Michael’s return was her fault for obsessing over him —despite both the audience, and multiple character witnesses like Allyson herself, knowing otherwise. The tonal shift borders on victim-shaming, and a complete betrayal to what was supposed to be the core of this movie.

Thankfully, Jamie Lee Curtis still shines as Laurie, who we meet here at a different point in her life. Four years after her brutal encounter, Ends finds Laurie writing a memoir, baking pies for Allyson, and flirting with Will Patton’s Deputy Hawkins. After two emotionally heavy performances in the previous two films, it is actually delightful to see Curtis get to flex her comedic muscles for a while, delivering some genuinely funny moments that should add fuel to the fire of her recent comments about wanting to do another Freaky Friday.

Though Halloween Ends seems in a big rush to reach the finish line, it dawdles toward the action one might expect from a Halloween movie. That’s because most of the 111-minute run time is spent on Corey, who becomes a social pariah after a deadly incident one Halloween night and gets strangely obsessed with Michael Myers.

If nothing else, the turn is ambitious. Halloween Kills expanded the scope to the entire town, and Halloween Ends makes some bold choices through Corey’s storyline, as the film explores whether evil is something created by one’s environment or something already within us, unshakable, and just waiting to be unleashed. Halloween Ends continues the thread from Kills of asking whether Michael Myers is a 70-something-year-old mentally ill man or evil incarnate, a supernatural being that heals himself through the act of killing and can almost pass on his essence to others.

Laurie in a green dress and belt and Corey in a brown leather jacket and jeans stand on a leaf-covered street in the suburbs in Halloween Ends

Unfortunately, Green doesn’t seem interested in answering the big questions. Nor can he find new ways to enliven Michael Myers, focusing on Corey for most of the run time, and using a vastly different and more angsty tone that belongs in a Kevin Williamson Scream script rather than a Halloween one. He discards the modernized John Carpenter visuals and camera work that became essential to his first Halloween sequel for a less creative or energetic film where the camera barely moves.

There is, of course, an actual confrontation between Laurie and Michael, one that arrives too little too late after an hour of following Corey. There are some cool and gruesome kills, but most of them happen off screen or are purposefully undermined by staging. Where Halloween Kills was a brutal slasher that seemed to place us in the shoes of the Shape, David Gordon Green tries everything he can to subvert the primal origins of the premise. There’s almost a sense of shame hanging over the entire movie.

The Halloween saga started by John Carpenter and Debra Hill in 1978 ends in this film, but the end can’t vindicate the existence of this continuation of the story. Even if 2018’s Halloween set out to explore trauma through horror, there’s nothing in Ends that pays off the probing. The trilogy wasn’t ultimately about how evil takes hold of us and creates havoc through paranoia. This was an ambitious trilogy that tried to take the Halloween franchise to new places, but it ultimately falls short, introducing so many ideas that it quickly abandons, while forgetting about the one thing it was always supposed to be about: Laurie Strode.

Halloween Ends opens in wide theatrical release and simultaneously streams on Peacock on Oct. 14.

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Halloween Ends

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Rent Halloween Ends on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video.

What to Know

Halloween Ends -- for now, anyway -- with a frequently befuddling installment that's stabbed, slashed, and beaten by a series of frustrating missed opportunities.

Halloween Ends packs a few slasher thrills, but many fans will be disappointed by the way it concludes Michael Myers' gory saga.

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David Gordon Green

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Halloween Ends Review

The ends of an era..

Halloween Ends debuts in theaters and on Peacock on Oct. 14. Below is a spoiler-free review. When you're done here, be sure to check out our spoiler-filled Halloween Ends ending explained .

The original Halloween practically invented the trope of the killer rising from his apparent death for one last surprise attack. In that same way, Halloween Ends as a whole feels like one heck of a narrative curveball right before the curtain closes on the franchise as we’ve known it up to this point (well, this time anyway). In opting to jettison all but the original film as canon, director David Gordon Green made an early choice to focus down his Halloween trilogy on the essentials of what made John Carpenter’s classic work, especially on how Michael Myers’ violence represented evil as an elemental force. Halloween Ends furthers Green’s exploration of whether evil and its effects can truly be overcome in ways that are intriguing in their larger implications, but sometimes at odds with its more grounded goal of bringing Laurie Strode’s story to a satisfying close.

If the first two Green Halloween movies explored how trauma affects a family and a community, Ends focuses on how trauma can mutate and form destructive cycles - something the opening credits image of a reincarnating pumpkin announces early on. Halloween Ends’ interrogation of that idea rests largely on the shoulders of new character Cory Cunningham (Rohan Campbell), whose strong introduction sets the stage for a study in how Michael Myers’ legacy has affected Haddonfield’s hopes for the future. A young man with great college prospects, Cory shares a lot in common with Laurie Strode at that age, and Green uses details like him choosing chocolate milk over beer while he’s babysitting to raise interesting questions about his moral compass. A shocking end to Cory’s babysitting gig pushes him further into Laurie’s footsteps, with the whole decaying town treating him as an outcast - he’s even targeted by a roaming gang of dastardly band geeks. Of course, you don’t introduce a roaming gang of dastardly band geeks in a slasher movie without a very bloody end in sight for them, and their increasingly creative demises later on serve as the backbone for one of Halloween Ends’ standout sequences of classical slasher mayhem.

Cory’s inner turmoil and reaction to Michael’s latest activity in Haddonfield provide Ends’ most interesting, if befuddling, character arc and an unexpected lens through which to examine The Shape’s legacy. To this point, Green’s trilogy has used Laurie and the entire population of Haddonfield as a counterpoint to that evil, but in each of those cases, we, the audience, had a lot of prior history with those parties. Bringing all that thematic weight to bear on a single new character this late in the game is a risk that doesn’t entirely pay off. Rohan Campbell gets off to a sympathetic start as Cory, with a boy-next-door charm so pure that the collective cold shoulder his character receives feels almost unrealistic in comparison, but Ends loses its commitment to fleshing out the character near the middle, and so changes in his personality feel less and less motivated. Cory and Laurie’s granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) develop a bond through a mutual sense of unbelonging that’s meant to contextualize his place in the larger morality play, but the more time goes on, the more their connection feels designed to set up the confrontation between Laurie and Michael that Green knows we’re expecting. Matichak gets the short end of the stick here, having to serve as a foil to both Cory and Laurie leaves Allyson without much room of her own in the story.

After spending much of Halloween Kills laid up in a hospital bed, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) has a more active role in Ends, which picks up with her coping with everything that’s led to this point in admirable fashion. Now a surrogate mother to the orphaned Allyson, the Laurie who’s flirting at the grocery store with Frank Hawkins (Will Patton) and fumbling around trying not to burn a pie almost feels like a counterpart from a parallel dimension who never encountered Michael Myers. Curtis is just as focused on selling Laurie’s quieter emotional triumphs as she is her latter day ass-kicker persona, and leaves us with a performance that blends both in a testament to how much she reveres the final girl role that put her on the map. But of course, this is the last(?) Halloween movie and so Laurie’s also called on to tangle with that oldest, creepiest dance partner of hers one more time. Green has his eye squarely on audience expectations throughout the climax of Ends, with plenty of nods to imagery from Carpenter’s original film, but the law of diminishing returns prevents Laurie and Michael’s ultimate confrontation from having quite the same punch as their last reunion in 2018’s Halloween. The rematch feels incongruous with what Ends had been building towards, and the immediate fallout of it escalates at such a jaw-droppingly quick rate that you hardly have time to consider what the outcome really means for the survivors.

What’s your favorite timeline in the Halloween franchise?

After a long line of competing visions of the mythology, this new Halloween trilogy has mostly benefited from having one director’s vision to hold it together. Even though Ends starts to distract with its self-serious discussions about “evil,” it does feel very much of a piece with David Gordon Green’s previous efforts and having seen plenty of Halloween sequels that are begging to coalesce around something, it’s hard to argue that having more cooks in the kitchen has ever served the Halloween movies well. Green’s approach to filming Michael’s violence remains as brutal and stylish as ever. Ends may be the best looking of Green’s three Halloween movies, with evocative glimpses at both Haddonfield’s underbelly and upper class that serve as equally haunting backdrops for bloody and tense sequences. The film’s opening scene takes place in what must be the biggest house in Haddonfield, and its opulent design gives Green room to both build dread and misdirect attention to wicked results. Ends is a largely serious affair, but it’s during these signature kill scenes that Green allows himself to wink at us with a number of enjoyably staged tableaus of terror. There’s only so much a drumstick can be twirled before it ends up in someone’s eye, right?

The Many Pale Faces of Halloween's Michael Myers

Click through for a look at the various versions of Michael Myers' mask from over the years!

Halloween Ends concludes the Myers/Strode rematch trilogy with an ambitious, if somewhat confused, final chapter. Despite dialed-in performances from Jamie Lee Curtis and franchise newcomer Rohan Campbell, David Gordon Green’s larger exploration of evil and trauma expands on the conversation he started in Halloween 2018 and Halloween Kills at a rate that Ends doesn’t quite have time to keep up with. There are some memorable kills and reverence for the franchise at large, but it stumbles as it brings it to a close.

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It isn’t new for a film in the long-running Halloween franchise to wonder whether the villain Michael Myers was born or made. But Halloween Ends — said to be Jamie Lee Curtis ’ final entry in the franchise — is a solid attempt to put a fine point on that idea. The title says it succinctly. You’ve undoubtedly seen (and Curtis knows that you’ve seen) a supercut of the timeless scream queen saying that the latest trio of Halloween movies, helmed by David Gordon Green, is “about trauma.” Halloween Ends , capping them off, is about closure — to the extent that Laurie Strode and the murder-ridden town of Haddonfield, Illinois, can dare to imagine such a thing.

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Halloween Ends is a curious and mostly effective mix of slasher antics and dramatically straight-faced themes. It’s a good enough slasher to provoke laughter in some of its grimmer moments, because the deaths are that ridiculous and the targets are sometimes, unfortunately, a little deserving; this is still, for all its talk about trauma , the kind of movie that makes you root for shitheads to get what’s coming to them, even if what’s coming for them is Michael Myers. And even if they have their reasons for being the way they are — because they were made, rather than born, that way.

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Halloween Ends

The saga of Michael Myers and Laurie Strode comes to a spine-chilling climax in the final installment of this trilogy. The saga of Michael Myers and Laurie Strode comes to a spine-chilling climax in the final installment of this trilogy. The saga of Michael Myers and Laurie Strode comes to a spine-chilling climax in the final installment of this trilogy.

David Gordon Green
John Carpenter
Paul Brad Logan
Jamie Lee Curtis
Andi Matichak
James Jude Courtney
1.5K User reviews
307 Critic reviews
47 Metascore
3 wins & 21 nominations

Officer Mulaney

(as a different name)

Willy the Kid

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Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

Jamie Lee Curtis Doesn't Give a **** About Michael Myers

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Trivia Producer Jason Blum reiterated that, while it would not be the final film in the series, it will be the last Halloween movie under Blumhouse, with the rights of the film series reverting to producer Malek Akkad following the release of Ends. When Akkad himself was asked about the future after Ends, he half-jokingly quoted his late father Moustapha Akkad , who had always quoted series star Donald Pleasence : when asked how many Halloween movies he was going to make, he laughed and said, "I'm going to stop at 22."
Goofs When Michael Myers attacks Nurse Deb, stabbing her through the painting, the wires holding her up are visible.

Laurie Strode : Come and get me, motherfucker.

Crazy credits When the Blumhouse logo/credit is shown, Michael Myers can be seen outside the house.
Connections Edited from Halloween (1978)
Soundtracks Midnight Monsters Hop Written by Jack Huddle and Jim Robinson Performed by Jack & Jim Courtesy of Norman Petty Studios By arrangement with Mutiny Recordings

User reviews 1.5K

DjfunkmasterG
Oct 13, 2022
How long is Halloween Ends? Powered by Alexa
How come people are still celebrating Halloween in Haddonfield after the events of the previous 2 films?
October 14, 2022 (United States)
United States
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Halloween Chấm Dứt
Savannah, Georgia, USA
Blumhouse Productions
Rough House Pictures
See more company credits at IMDbPro
$20,000,000 (estimated)
$64,079,860
$40,050,355
Oct 16, 2022
$104,374,176

Technical specs

Runtime 1 hour 51 minutes
Dolby Atmos

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Well, Halloween Ends Is a Pleasant Surprise

There are maybe two jump scares in Halloween Ends — neither of them good — and three decent kills, and yet somehow, David Gordon Green’s third and presumably final entry in the Halloween series winds up being the pleasantest of surprises. After the carnival-belly inanity of the previous movie, Halloween Kills , which swirled together au courant hot takes about trauma and media opportunism and mob justice in an unattended blender of fan service and gore, this new film takes a step back and remembers to tell a story, with characters and everything. In so doing, it plays to director Green’s strengths and largely steers clear of the pitfalls that dog many a horror sequel. There’s no desperation to escalate, no tiresome fetishization of the gruesome.

Indeed, the craziest thing in Halloween Ends might be its opening scene, which takes place on Halloween night 2019 and features a teenage babysitter, Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell), taking care of a young boy who’s a little too fond of pranks. Sure enough, one prank goes horribly wrong, and Corey is unfairly branded a child murderer. (Relax — it’s not a spoiler if it’s the first thing that happens in the movie.) Although he ultimately gets off, Corey’s life is ruined. He’s an outcast in the town of Haddonfield, Illinois, a place that knows a thing or two about child murders.

The only person who seems to show Corey any kind of grace is longtime franchise survivor Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), who after the events of the previous film appears to be trying to shed much of her gun-toting, survivalist persona. She’s also working on a memoir, which means we get to see her at a computer, Carrie Bradshaw–style, offering voice-over insights about Michael Myers. (“As he was locked away in his prison, I disappeared into mine.”) Her new attempts at a soft-focus life notwithstanding, Laurie secretly wants to mix it up. One day, she saves Corey from a group of local teen bullies who are attacking him and helps slash their tires. Then she takes the bloodied young man to a nearby hospital, mainly in order to introduce him to her granddaughter, Allyson (Andi Matichak), who works there.

Look, I never said that this movie made any sense . What Halloween Ends demonstrates is that it’s not impossible or ill-advised to crossbreed the slasher genre’s fondness for fantastical and broadly foreseeable schlock with a sense of acute unpredictability, to mix some sadness in with the silliness. We might know where the story is going generally, but individual scenes retain the element of surprise, as the story takes unexpected emotional detours.

Watching the slow-building romance of Corey and Allyson against the backdrop of this dead-end small town, it feels at times like director Green has finally brought to the series some of the charm of his earlier independent films. Here are two young people who’ve been ostracized by almost everyone around them, united by one another’s pain and loneliness; it’s the first time in many a Halloween picture that the characters have felt like actual people. Even though we can tell that nothing good can come of Corey’s increasing need to stand up for himself, we feel for him regardless. The film takes its time showing how guilt and fear can curdle into resentment and cruelty. In so doing, it wins us over to the characters’ side. Haddonfield, as these movies have repeatedly made clear, is a mostly terrible place. It’s hard not to empathize at least a little with Corey and Allyson’s burn it down energy.

Which is when Michael Myers finally shows up — not like an intruder or an otherworldly demon, but a spirit of evil lurking beneath Haddonfield. Literally: He’s apparently living in an abandoned concrete drainage pipe, half-dead among the cobwebs. One encounter with Corey, however, and suddenly Michael has a newfound lease on life, as if the negative energy of this place and these people has begun to feed him. It’s all very Ghostbusters II . It’s also, in its own way, surprising and tragic.

At least for the first half. Eventually, the movie does begin to indulge in gore and other typical genre kicks, which can feel like a bit of a letdown, in part because Green, despite having co-written and directed all of the entries in this most recent crop of Halloween sequels, isn’t really a horror guy. He doesn’t seem to have the precision and rhythm required to truly shock us. Luckily, with Halloween Ends , he’s found a way to make one of these movies his own, sans scares but with tons of atmosphere and a sense of queasy, gathering dread.

More than any other film in the series, Halloween Ends reminded me of 1982’s Halloween III: Season of the Witch , that bizarrely creepy, slow-burn one-off that was once widely loathed but has now (rightly) been reclaimed as a beloved cult item. The new movie is maybe not quite as goofy, but it has a similarly irreverent spirit, a refusal to fit into the demands of the broader slasher genre and a cavalier attitude toward this specific slasher’s so-called lore. After the dutiful but effective Halloween and the bloviatingly tedious Halloween Kills , at long last, Halloween Ends does manage to reinvent this series — right before (presumably) killing it dead forever.

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After yawning through 2021’s disappointing “Halloween Kills,” we all wanted the horror reboot series to die a bloody death.

Thank God we left our chef’s knife in the drawer, though. Because when the credits roll at “Halloween Ends,” the actual final chapter that hits theaters and Peacock Friday, you’ll consider taking Wite-Out to the title and changing it to “Halloween Keeps Going, Please.”

Director David Gordon Green was deservedly lauded in 2018 for his superb first ‘ween film , which restored the Michael Myers vs. Laurie Strode death match to its 1970s gritty glory after a string of bombs in the 1990s and aughts. Here, he wraps up his contributions in an extremely satisfying way.

HALLOWEEN ENDS

Running time: 111 minutes. Rated R (bloody horror violence and gore, language throughout and some sexual references.) In theaters and on Peacock Oct. 14.

Most surprising are, well, the many surprises. John Carpenter’s 1978 “Halloween,” after all, established the well-worn slasher flick pattern that we now know as well as “Happy Birthday.”

“Ends” starts, as many such films do, at a lovely suburban house in Haddonfield, Ill., with Corey (Rohan Campbell) babysitting a bratty kid on Halloween night. Something horrible happens, but it’s not at all what we come in expecting. It’s much worse.

Some months later, Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) decides to stop running from her boogeyman and moves out of her (now incinerated) bunker in the woods into a spooky blood-red, two-story home in town. I would’ve picked Punta Cana. But Laurie chooses the sort of property that looks like it can’t sell on Trulia because of the pesky quintuple murder that happened in the living room.

Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) meets Corey (Rohan Campbell) in the final chapter of David Gordon Green's "Halloween" trilogy.

She lives with her granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) and is working on a memoir. When she goes out, the jackass neighbors mock her and call the aging survivor of a serial rampage a “freak show.” (“Halloween” has never been particularly kind to my home state of Illinois.)

Allyson, who works as a nurse, starts up a controversial romance with Corey, whose life has taken a turn for the worse. The two bond over their emotional scars like pain is a piece of pasta in “Lady and the Tramp.”

All the while, Michael lurks.

Masked serial killer Michael Myers is explored in unexpected ways in "Halloween Ends."

Usually by the time most nostalgic series reach their conclusions, the end isn’t so much a competent movie as a shameless fanstravaganza filled with predictable moments for die-hards to clap. Not “Halloween Ends.” Green zeroes in on Corey, someone we’ve never met before, and his complex journey and transformation grab us with gusto.

Campbell, a 25-year-old Canadian actor who’s made no American films till now, is a major talent to watch. As Corey, he morphs from handsome and honor-roll to damaged, unhinged and borderline-possessed with little more than solid acting to rely on. (Carpenter’s classic “Halloween” theme music helps, too.) Yet, even as Corey becomes corrupted and Gollum-like, the audience doesn’t stop believing our guy can be redeemed. Right to the end. Then, duhr, we remember we’re at a horror movie — not “Silver Linings Playbook.”

Laurie and Michael are as formidable of opponents as Godzilla and King Kong.

And Curtis is strong as ever. Her Laurie has become as battle-hardened as a general on the front lines. There are glimpses of softness beneath her armor, but mostly she exists to be a warrior and protector. Fighting Myers is her raison d’être. Laurie and Michael, as far as opponents go, are up there with Godzilla and King Kong.

What I love about Green’s style is he has both a sense of the grand — he gives Michael’s mask the cinematic weight of Moses’ Ten Commandments slabs — and the goofy. One death in particular, gory though it may be, is a scream. And the transitions, well-edited by Timothy Alverson, give the movie the ceaseless momentum of a highway chase.

Green seems dead-set on closing the book on his “Halloween” trilogy. The final scenes are, pardon the expression, overkill, but they sure are finite. In the past, Michael has plummeted to the ground or been stabbed, shot, burnt and more. But whenever he falls off that horror-se, the optimistic madman gets right back up.

This time, that’ll take some doing.

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Halloween Ends is the best of the new Halloween trilogy

By richard urquiza | oct 14, 2022.

After successfully rebooting the franchise with 2018’s Halloween and then completely botching the sequel with 2021’s Halloween Kills , David Gordon Green returns with what is perhaps the best entry of the trilogy, Halloween Ends . I know what you’re thinking: any movie can be better than Halloween Kills , how much better are we talking?

In my opinion, the key choice that makes the difference for this movie is the daring decision to introduce the character of Cory (Rohan Campbell). The opening scene shows a 21-year-old Cory arriving at a babysitting gig. Charged with watching an enthusiastic child, the typical spooky occurrences have us thinking that Michael Myers is on the way. However, it turns out the killer had already made his entrance. An innocent prank results in the child’s gruesome demise, and Cory’s life takes a horrible turn.

This is surprising. If you saw the trailer above, or the commercials or even just posters, you know they frame Halloween Ends as an epic battle between Laurie Strode and Michael Myers. You would never have thought that both of their roles, as main character and main villain, would actually be siphoned off by Cory. This might cause an uproar among fans, but personally, I thought it pays off pretty well. It felt refreshing and new.

The trouble with it, and what I suspect may be a major complaint for some audience members, is that Myers himself is not nearly as much of a presence in this film as in past entities of the Halloween series. However, I think by putting more focus on Cory, the film is actually serving the main theme Myers has always represented: the inner evil, the idea that anyone is capable of being a beast.

The movie also does a lot with Laurie. Her involvement with the life of her granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) as well as with Cory gives Jamie Lee Curtis plentiful opportunities to show off her abilities as an actor. Her conversations with Cory are particularly gripping, because Cory is basically the main character. Scenes with him always move the plot forward. Laurie’s scenes… eh, not always. I don’t really care much about Laurie’s relationship with Officer Hawkins, and I can only laugh off the scenes of various townsfolk making big leaps in logic and blaming Laurie for the various crimes of Michael Myers.

Cory is the guy who carries the movie. We are introduced to him as a sympathetic man forced into unfortunate circumstances and watch him evolve into a monster. I found his descent into evil far more entertaining than I would have another Myers rampage. I even found the romance between Cory and Allyson not only bearable but actually compelling. At first I thought I’d hate it, because it so blatantly indulged in the love-at-first-sight trope so many movies lean on. But a couple scenes in I sort of started to love it, because I was getting the idea that Allyson was a psychopath herself. Why else would she suddenly become obsessed with a guy she’d only known for a couple days? Also, the fact that a majority of Cory’s victims are people that annoyed her made me think she was pointing Cory in their direction. Well, killing the cop might have been Cory’s idea, but how did he just decide to go for the chatty nurse or douche doctor? Coincidence? I think not.

Allyson definitely has a screw loose, and I liked that. I wish they had lended more into that aspect of her character, as by the end it didn’t really amount to much. And speaking of the end of Halloween Ends …

Spoilers for Halloween Ends

If this was any other film, Cory would have been the main character through to the end. However, because this is “the final Halloween movie,” the film had to become about Laurie Strode eventually.

To set the scene: Cory, now a full-fledged killer obsessed with Allyson, goes to Laurie’s house to kill her. However, Laurie turns the tables on him, and in the end Cory commits suicide but makes it look like Laurie killed him, thus severing her relationship with Allyson, who arrives just in time to see what Cory wanted her to see. It’s established before that Allyson blames Laurie for some of the things Michael had done to their family over the years. (Again, not really sure how that’s Laurie’s fault, but I digress.)

Personally, I think I would have preferred a story that didn’t end with Cory committing suicide, because his arc begs something more; he needed a more meaningful death. But because his death leads to a change in Laurie’s relationship with her granddaughter, I was down with it.

However, after that Michael appears and has one final (very satisfying) showdown with Laurie. Allyson ends up saving Laurie, which was a total let down. It undermines the obsession Allyson was showing through the movie. I would have preferred a mixed bag ending rather than a happy one, even though I understand why they gave this to Laurie, who kills the monster who has haunted her for the majority of her life, even if her relationship with her granddaughter is ruined. The way things end, Cory and Allyson’s movie-long romance is rendered pointless.

CG kills make me ill

While I enjoyed the subversion of expectations in the script, the deaths left a lot to be desired. I’m no huge fan of slashers, but I know that part of the fun of them is the uniqueness of the killings. With some exceptions, such as the first death in the film or the killings at the scrapyard, most of the deaths are standard stabbings. To be fair, you could argue Halloween Ends is trying to be realistic. I think that works given Cory’s status as a novice murderer.

However, if you want to go down that route, I do think the murder scenes could have been crafted better. I’m sorry, but digital blood and CGI knives break my immersion. I want to feel that blade break skin and flesh. Give those scenes the slow pace and attention they deserve. Credit where it’s due: the special effects improve significantly for the climax. Laurie’s meticulous takedown of Michael is great; properly gory and wince-worthy. Just a shame that effort didn’t go into the whole of it.

Halloween Ends is not what people will expect; it sure as hell isn’t what the ads promised, and I suspect some hardcore fans will walk out of the movie disappointed. However, I found Halloween Ends both surprising and refreshing, and much more nuanced than the goofy orgy of blood that was Halloween Kills . There were some boring scenes and hokey writing here and there, but hey, nothing that bad.

And indeed, Halloween did end. Midnight has finally rung, the morning rises on November 1st, and the film kept its promise. No more disappearances of the killer’s body, no more dead fist clutching before a cut to black, and no more post-credit scenes. Halloween has truly ended. For me, that’s the biggest achievement of Halloween Ends . It ended the story, and in a movie industry dedicated to stories that never end, that’s an accomplishment.

Will this truly be the last Hollow’s Eve to be haunted by Michael Myers? Personally, I don’t think so. Maybe 10 years, maybe just five years down the line, that white-painted William Shatner mask will return to stalk adolescents yet again in some new timeline, and it’ll probably suck. However, for now, Halloween Ends on a high note. As one of the major spooktacular releases for this October, I say it is definitely worth a watch.

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‘Halloween Ends’ Review: Michael Myers Saga Concludes, For Now, With a Whimper

Director David Gordon Green offers little more than a padded coda to the tale of Haddonfield, with a sudden focus on a brand-new character

The title “Halloween Ends” is a bit off, and that’s not just because nobody in their right mind seriously thinks this lucrative franchise will completely stop here.

Even if you take filmmaker David Gordon Green at his word, this new “Halloween” movie doesn’t put much of a button on the series. It says very little that wasn’t already said in “Halloween Kills,” a divisive sequel which attempted, with some success, to reframe the whole series as a treatise on multigenerational trauma, culminating with the metaphysical rebirth of Michael Myers as an immortal idea, a despicable living legend.

Instead of providing any fresh perspectives on Myers and his impact on the long-suffering town of Haddonfield — or its most famous residents, the Strode family — “Halloween Ends” merely offers an extended, one might say extremely padded, coda to the tale that Green has been telling. The film eventually provides some memorable gore but the ultimate conclusion is unconvincing and perfunctory. “Halloween Anecdotally Concludes” would have been much more accurate, although the studio’s marketing department would no doubt have hated it.

After a brief and shocking prelude, “Halloween Ends” picks up several years after the events of “Halloween” and “Halloween Kills.” Myers has disappeared without a trace, but it seems like every Halloween since that fateful night has been marred by tragic, mysterious deaths which may or may not have been the boogeyman’s handiwork. Maybe he’s out there killing people, or maybe Haddonfield is now just a place where horrible things happen all the time, as though his evil has infected it.

Surprisingly, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) has taken Myers’ disappearance in stride. She’s living in suburbia again, with her granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak, “Foxhole”), and writing an autobiography to purge her inner demons. They’re still mourning the loss of their family members, but it appears that life, for once, is pretty good for the Strode family. It’s an observation that infuriates their deeply scarred neighbors, who constantly remind Laurie that her tragedy has ruined their lives.

Yes, Haddonfielders have long memories. They also refuse to let a young man named Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell, “The Hardy Boys”) forget a shocking tragedy in his own past. He’s guilt-ridden, repressed and fragile, and Laurie and Allyson immediately recognize him as a kindred spirit in need of love and support. If he can stop beating himself up – and if the townsfolk can stop beating him up, too – Corey might even realize that Allyson is not only totally into him but also charmingly forward about it.

The problem is that Corey might not be on a path to healing. He might be on a much darker journey, which could lead him into the literal and figurative catacombs of Haddonfield, where he’d find his own, very unusual place in the legacy of the town. What if Corey isn’t another Laurie Strode? What if he’s another Michael Myers?

At least, that’s the idea that “Halloween Ends” is toying with. It’s a bold decision to take a series that had previously focused on the Strode family and suddenly refocus much of it on a brand-new character, in what was supposed to be (allegedly) its final chapter. But the novelty wears off quickly. The script can’t seem to make up its mind about Corey. Either he was always evil, or he was driven to it by an oppressive community; both plot points get floated, and neither is supported very well by Campbell’s scattershot performance. It’s not intriguingly ambiguous — it’s just frustratingly non-committal, and it takes up most of the movie.

So much time and energy is dedicated to Corey’s plot that “Halloween Ends” no longer plays like a continuation of the original story. Instead, it’s like we’re watching a backdoor pilot episode for some kind of “Tales of Haddonfield” anthology horror series, where scary things happen on October 31 but are only tangentially related to the characters and ideas from the original films. Not a bad pitch for a show, but not a very satisfying film.

Green’s movie might have been stronger if it had committed to an anthology concept, instead of constantly reminding us that there are other, richer, pre-existing characters we could be focusing on more before eventually tacking the conclusion to their story onto the end of a “Corey Cunningham” standalone. Then again, the “Halloween” series has a bit of a sketchy history of transforming its third installments into unrelated anthology tales. If it’s an intentional throwback to “Halloween III: Season of the Witch,” it’s less effective than its ridiculous but consistently entertaining 1982 predecessor.

Corey’s storyline ultimately yields some memorably gruesome set pieces, but Green’s screenplay — for which he shares credit with three other writers — struggles to make it fit into the rest of the puzzle. What does it even say about Allyson that she can fall in love with someone who, possibly, has a lot in common with the mass murderer who killed her mom? The world may never know, because the script for “Halloween Ends” doesn’t want to ask that or many other valid, potentially fascinating questions.

Instead, Corey’s story awkwardly segues into a tacked-on climax that’s probably supposed to give this all some sense of closure. But the events of the film are too arbitrary for that to be dramatically satisfying. What’s worse, it doesn’t even seem like the filmmakers are completely convinced it works either, since they spend most of the movie arguing that Haddonfield is a place where evil self-perpetuates, thanks to a populace that refuses to let anything die, before then giving the townsfolk a ham-fisted last-minute conclusion which, based on everyone’s behavior throughout the last two movies, is either completely unearned or unlikely to mean much to them in the long run.

“Halloween Ends” is far from the worst film in the series, but that says more about the series than it does about “Halloween Ends.” It’s hard to give a film credit for going in an unexpected direction when the direction is this aimless. As a slasher movie, it’s too backloaded to be broadly entertaining, and the handful of gruesome kills are counterbalanced by other, more humdrum slayings. Even cinematographer Michael Simmonds, whose oily shadows and eerie compositions made Green’s other “Halloween” movies total stunners, seems oddly subdued for most of “Halloween Ends.”

Perhaps “Halloween Ends” doesn’t work because — going back to that title — “Halloween” isn’t supposed to end. John Carpenter left the original with an almost complete lack of closure, which played less like a sequel tease and more like a threat. Michael Myers is still out there somewhere, literally or figuratively, and he’s going to get you. If he’s not, then this whole enterprise comes across as rather pointless. If evil can truly end — and especially if it ends this anticlimactically — it must not have been that powerful to begin with.

“Halloween Ends” opens in US theaters and streams exclusively on Peacock Oct. 14.

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My feeling about David Gordon Green ’s reboot of “Halloween” in 2018 was that the talented director fundamentally misunderstood what worked about the John Carpenter original, draining the project of actual tension, despite a few solid set pieces. Having seen his follow-up, “Halloween Kills,” I think I was right. This film muddies its entire concept with a bizarre, unrefined commentary on mob mentality that is quite simply some of the worst material in either Green’s career and the history of this rocky franchise (which is saying something if you’ve seen, say, "Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers"). It’s a shame too because, once again, there are set pieces that work—and the ones here are particularly brutal—but campy dialogue that calls attention to itself, too much fan service in the references department, sidelining Laurie Strode herself for most of the project, and truly inconsistent characters lead to a final result that definitely doesn’t kill. It barely even wounds.

In what feels like a clear nod to the first sequel, “Halloween Kills” picks up immediately after the end of the 2018 film (and it’s also probably not coincidental that most of it takes place at Haddonfield Memorial Hospital). However, it opens by introducing a few new/old characters—familiar names for fans of the Carpenter films but new to the Green ones. The most prominent is Tommy Doyle ( Anthony Michael Hall ), the kid that Laurie was babysitting on that fateful night in 1978. He gets together with fellow survivors every year, including Lindsey Wallace ( Kyle Richards , reprising her role from the 1978 original), Marion Chambers ( Nancy Stephens , also from the first two movies), and Lonnie Elam ( Robert Longstreet , not in the Carpenter movie, but the character is). They’re getting together on Halloween to celebrate surviving four decades after the most traumatic night of their lives, but they’re really set up as future victims for anyone who has ever seen a horror movie (which is, based on their behavior, absolutely no one in Haddonfield).

Meanwhile, across town, Cameron ( Dylan Arnold ) stumbles upon the bleeding body of Deputy Hawkins ( Will Patton ), who is rushed to the hospital, where he will eventually share a room with Laurie Strode ( Jamie Lee Curtis ). As the two reminisce and recover, Michael Myers escapes the burning house from the end of the first film and begins a truly brutal rampage. On that note, “Halloween Kills” is a much darker film than the last one, filled with more than a dozen of what slasher fans used to call “quality kills.” As Myers makes his way across Haddonfield, Laurie’s daughter Karen ( Judy Greer , at least given a bit more to do here than last time) tries to stop Laurie’s granddaughter Allyson ( Andi Matichak ) from joining the mob formed by Tommy to track him down. As they chant “Evil dies tonight,” they make, shall we say, some mistakes.

On that point, Roger Ebert wrote the following about the first “ Halloween II ” back in 1981: “The plot of 'Halloween II' absolutely depends, of course, on our old friend the Idiot Plot which requires that everyone in the movie behave at all times like an idiot.” It’s almost as if co-writers Green, Danny McBride , and Scott Teems had this quote on a whiteboard in the writer’s room because this is the aspect they get the most right when it comes to being faithful to the first two movies. Everyone in “Halloween Kills” is wildly idiotic, whether it’s the mob formed too easily by Tommy, the common trope of victims who know there’s a killer on the loose investigating the thump upstairs instead of just running, and some truly boneheaded decisions in the final scenes that really stretch credulity. The truth is that when a film like “Halloween Kills” is working, audiences will ignore the “Idiot Plot.” It’s only when they’re not invested that it becomes a problem, and that’s the case here.

There are brief moments when the craft here does make the Idiot Plot easier to ignore. Michael Simmonds shoots the film with a fluid viciousness, and the editing by Tim Alverson allows things like burst jugulars and smashed heads to linger. It’s a little surprising that the film is being released on Peacock so quickly because it’s really the kind of thing that works best with an audience, preferably at midnight, cheering each new murder.

Although I suspect even the hardcore fans of the last Green film would be disappointed even in a crowd. The biggest difference between the visions of Carpenter and Green comes down to momentum. The first “Halloween” is lean and mean, whereas this movie can’t maintain focus for longer than a few minutes, and so it tries to use cheesy, overheated dialogue to impart seriousness that the pace lacks. In particular, Laurie’s monologues are a mish-mash of nonsense about unstoppable evil. And fans will be truly sad that she barely leaves the hospital or even impacts the plot, which is a baffling decision given how much fans of the last film praised Curtis’ return, seeming to tie Myers and Strode together before untying them here.

“Halloween Kills” follows the classic sequel formula of “Again, But More of It.” There are more kills, more characters, more references, and more general chaos. However, all of it keeps pulling the movie away from the story of a bogeyman who came to life and became something else entirely. We have seen so many variations on Michael Myers over the years from Carpenter’s to Rob Zombie ’s to all of the various sequels in between those two filmmakers. I’m most startled that an undeniably talented director like David Gordon Green made, barring an impressive recovery in the already-greenlighted “Halloween Ends,” what will be one of the franchise's most forgettable.

In theaters tonight, October 14 th , and on Peacock tomorrow, October 15 th .

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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Film Credits

Halloween Kills (2021)

Rated R for strong bloody violence throughout, grisly images, language and some drug use.

106 minutes

Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode

Judy Greer as Karen Nelson

Andi Matichak as Allyson Nelson

Will Patton as Frank Hawkins

Thomas Mann as Young Hawkins

Anthony Michael Hall as Tommy Doyle

Kyle Richards as Lindsey Wallace

Nancy Stephens as Marion Chambers

Charles Cyphers as Leigh Brackett

Nick Castle as The Shape

James Jude Courtney as Michael Myers

David Gordon Green

Writer (based on characters created by)

John Carpenter
Scott Teems
Danny McBride

Cinematographer

Michael Simmonds
Timothy Alverson
Cody Carpenter
Daniel Davies

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Halloween Ends: release date, reviews and everything we know about the horror movie

Michael Myers and Laurie Strode face off for the final time.

Trick or treat Halloween fans, the legendary horror franchise is ready to deliver what is being billed as the final chapter in the Michael Myers and Laurie Strode saga, Halloween Ends .

The capper in a trilogy of movies (2018’s Halloween and 2021’s Halloween Kills ) that were made as direct sequels to 1978’s Halloween. Fans are eager to see the masked maniac and one of the original "final girls" go head to head one last time.

Here is everything that you need to know about Halloween Ends , from when it’s coming out to who’s in it and how you can catch up with the iconic franchise.

When is the Halloween Ends release date?

Halloween Ends releases in the US, UK and most of the world on October 14. US audiences have the choice to see the movie either in movie theaters or on the Peacock streaming service when it premieres. Find out exactly how to watch Halloween Ends .

This is the same strategy that Halloween Kills followed (as well as other Universal movies like Marry Me ). Even with the dual release strategy, Halloween Kills made nearly $50 million in its opening weekend and more than $131 million globally throughout its run.

Is there a Halloween Ends trailer?

Universal Pictures has released the trailer for Halloween Ends . While only a little more than a minute, it has just about everything long-time fans of the series could want as it promises that the saga between Michael and Laurie is coming to an end and teases an intense fight between the two, played over by the franchise's iconic score. Watch the Halloween Ends trailer directly below.

What is the Halloween Ends plot?

We’ve alluded to it multiple times already, but the bare bones of Halloween Ends is that Michael Myers and Laurie Strode, one way or the other, are going to end their long-time rivalry, presumably with only one left standing.

But, the official synopsis for the movie sets the stage for this final showdown with a bit more detail:

Four years after the events of Halloween Kills , Laurie is living with her granddaughter Allyson and is finishing writing her memoir. Michael Myers hasn’t been seen since. Laurie, after allowing the specter of Michael to determine and drive her reality for decades, has decided to liberate herself from fear and rage and embrace life. But when a young man, Corey Cunningham, is accused of killing a boy he was babysitting, it ignites a cascade of violence and terror that will force Laurie to finally confront the evil she can’t control, once and for all.

Halloween Ends reviews — what the critics are saying?

How does Halloween Ends compare to some of the best entries in the franchise? Unfortunately the general consensus is not well.

What to Watch's Halloween Ends review calls it an "abysmal whimper" to end the recent trilogy, and we're not alone. As of October 14, the movie has a score of 43%, which classifies it as "Rotten," on Rotten Tomatoes . It's not any better over at Metacritic , where Halloween Ends scores a 45.

Though, if we're looking for a positive, it is scoring better than its predecessor, Halloween Kills , which earned a final 39% on Rotten Tomatoes and 42 on Metacritic.

How long is Halloween Ends?

Halloween Ends has a run time of one hour and 51 minutes.

What is Halloween Ends rated?

Halloween Ends is rated R in the US and 18 in the UK for "bloody horror violence and gore, language throughout and some sexual references."

Who is in the Halloween Ends cast?

Jamie Lee Curtis returned to the role that first made her famous for the first time in 16 years with 2018’s Halloween and now gets ready to play Laurie Strode for the last time with Halloween Ends , more than 40 years after she starred in the original. While Laurie Strode is probably Curtis’ most iconic role, she’s also starred in memorable movies like A Fish Called Wanda , True Lies , Freaky Friday and, most recently, Everything Everywhere All at Once .

The other side of the deadly rivalry, Michael Myers (aka the Shape), is played by James Jude Courtney, who has been portraying Myers in this latest trilogy of Halloween movies.

Additional Halloween Ends cast members include Andi Matichak ( Orange is the New Black , Blue Bloods ) as Laurie’s granddaughter Allyson, Will Patton ( Yellowstone , Remember the Titans ) as Officer Hawkins, Kyle Richards (1978’s Halloween , ER ) as Lindsey Wallace and Rohan Campbell ( Virgin River , The Hardy Boys ) as Corey Cunningham.

Who is the Halloween Ends director?

David Gordon Green has overseen this new trilogy of Halloween movies, directing all three, including Halloween Ends . Green also wrote the script for all three recent Halloween movies, along with Danny McBride ( The Righteous Gemstones ); Chris Bernier and Paul Brad Logan are also credited writers on Halloween Ends .

Before taking on the Halloween movies, Green was more known for comedy and drama, having directed Pineapple Express , Eastbound & Down , Stronger , Vice Principals and The Righteous Gemstones . He is expected to continue with the horror genre, though, as he is lined up to direct a new version of The Exorcist and a Hellraiser TV series.

How to watch the Halloween movies

There have been 13 Halloween movies since 1978, from the John Carpenter-directed original to the upcoming Halloween Ends . The timeline and how they all connect can be a bit confusing, but if you just want to know how to watch or rewatch any of the Halloween movies right now, we’ve got you covered:

Halloween (1978) : available on The Roku Channel (US), Netflix (UK)
Halloween II (1981) : available via digital on-demand (US), Netflix (UK)
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) : available via digital on-demand (US), Netflix (UK)
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988) : available on AMC Plus & Shudder (US), Netflix (UK)
Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989) : available on AMC Plus & Shudder (US), Netflix (UK)
Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995) : available via digital on-demand (US), Paramount Plus (UK)
Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) : available on Paramount Plus (US), Virgin TV Go (UK)
Halloween: Resurrection (2002) : available on Paramount Plus (US), Netflix (UK)
Halloween (2007) : available on Netflix (US), Virgin TV Go (UK)
Halloween II (2009) : available on Tubi (US), digital on-demand (UK)
Halloween (2018) : available via digital on-demand (US), Virgin TV Go (UK)
Halloween Kills (2021) : available on HBO Max (US), Sky Go, Now TV and Virgin TV Go (UK)

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Michael Balderston is a DC-based entertainment and assistant managing editor for What to Watch, who has previously written about the TV and movies with TV Technology, Awards Circuit and regional publications. Spending most of his time watching new movies at the theater or classics on TCM, some of Michael's favorite movies include Casablanca , Moulin Rouge! , Silence of the Lambs , Children of Men , One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest and Star Wars . On the TV side he enjoys Only Murders in the Building, Yellowstone, The Boys, Game of Thrones and is always up for a Seinfeld rerun. Follow on Letterboxd .

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'Halloween Ends' director David Gordon Green talks spoilers and the stunt Jamie Lee Curtis insisted on doing herself

Warning: Major spoilers below if you haven't seen "Halloween Ends."
David Gordon Green told Insider why it took so long for Michael Myers to show up in the movie.
He revealed the scene that was originally a DVD extra and said Jamie Lee Curtis insisted on doing her own stunts.

With "Halloween Ends," director David Gordon Green puts a cap on his relaunch trilogy of the iconic horror franchise. And he held nothing back.

With 2018's "Halloween" followed by "Halloween Kills" three years later, Green took us on a blood-soaked ride as he ignored the nine sequels that came out after John Carpenter's groundbreaking 1978 movie and has Jamie Lee Curtis' Laurie Strode character patiently waiting 40 years for the return of psychotic killer Michael Myers.

But for "Halloween Ends," Green gets even more daring — introducing a new evil character and giving us less Michael Myers.

The movie catches up with Strode as she's finally come to terms with the loss of her daughter at the hands of Myers, who has not been seen since the events in "Kills."

However, there may be a new evil entering Haddonfield.

We are introduced to Corey (Rohan Campbell) who has been ostracized by the town following the death of a boy he was babysitting. After being bullied through the first half of the movie, and growing fond of Strode's granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak), Corey encounters Myers and becomes the villain's killing protégé.

It leads to a gory ending that finds Strode and Myers having their final showdown.

The movie, currently in theaters and on Peacock, has been bashed by the critics. Variety called it the franchise's "most joylessly metaphorical and convoluted entry" (it has a 40% Rotten Tomatoes score ).

But the way Green sees it, it's no fun doing a franchise like "Halloween" unless you take big swings.

"It's tricky because you want to invite the fans to the party, but you also want to give something that's 100% of your creative energy," Green told Insider over a Zoom chat about his mindset in making the third movie. "You've got to swing for a few, you don't always hit them, but why not take the risk at this point."

Here, we chat with Green about the movie's biggest spoilers, his reason behind why we don't see Michael Myers until well into the movie, the gory scene that was originally planned as a DVD extra, and Curtis' insistence to have Myers smash her face through a prop-glass cabinet.

Green felt opening the movie with a kid's death would grab audiences 'by the throat'

You go and do something in the first 15 minutes of the movie that's very rare in mainstream horror movies: killing a child. Did you get any pushback from Blumhouse or Universal in making that choice?

Once we knew we were going to do a babysitter intro, and we've seen a lot of them, a lot of great ones, I think we needed to do something that grabbed people by the throat a little bit. Or a lot.

And what was really fortunate for me in this creative standpoint, the reason I continue to make movies with Blumhouse, is you get in a room and start pitching ideas and you sculpt them to be even better. It's not like they are these authoritarian corporate figures who are telling you what to do with your movie.

The second we have a rough draft we bring our DP, our production designer, our set designer, our sound mixer, and our producers into a room and we read it out loud and we hear how it goes and then we decide if it's shocking enough.

For this scene in particular did it evolve from, say, the kid breaking a leg to him falling four stories to his death?

No, he always died. There was no softer version.

Were there different causes of the death?

No. There were certain intentions that were different. Was Corey more mean? Was the kid really bad and, Corey in defending himself, leads to the kid dying? There were those kinds of questions we were asking. But we always knew it had to end with some ambiguity that the town could point to and say to Corey, "You're a monster."

Green defends his choice to not have Michael Myers show up until 30 minutes into the movie

Outside of a brief recap at the beginning, Michael Myers doesn't show up until 30-40 minutes into the movie. Was there a discussion on if he should show up earlier?

There was a discussion and even through the editing process. Because you could take certain scenes from earlier and move them around. It just felt right.

Maybe I'll watch it in two years and think that's too long a gap, but it was important to me to develop characters and understand them in their own way and then introduce how Michael relates to that situation. Because he's so exciting when you see him. Myers just gets people shaking. I was worried that was going to distract from the substance of the Corey/Allyson story as it was developing.

I thought it was a gusty move, but for me, it worked because when Corey goes on his killing spree in the Michael Myers mask, you know what his journey was to get there.

To your point, in the script stage, it was always a question if it would work because we hadn't cast our Corey yet. And if we didn't have a strong Corey cast then nobody wants to hang out in that movie. When we met Rohan and we did rehearsals I was just like, thank God. The guy is layered with vulnerability but he's also tough and physical and can really ride motorcycles. He's handsome without being pretty. He had all these attributes that we were really hoping it would pay off.

It pays off to the point that, towards the end, I thought what you were doing was introducing us to the new Michael Myers. That Blumhouse would go and make more movies with him as The Shape.

Michael Myers might not have special powers, but Green says he's an 'extraordinary human'

So when we meet Michael in this one he's hanging out in the sewers and he's weak. It's almost like Corey rejuvenates Michael and in turn, Michael introduces evil to Corey. Does that mean Michael has special powers? Can he feed off others who are as evil as him?

I like that you're reading into it that way. I've always tried to make sure there's an extraordinary human layer to all of what you just said. To hear from other characters, like at the end of "Halloween Kills," it's Laurie saying, "He's more than a man." That's her philosophy.

In this one, it's Willy the radio DJ saying, "This is all a conspiracy, how can one man survive all that?" We are trying to plant the seeds so that everyone can use their own intuition there. But at the same time, I can make the point: bad boys create bad boys.

The movie does ask the question, does evil breed evil or does a person's environment create it?

It's like what the father of the child who dies at the beginning of the movie says in the pool-hall scene. It's a line that I added in post to make sure this was clear.

He says, "The kid I knew would never have hurt my son, but the look of the kid I saw at the side of the road, was that always in him or did the town do this to him?" I do want that to be a theme that people take away in terms of the infectiousness of evil.

But the "Halloween" super fans are going to say Michael giving Corey his evil is a hat tip to the shocking ending in "Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers" when Jamie touches Michael and in the last scene, she kills her foster mother.

That's a great ending.

Did anyone bring that up when going over the script? "We're going straight 'Halloween 4' here."

We would spitball that because that's a movie I enjoy. I see where they were going with that movie and I respect a lot of the choices. But we are ignoring that movie in our trilogy.

We were supposed to see more of Corey's mom's death, the killing of Willy the DJ was originally just a DVD extra

What was the most memorable death scene to do in this movie?

The one that stands out is the DJ. That wasn't supposed to be in the movie. We were doing that for a DVD extra. At the script stage, we decided that would be the one we'd get ridiculous with and keep it for the DVD.

We shot Corey's mother's death very vividly and that was to be in the movie. But when I got in the edit room, I didn't like the pacing. So now we don't see the mother's death, and that will be on an extended version if we make one. But that one is inspired by "Black Christmas." It parallels the Christmas carolers scene in that movie, but we have trick-or-treaters.

So we cut that scene and just loved the weirdness of the DJ death. Corey is sloppy and angry, so there's something about watching that. In the edit, we were like, "Are we really going to use this?" It was so wild we had to put it in there.

Jamie Lee Curtis was heavily involved in crafting Laurie's final battle with Michael Myers (Jim Courtney), she even did '98% of the stunts' in the scene

How did the final battle between Laurie and Michael evolve?

There was a lot of evolution. There was one version that had Allyson infused through the whole fight. But ultimately we pared that all back. I didn't want it to be your average knockdown drag-out brawl without a degree or emotion, without a degree of intimacy between these two characters that have come so far. It needed real moments. Pauses, looks, glances. However you want to look at it, these are two survivors and here we are facing them in a climactic moment.

We had a scripted idea of where it would go and how it would begin. And then I let the stunt coordinator, Kevin Scott, and his stunt team go on the set and pencil in the geography of how the fight would go down. Then we brought in Jamie and then Jim Courtney to get their takes.

We made it a real conversation even though there are no words spoken in it.

What kind of input did Jamie bring to the scene?

I would say 98% of the stunts are her doing them. Actually, her double only did two shots. That's Jamie's head getting smashed into the glass. She really went for it.

In fact, her face going through the glass cabinet was her idea. She said, "I want him to grab me by the hair and smash me into the glass." And I was thinking, I still got two more weeks to work with you, I can't have shards of glass in your face. But she did it. That's her face going in the glass. That stunt was her idea. I was reluctant — if not trying to forbid it — but it happened and it looks great.

What stands out is how slowly Laurie does the slicing of Michael's neck and wrist.

For the moment when we say night-night to Michael, I thought it was important to be slow and methodical. Let's let it drain. Let's hold hands. Let's look each other in the eye.

Now, you say looking into their eyes. That moment between them is very similar to Michael looking into Corey's eyes. Are we to believe Laurie now has Michael's evil inside her and must battle it? I mean, she's got Michael's mask sitting on her coffee table now!

It's an amazing insight. It makes me wonder if Corey lived and didn't have a fucked up mom, maybe he could have gotten through that. I think Laurie is smarter than Corey and knows what it takes to put in the work to heal yourself and your community, so I feel she will put every effort into what she needs to do.

But I also salivate over wondering. I mean, the mask is just sitting on the coffee table, somebody's going to fucking pick that up. [ Laughs .]

Hypothetically, if Jason Blum came to you 10 years from now and said, "I got the right script to bring back 'Halloween,'" would you be up for it?

I'm done. But if he said, "I got the script for the new 'Halloween' and it's a Bollywood musical," I'm there.

Watch: 7 tricks horror movies use to scare you

Main content

The new 'Halloween' is everything you'd want out of a new 'Halloween'

Like most long-running horror franchises, the Halloween series has seen its share of ups and downs over the decades.

But those skeptical of the newest incarnation, directed by David Gordon Green, can put their fears to rest. This one's good. Really good.

Faced with the challenge of sorting out the messy mythology of the sequels, Green (along with his co-writers, Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley) doesn't even try. Although there are references to the others, only the original Halloween is completely canon here, and all of its relevant plot points are recapped in the new Halloween .

That said, it's still a good idea to (re)watch the 1978 film before going into the 2018 one, because it'll make the latter all the more satisfying. Green has fun recreating or subverting specific images and sequences from the first film – maybe too much fun, if you were hoping for something more surprising.

The premise is this: 40 years have passed since the first Halloween , and Michael Myers has spent all that time in prison. But he manages to escape just in time for his favorite holiday, and naturally he goes after Laurie Strode, the girl who survived his last killing spree. She, in turn, has spent the past 40 years waiting and preparing for just this occasion.

In that time, Michael's notoriety has only grown. People are fascinated by this silent enigma, for all sorts of foolish reasons. Is he capable of rehabilitation, or is he an incorrigible force of pure evil? What might he say if he ever spoke? What's going on in his head? What's it like to be in his head?

Far less curiosity is reserved for the psychology of his sole survivor, Laurie, played once again by Jamie Lee Curtis. She's never forgotten the trauma she suffered that night – to the frustration of everyone around her, including her own daughter (Judy Greer, finally getting put to good use on the big screen). "Get over it," more than one character tells her over the course of the movie.

That Michael and Laurie will reunite for a rematch is a given. But Halloween has plenty of fun on the way there, too. There are kills aplenty, and Green has a good sense for how much is too much. He knows exactly what to show to creep you the fuck out, without crossing the line into full-on torture porn territory. The spine-tingling new score by John Carpenter helps a lot, too.

When it's not being scary, Halloween is quite funny. Some of its jokes are of the wink, nudge, self-referential Scream variety, but the most delightful beats come from ordinary exchanges between ordinary Haddonfield citizens. (Or, in at least one case, between an ordinary Haddonfield citizen and someone else they think is an ordinary Haddonfield citizen.) A babysitter and her favorite charge rib each other about each other's awfulness; two cops bicker about banh mi sandwiches.

Green's Haddonfield is populated with characters who actually have personalities and lives... which makes it all the more horrifying when they're killed off in brutal fashion. It's not a town anyone should want to live in. But Halloween makes an excellent case for Haddonfield as a town worth revisiting.

Angie Han is the Deputy Entertainment Editor at Mashable. Previously, she was the managing editor of Slashfilm.com. She writes about all things pop culture, but mostly movies, which is too bad since she has terrible taste in movies.

Entertainment /
The new Halloween is a slasher movie with an actual message

Director David Gordon Green delivers a very 2018 entry for the 40-year-old franchise

By Bryan Bishop

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Welcome to Cheat Sheet, our brief breakdown-style reviews of festival films, VR previews, and other special event releases. This review comes from the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival. It has been revised for the film’s wide theatrical release.

Warning: mild spoilers for the Halloween franchise below.

Horror movie franchises aren’t necessarily known for their thoughtfulness. Films that spawn decades of sequels initially become part of the zeitgeist for a reason, no doubt, and broad trends in the genre often reflect the cultural anxieties of the moment. But by the time a film franchise hits installment five or six, there usually isn’t much left to explore, beyond new ways to kill off characters.

That’s never been truer than in the long-running Halloween franchise. John Carpenter’s stylish 1978 original was the prototypical slasher film, with Michael Myers in his signature white mask terrorizing teenagers as an unknowable, unstoppable force of nature. It featured many of the genre tropes that would become commonplace in the decade that followed: Myers targeted teenagers who were having sex or drinking while underage, activities that were off the menu for Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), the “final girl” who eventually stopped him. If slasher films are morality plays born out of America’s latent Puritanical values, Halloween is the film that codified it all.

But in the sequels that followed, anything fresh or exciting was quickly left by the wayside in the pursuit of just knocking out new installments. And attempts to give the series a different look and feel, as Rob Zombie did with his 2007 reboot and sequel, were misguided at best. Creatively, the Halloween well ran dry long ago — which is precisely why David Gordon Green’s new entry, simply titled Halloween , is such an interesting experiment. It’s a franchise-wide retcon, a direct sequel to Carpenter’s original that eliminates all other films from the franchise continuity. That move allows Green and his co-writers, Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley, to build a film that actually has a narrative reason for existing. They don’t squander the opportunity. They use it to explore the long-lasting consequences violence and trauma have on victims, and in the process, they entirely rethink what Michael Myers stands for.

The 2018 Halloween isn’t an entirely successful film, and it won’t provide an easy template for a new generation of revitalized slasher flicks. But it does serve as a fitting coda to a story that began 40 years ago.

What’s the genre?

It’s a slasher film / meta-comedy hybrid. Halloween is rife with gore and violence, but it also has so many laughs that it starts to feel like a genre comedy at times, not unlike Green’s The Pineapple Express . The filmmakers are also acutely aware of the audience they’re playing to, and the film goes out of its way to wink and nod at the other films in the franchise. It’s often subtle and clever; at other times, it’s just distracting. This is simultaneously the funniest Halloween film that’s ever been made and one of the most disturbingly brutal, which makes for a tricky mix at times.

What’s it about?

A meta-slasher / comedy hybrid

The movie wipes away everything but Carpenter’s first film. As it opens, viewers learn that not long after the first film, Michael Myers was captured by the police and has been under psychiatric care ever since. Facing Myers scarred Laurie Strode irrevocably, and though she went on to have a daughter, Karen (Judy Greer), she has lived her life since as a self-made survivalist, preparing for the day when she might need to face Michael again.

That occasion comes when Michael escapes while being transferred to a new facility. From there, he heads straight to his hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois, picking up where he left off, with murder and mayhem on a new Halloween night. Only this time, Laurie’s granddaughter Allyson may also be in danger, and Laurie has to work with Michael’s new doctor, Sartain (Haluk Bilginer) to bring Michael’s reign of terror to an end.

What’s it really about?

It’s about the long-lasting effects of violence and how trauma impacts not just its victims, but the lives of everyone close to them. Laurie went full Sarah Connor after facing Michael and spent her daughter’s entire childhood training her in weaponry and self-defense on the off chance that Michael might one day return. But the cost of that approach has been massive. She’s blown through two marriages and become estranged from Karen. Now, Laurie lives as a hermit in a house in the woods that she’s turned into a mini-fortress, equipped with a panic room and massive amounts of weaponry.

The one person who hasn’t written Laurie off is her granddaughter, but Allyson is constantly caught between Laurie and Karen, with her mother unable to forgive Laurie for essentially hijacking her childhood. Michael has been imprisoned for 40 years, but Laurie has never stopped living with him — and that’s forced everyone close to her to live with him, too. This isn’t just a passing concern in the film, either. The core idea is deeply embedded in Halloween , carrying through from the opening to the final frame. To execute the idea, the movie leaves behind many of the mysteries around Michael Myers that Carpenter established in 1978.

Michael Myers is no longer the morality boogeyman

Michael doesn’t just focus on pot-smoking teenagers this time around; he’s an equal opportunity killer, happy to bludgeon housewives and children as well as the requisite babysitters. That turns the character from a morality boogeyman into a metaphor for the vicious, unexpected cruelty that ordinary life can bring. It makes Michael Myers as a character even more of a cipher — the character’s nickname, “The Shape,” has never seemed more appropriate — but it serves the movie thematically: the kind of random violence and loss he represents in this Halloween is something that can touch anyone at any time, just as real-world violence and tragedy knows no bounds.

Is it good?

There are many things to like in Halloween . Beginning with the opening titles — a faithful homage to the original title sequence — the filmmakers make it clear that they intend to hew closely to the aesthetics Carpenter established. From the score (Carpenter returned to write the music, alongside his son Cody and composer Daniel A. Davies) to the cinematography (director of photography Michael Simmonds shot the film in the same anamorphic aspect ratio original DP Dean Cundey used) to the ever-present use of Steadicam, the film feels tied to the original. It’s striving to be a true sequel, not only with story and characters, but in look and feel.

And while it’s necessary for the movie to bring new elements into the mix, lest it become yet another rehash, it’s the execution of those new elements that lead to some of the film’s troubles. The murders are graphic, cruel, and violent in this film, no doubt intended to underscore the random brutality Michael represents this time around. But there’s a dissonance there, given how audiences are used to taking in these movies and the character of Michael Myers.

Is this a nostalgic slasher throwback, a horror-comedy, or a mature look at trauma?

Like many slasher franchises, the Halloween films turned into a roller coaster ride over the years, with audiences cheering the boogeyman on as he snuffed out cookie-cutter characters in film after film. Going into this movie, it’s easy to assume that’s still going to be the case — just with the added nostalgia of original movie callbacks and the presence of Jamie Lee Curtis. Instead, there’s a viciousness in Michael that’s genuinely upsetting. When he kills two journalists early in the film, for example, it’s as if every expectation that the audience has about what this movie should be gets thrown out the window. As a filmmaking tactic, it’s extremely effective, putting the audience back on their heels and announcing that this movie isn’t going to play by the safe, familiar rulebook. But that clashes with the constant tongue-in-cheek nods the movie makes to other films in the series.

It’s also out of sync with the ever-present comedy in the film, which includes some genuinely funny, laugh-out-loud moments. A young kid named Julien (Jibrail Nantambu), who one of Allyson’s friends is babysitting, steals every scene he’s in with constant one-liners. And a sequence in which Michael stalks a high school nerd (Drew Scheid) is hilarious as well as scary. But all of the film’s facets feel like they’re fighting each other rather than working together. There’s a constant tension: is this a nostalgic slasher throwback, a horror-comedy, or a mature look at trauma? The answer can change from scene to scene — sometimes from line to line — and the resulting movie feels like a mashup of several different, more focused films rather than its own fully formed idea.

This Halloween is certainly better than almost every other sequel in the franchise, though that’s no great achievement in and of itself. It ultimately feels like a decent movie that could have been a very good movie, if only Green had been able to modulate his tone more effectively.

What should it be rated?

It should be (and is) rated R. R for days. R without even a fleeting moment of consideration that it should be anything but an R. Seriously: really, really R.

How can I actually watch it?

Halloween opens in theaters on October 19th. Trick or treat.

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Original ‘Halloween’ Reboot Gets 2024 Release Date

in Movies & TV

A brand-new Halloween reboot is heading our way.

The Halloween franchise is one of many masks, even if every one of those masks is based on William Shatner’s likeness. Sequels, requels, spinoffs, reboots, and deboots . You name it, Halloween has probably done it (except for venturing into space — at least not yet).

It all started with John Carpenter’s original 1978 classic, which starred Jamie Lee Curtis as slasher’s first-ever “final girl”, Laurie Strode , a teenage babysitter who, on one Halloween night, comes face to face with the bogeyman himself, Michael Myers (Nick Castle).

Laurie Strode with Michael Myers behind her in 'Halloween' 1978

Related: 5 Scenes In ‘Halloween Ends’ That Prove Michael Myers Is Supernatural

15 years ago, at just six years old, Michael brutally murdered his sister, Judith Myers, with a kitchen knife. Now, an escaped patient from Smith’s Grove Sanitarium, he wears dark coveralls and a plain white mask with cut-out eyes, which appear as dark hollows.

There’s nothing particularly remarkable about Michael Myers, who often moves at a snail’s pace as he relentlessly stalks his victims. But besides his complete lack of humanity, what sets him apart from other slasher icons is his ambiguity and mystique.

A close up of Michael Myers' mask in Halloween 2018

Related: Every ‘Halloween’ Movie Ranked Worst to Best

Halloween (1978) doesn’t try to answer whether or not Michael Myers is actually the bogeyman; instead, it only asks the question. What makes him truly terrifying is the unknown. How can he be standing on the street corner one second and gone the next?

How can he get back up after being shot six times before tumbling over a balcony? The rantings and ravings of Michael’s doctor, Samuel Loomis (Donald Pleasence), throughout the 1978 film keep us asking. But the question is more interesting than the answer.

Related: A Recap of the ‘Halloween’ Franchise Before You Watch ‘Halloween Ends’

The downside to Michael’s apparent invincibility is that the studio and the producers didn’t need to come up with an excuse to churn out many sequels in the years that followed (not that they ever really need a reason when it comes to slashers), which to date stands at 12.

The goal was to kill off Michael in Halloween II (1981), which is why it was followed up by the unrelated film Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982). However, the anthology threequel’s underwhelming performance led to Michael Myers being resurrected.

Related: 5 Most Shocking Moments In ‘Halloween Ends’

Michael returned in the “Thorn Trilogy” , which is comprised of Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988), Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989), and Halloween 6: The Cursed of Michael Myers (1995).

Two years after the last film in the trilogy baffled fans by trying to explain what makes Michael unstoppable, Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) came along, which brought back Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode and wiped those three prior sequels from canon.

Michael Myers at the door in Halloween H20: 20 Years Later

Related: 5 Reasons Why ‘Halloween Ends’ Is the Best Sequel Since ‘Halloween’

And then came Halloween: Resurrection (2002), a film so bad the studio would sign grunge-horror director Rob Zombie for two Halloween reboots: Rob Zombie’s Halloween (2007), a remake of the original; and Halloween II (2009), a remake of the 1981 sequel.

In more recent years, David Gordon Green’s Halloween trilogy — Halloween (2018), Halloween Kills (2021), and Halloween Ends (2022) — completely retconned (or debooted) the entire series, save for Carpenter’s original 1978 classic.

Michael Myers in the Halloween Kills poster

Related: ‘Halloween’ Should Have Stayed In 1978 — Here’s Why

Now, Blumhouse Productions no longer holds the rights to Halloween — they’ve reverted to Malek Akkad, son of original Halloween producer Moustapha Akkad. Where will the series go next? Only time will tell, but first, we’ll be returning to the original film one more time.

Per Comicbook.com , a brand-new version of John Carpenter’s terrifying classic will be hitting shelves in the form of a reinterpretation of the original novelization of the 1978 film from author Richard Curtis. This makes the novelization the original Halloween reboot, long before the likes of Rob Zombie carved out his own vision of Carpenter’s film.

Michael Myers in the sewers in Halloween Ends

Related: All the ‘Halloween’ Timelines Ranked From Worst to Best

Movie tie-in novels typically offer different versions of events seen in their on-screen counterparts, and often provide more context to some characters. In the case of the original Halloween novelization, we get many more insightful scenes with Michael Myers.

The same can be said about the more recent novelizations based upon David Gordon Green’s three Halloween films, which offer more insight into Michael’s psyche and motivation, and even feature some scenes told from his perspective (in the third person).

Michael Myers standing in the doorway in Halloween Ends

Related: Every Version of Michael Myers Ranked From Worst to Best

The new reprint from publishers Printed in Blood will come in two versions; one with a limited-edition cover, and one with a standard cover. Both books will feature all-new illustrations inspired by the film throughout, from artist Orlando “Mexifunk” Arocena.

As per Printed in Blood, here’s the synopsis for “Halloween” (2024):

“Printed In Blood is very proud to present the original movie tie-in novelization, reprinted in full here for the first time in over 40 years! In addition, it has been fully illustrated throughout with nearly a hundred brand-new Illustrations created just for this release by the vector genius, Orlando ‘Mexifunk’ Arocena. This 224-page volume is bursting with both classic and gorgeous new artistic visions of the John Carpenter horror classic. This Limited Edition cover features the classic paperback cover art re-created by Orlando. Produced under license with Compass International Pictures and with full cooperation of the original author, Richard Curtis (who penned the original novel under the name Curtis Richards).”

“Halloween” (2024) is now available for pre-order .

Laurie Strode stalked in 'Halloween' 1978

As per Universal Pictures , here’s the official synopsis for David Gordon Green’s Halloween Ends :

Four years after the events of last year’s Halloween Kills, Laurie is living with her granddaughter Allyson and is finishing writing her memoir. Michael Myers hasn’t been seen since his last brutal rampage. Laurie, after allowing the specter of Michael to determine and drive her reality for decades, has decided to liberate herself from fear and rage and embrace life. But when a young man, Corey Cunningham, is accused of killing a boy he was babysitting, it ignites a cascade of violence and terror that will force Laurie to finally confront the evil she can’t control, once and for all. — Universal Pictures

Corey Cunningham as Michael Myers in Halloween Ends

Halloween Ends is directed by David Gordon Green. It stars Jamie Lee Curtis ( Laurie Strode ), Andi Matichak (Allyson Nelson), Will Patton (Officer Frank Hawkins), Omar Dorsey (Sheriff Barker), Kyle Richards (Lindsey Wallace) , James Jude Courtney ( Michael Myers ), Rohan Campbell (Corey Cunningham), and (Michael O’Leary) Dr. Mathis.

Will you buy the new Halloween novel? Let Inside the Magic know in the comments down below!

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Why The New Halloween Movie Isn't Really A Reboot, According To Jason Blum

The horror genre is in a very good place right now. Rather than predictable sequels, new and exciting concepts have arrived in the past few years. And with Get Out winning an Oscar this past Awards Season, it seems like just about anything is possible for the classic genre. Blumhouse Studios has had a hand in many of the recent hits, and now the studio is turning its head on one of the classics: Halloween . Blumhouse's Halloween is arriving this October, and bringing back Jamie Lee Curtis for a new story that will be a direct sequel to the original 1978 classic. Given the new timeline , the word "reboot" has been tossed around for Halloween , but Jason Blum takes umbrage with this assessment. He recently explained why the new film is anything but a reboot, saying:

I think the way to get people interested in a reboot is not 'reboot.' The term makes my hair stand up on the back of my neck. What we're doing with Halloween is, I guess I'll use the term 'reinvention.' A reboot just sounds so corporate. The way that we attacked Halloween was to go after what we've done with a lot of other movies. David Gordon Green and Danny McBride are not known for horror, Jordan Peele was not known for horror before he did Get Out, so I think we've had a lot of success kind mixing genres of people. Not the movie, the movie's a straight, scary movie.

Rather than thinking about starting the Halloween franchise over, it seems that everyone involved with Blumhouse's upcoming sequel is simply focusing on the story at hand. And rather than a corporate machine that is all out for the money, Halloween is going to be more of a passion project. A terrifying passion project.

Jason Blum 's comments to Variety show how passionate everyone at Blumhouse seems to be about Halloween . As he said, the team is not necessarily made up of horror professionals. David Gordon Green and Danny McBride are just Halloween superfans , who are ready to bring a new, modern story to Haddonfield, Illinois. It's this line of thinking that likely inspired them to ignore all of the Halloween sequels, therefore freeing up the narrative space without worrying about disrupting the canon.

Blumhouse' Halloween will pick up 40 years after the events of John Carpenter 's original film. Jamie Lee Curtis ' Laurie Strode has spent decades waiting for Michael Myers to break out of Smith Grove Sanitarium. But on the 40th anniversary of her attack, Michael manages to get out and rein terror back upon the formerly peaceful town. Laurie will have to arm up and protect herself, her daughter, and granddaughter in the process.

In his same conversation with Variety, Jason Blum teased the exciting new take on the movie, saying:

So I think we've got a very, very original voice with David Gordon Green and Danny. And having Jamie Lee Curtis and John Carpenter back in the mix to me was the beginning, and now we're almost towards the end, we've almost finished the movie, and I'm super pleased with how the movie turned out, and I'm grateful that we brought new voices and the original voices together in a strategic way to make what I think is a terrific movie. And fans will have to tell me if they think so too, but I think they will be very happy.

Halloween will arrive in theaters October 19th, 2018. In the meantime, check out out 2018 release list to plan your next trip to the movies.

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Corey was born and raised in New Jersey. Graduated with degrees theater and literature from Ramapo College of New Jersey. After working in administrative theater for a year in New York, he started as the Weekend Editor at CinemaBlend. He's since been able to work himself up to reviews, phoners, and press junkets-- and is now able to appear on camera with some of his favorite actors... just not as he would have predicted as a kid. He's particularly proud of covering horror franchises like Scream and Halloween, as well as movie musicals like West Side Story. Favorite interviews include Steven Spielberg, Spike Lee, Jamie Lee Curtis, and more.

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13 new horror movies to give you nightmares this Halloween

From Saw X to The Exorcist: Believer to Five Nights at Freddy's, here are the scariest movies to watch this spooky season — if you dare!

Senior Writer

Want to exorcize — sorry, exercise — your right to watch some horror movies this Halloween season? Here are 13 new films guaranteed to have you checking under your bed before you go to sleep.

Taissa Farmiga reprises her role from 2018's The Nun as Sister Irene, whose investigation of a priest's death leads our heroine to her old pal, the now-possessed Maurice, played by Jonas Bloquet. Director Michael Chaves explains that the film "follows the two stories of Irene, as she's trying to track down Maurice, and Maurice, who's now settled down, [is] this unwitting host to the Nun, and working in this boarding school in France. It's these parallel stories as they build and collide together."

Chaves shot more footage, with additional mayhem, after test screenings of his horror sequel. "People wanted more violence," says the director. "There was already a good degree of violence and gore in the movie, but people wanted more of it. So, we did a little bit of additional photography and we ramped that up."

The Nun II is in theaters now.

Con artists make the grave mistake of pretending they can cure the brain cancer of Tobin Bell 's engineer and torture trap-enthusiast John Kramer, a.k.a. Jigsaw, in Saw X , which returns the franchise to familiar ground after 2021's Chris Rock -starring Spiral . Set between the events of 2004's James Wan-directed Saw and the following year's Saw II , the ten-quel costars fan favorite Shawnee Smith as Jigsaw's similarly unhinged helper Amanda. "She's a character that the fans absolutely adore and so it seemed natural to have the two of them together again," says producer Oren Koules.

Saw X is in theaters now.

No One Will Save You

Writer-director Brian Duffield's alien invasion movie is deliberately short of dialogue but thrillingly long on scares as Kaitlyn Dever 's heroine fights extraterrestrials at her remote home. Duffield explains that he came up with the idea of the movie being speechless pretty late in the game. "I knew there was a scene where Kaitlyn was going to try to get help at a police station," he recalls . "I wrote that scene and subsequent scenes of Brynn having a breakdown because no one would help her. Then I realized, I don't think she's talked in this movie yet. And sure enough, she had not." The director decided to continue not having Brynn speak. "Most of the movie there's not really a good reason for her to talk because she's trying so hard to not make a sound," Duffield continues. "She's not going to say, 'It's an alien in my house!' Also, when you have Kaitlyn Dever, she doesn't need to say anything. She can monologue with her eyes in a really impressive way."

No One Will Save You is streaming on Hulu.

It Lives Inside

Megan Suri from the Netflix comedy series Never Have I Ever plays Sam, a high schooler keen to reject her Indian heritage who accidentally unleashes a demonic spirit. The cast of Bishal Dutta's skilled directorial debut also includes Neeru Bajwa, Mohana Krishnan, and Get Out actress Betty Gabriel who plays one of Sam's teachers.

It Lives Inside is in theaters now.

The Exorcist: Believer

The first Exorcist film in almost two decades stars Olivia O'Neill and Lidya Jewett as demonically-possessed young friends, Leslie Odom Jr. as the father of Jewett's character, and the great Ann Dowd as a nurse. Director David Gordon Green also convinced Oscar winner Ellen Burstyn to reprise her iconic role of Chris MacNeil for the first time since the late William Friedkin's original 1973 shocker.

"Her character ended up becoming fascinated by exorcism and studying the rites and rituals of possession throughout culture," Green says of MacNeil's life following the events depicted in Friedkin's movie. "[She] became a bit of an expert. Not an exorcist herself, but renowned for the books that she's written."

The Exorcist: Believer opens Oct. 6 in theaters.

When Evil Lurks

Director Demián Rugna's supernatural shocker Terrified became an instant horror classic when it debuted in 2017, and the Argentinian filmmaker may have actually bested himself with his new film, a tale of demonic possession like no other. This is a film not to be spoiled, so let's just say that the early sequence in which farmhouse-dwelling brothers Pedro (Ezequiel Rodríguez) and Jimmy (Demián Salomón) come across a pair of severed legs is among the movie's least disturbing.

When Evil Lurks opens Oct. 6 in theaters and premieres Oct. 27 on Shudder.

The found footage horror anthology franchise presses play on another entry with tales about a camping trip that goes horribly wrong, a family reunion that goes horribly wrong, and a murder investigation that goes delightfully right (okay, just kidding — that goes horribly wrong too). Filmmakers this time around include David Bruckner (the recent Hellraiser reboot), Scott Derrickson ( Doctor Strange , The Black Phone ), and Gigi Saul Guerrero ( The Purge TV show).

V/H/S/85 premieres Oct. 6 on Shudder.

Totally Killer

Michael Myers meets Marty McFly (well, sort of) in this time-travel slasher-comedy from Always Be My Maybe director Nahnatchka Khan. Kiernan Shipka plays the teenage Jamie who accidentally travels back to 1987, the year three of her mother's friends were killed by the "Sweet Sixteen Killer."

Totally Killer premieres Oct. 6 on Prime Video.

Pet Sematary: Bloodlines

Jackson White stars in this '60s-set prequel as Jud Crandall, the character played by John Lithgow in 2019's adaptation of Stephen King 's novel about why you shouldn't bring pets (or people!) back from the dead. Directed by Lindsey Anderson Beer, Pet Sematary: Bloodlines opens with White's Jud becoming alarmed by the behavior of his childhood friend Timmy Baterman (Jack Mulhern), a soldier who recently returned from serving in Vietnam. "Timmy is a boy who comes back from the war not exactly himself," says Beer, who also co-wrote the film's script. "That is because his father ( David Duchovny ) buried him in the 'sour ground' that is famous in Pet Sematary lore."

Pet Sematary: Bloodlines premieres Oct. 6 on Paramount+.

Set in a near-future hyper-capitalist America, The Mill stars Get Out actor Lil Rel Howery as Joe, a rising star at Mallard, a mega-corporation whose market dominance surpasses Amazon and Apple combined. Devoted to his family and fixated on success, Joe's life turns into a nightmare when he wakes up in an open-air prison cell with no memory of how he got there. Surrounded by unexplained screams in the darkness and whispers from unseen cellmates, he begins to grapple with the chilling revelation: Mallard operates this prison and Joe is taking part in some "Advanced Career Training."

The Mill premieres Oct. 9 on Hulu.

Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Soul s

Writer-director Andrew Bowser stars in this horror-comedy as hapless fast-food restaurant employee Marcus J. Trillbury, who is invited to take part in a demon-raising ritual at the abode of his hero Bartok the Great. If Onyx the Fortuitous... is definitely more comedy than horror movie the film can boast appearances by Re-Animator stars Barbara Crampton and Jeffrey Combs as well as Olivia Taylor Dudley from the TV show The Magicians .

Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls screens at Screamfest in Los Angeles Oct. 17 and opens Oct. 19 in theaters.

Five Nights at Freddy's

Josh Hutcherson engages in hunger games of a rather different stripe as a security guard named Mike who must battle animatronic mascots at an abandoned theme restaurant. "We went through an intensive process for this role, because he really anchors the whole film, and I talked to Josh early on and we just kept coming back to him," director Emma Tammi tells EW . "He had such a grasp for the character and gave Mike a real lived-in feeling, which was what the character needed. I'm excited for people to see Josh in a slightly new light." Based on the wildly popular video games, Five Nights at Freddy's also stars Matthew Lillard , Elizabeth Lail, and Piper Rubio.

Five Nights at Freddy's opens in theaters and streaming on Peacock Oct. 27.

Suitable Flesh

Heather Graham , Barbara Crampton, Johnathon Schaech, and Judah Lewis lead the cast of this body-swap tale. Inspired by an H.P. Lovecraft short story, Suitable Flesh is directed by Mayhem filmmaker Joe Lynch, who promises his story will be this Halloween season's horniest horror movie. "This will hopefully incite anger, maybe some sexy feels, maybe some laughter, maybe some thrills," he says . "I'm excited to see what the fallout's going to be like."

Suitable Flesh opens in theaters and on VOD Oct. 27.

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Halloween Movies Ranked From the Absolute Worst to the Undisputed Best

Halloween has one of the wildest legacies in horror, and we’re going to determine which Michael Myers movies are tricks and which are treats, including Halloween Ends!

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Do you believe in the boogeyman? If you’ve ever watched one of the good Halloween movies, the answer is an unqualified yes ! The boogeyman is real and he has a name and a shape: Michael Myers. And for the last 45 years, he’s been cutting a bloody path of carnage across multiplexes everywhere.

It began innocently enough in the hands of director John Carpenter , a then young filmmaker not long out of film school who, along with producer and co-writer Debra Hill, plus some friends, wanted to make a genuinely spooky horror movie that borrowed heavily from chillers like Psycho or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre . Only this time, they brought that kind of terror home to the suburbs. If you watch their first fully formed slasher movie today, you might even be surprised by how little slashing there is. Nevertheless, Michael’s devil eyes have endured, changing with the times but always returning, every few Octobers or so, to claim more victims for his body count.

In that time, we’ve seen his series of movies get rebooted, remade, and rebooted, with different writers and directors making figure-eights with their storytelling choices, and getting lost down narrative cul-de-sacs. In fact, we’re not sure there’s a more convoluted franchise timeline out there—which we helpfully got sorted out right here . Yet at the end of the day, what really matters is which of them are good?

Well, we’ve sat down and figured that out for you, once and for all, in this definitive ranking of the Halloween movies. Trust us.

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13. Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)

There are Halloween movies that are (slightly) more inept than Halloween 6, aka The Curse of Michael Myers . There are also Halloween movies that are visually nastier and more unpleasant than The Curse of Michael Myers . But there isn’t another Halloween movie as stupid as The Curse of Michael Myers . This messy, incoherent jumble of slasher clichés commits the Cardinal Sin of Halloween : It explains why Michael is evil. And its explanation is ludicrously dumb.

In this film, it’s revealed Michael is not actually a psychopathic murderer or a vacant, calculating embodiment of evil (the ambiguity between the two of course always being the appeal). Nay, it turns out he’s a victim; a man tortured by an evil Illuminati-like cult which placed a Druid curse on him as a child, forcing him to kill his family. He doesn’t want to do it. Talk about defanging your monster . Also the film unceremoniously slaughtering the new franchise protagonist, Jamie Lloyd, in the first 10 minutes while refusing to bring back Danielle Harris to the role didn’t do this movie any favors with the fans. But hey look, there’s a young Paul Rudd as an adult Tommy Doyle!

12. Halloween: Resurrection (2002)

One step forward, and 39 steps back. That seems to be the real curse of Michael Myers. Take Halloween: Resurrection , for example. Four years earlier, Jamie Lee Curtis returned in the franchise’s first reboot which offered an ultimately satisfying ending to Michael Myers’ reign, even if that film itself suffered from being a bit of a Scream clone. So Halloween: Resurrection begins by unconvincingly retconning the last one—it was a medic in a Bill Shatner mask that Laurie beheaded!—and then spends 10 minutes killing off Curtis’ Laurie Strode! There’s another Halloween Cardinal Sin you should never, ever break.

Worse, she’s killed to make way for… um, Michael Myers slaughtering the cast of MTV’s Road Rules or something? If you don’t get that reference, then you know exactly how badly this movie has aged along with its gimmicky use of occasional found footage and a vacuous cast of red meat. You’re not supposed to cheer for Michael, that’s Jason or Freddy’s shtick. But how could you not egg him on as he slashes his way through a reality TV series set in his house? Resurrection only finishes one rung above last place because of the camp classic line readings from Busta Rhymes, who saves the day while shouting “Trick ‘r treat, motherfucker!” and then “Hey Mikey, Happy Fucking Halloween!”

Laurie Strode in Rob Zombie Halloween II

11. Halloween II (2009)

There is a good movie buried somewhere in Rob Zombie ’s Halloween II . It follows Danielle Harris—the self-proclaimed “Halloween Girl”—as Annie. She’s the first non-Strode relative to survive a Myers encounter. A year after being brutally attacked, she’s become an introverted shut-in, a ghost of herself, and forced to live with a wonderful Brad Dourif as her father and an annoying friend who’s spiraling out of control named Laurie. That isn’t the movie we get though. It’s a subplot where a less-interested Zombie returns to transform the ostensible heroine Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton) into another victim of his trashy metal aesthetic. Supposedly this is how she copes with the events of the last movie, but it doesn’t take.

However, even that is a subplot, too, in a movie that bafflingly becomes most preoccupied by weird music video imagery dancing inside Michael Myers’ head. There, he imagines himself as still an eight-year-old boy talking with the ghost of his mother (Sheri Moon Zombie awkwardly shoehorned in here while wearing a white sheet) and eating dogs raw in the real world. Truthfully, the movie’s a mess with a lot of Zombie’s familiar ruthlessness, but little of his ingenuity. So it’s just ugly. It even squanders Malcolm McDowell’s initially intriguing deconstruction of Dr. Loomis, turning the character into a caricature.

Still, there are a few elements that work, like Annie and her painful death scene with Laurie, and the whole ending in which Zombie makes a daring but satisfying choice in how he’ll resolve Laurie’s trauma and the whole nasty passion play of the Myers clan. Also the first 15 minutes, scored to “Nights of White Satin,” is as grimly effective a slasher scene as you’ll see in a 2000s horror. But isn’t that damning with faint praise?

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Danielle Harris as Jamie Lloyd in Halloween 5

10. Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989)

After Halloween 4 succeeded at doing the improbable by bringing Michael Myers back from the dead in a fun way, at least for younger audiences, and all without John Carpenter or Jamie Lee Curtis, Halloween 5 came out one year later to ruin all that. It was the beginning of a now very familiar trend with this series. The last movie ended with a tantalizing cliffhanger, as sweet little Jamie Lloyd (Danielle Harris) had been possessed by the evil spirit of Michael Myers since her Uncle Mikey was dead and burning in hell. Well, Halloween 5 takes that all back by revealing Jamie was just being precocious when she stabbed her foster mother in the bath ( kids, amirite? ), and Michael’s still here to do his own bit of the stabby, stabby.

When I was younger, I was annoyed that the film also killed off Rachel (Ellie Cornell) in the first half hour. Rachel had been Jamie’s older foster sister and protector in the last movie, and a convincing enough stand-in for the absent Jamie Lee. As an adult, it’s easier to understand these exhausted franchises need new surprises, yet the film fails to create an interesting teen protagonist to replace Rachel; it instead settles for the paper thin Tina (Wendy Kaplan) to kind of just be there . Yet Jamie Lloyd is still a a compelling lead, and her final confrontation with her uncle while she hides in the coffin he built for her is genuinely unnerving. Plus, Donald Pleasence really gets to go ham in the scene where he beats Michael with a stick. It just makes makes him angry.

9. Halloween Ends (2022)

In retrospect, David Gordon Green seemed to leave everything he wanted to say about Halloween on the field in his 2018 film. One of that movie’s few weaknesses, in fact, is it didn’t include a final shot of Michael succumbing to the flames after he fell into a strap sprang on him by three generations of Strode women. If only he had. Because two movies later, it’s clear that Green and his bevy of co-writers, including Danny McBride, never found a complete thought worth justifying turning their revival into a trilogy. And that’s most apparent in the third and most wanting installment of their Haddonfield cycle, Halloween Ends .

There is a a kernel of a good idea here, albeit one that was always doomed to disappoint longtime fans of the franchise: What is the true legacy of evil? Michael Myers may be evil incarnate, but his impact extends beyond just his list of victims. And conceptually, there is something to be said about doing an entire film structured around a Haddonfield kid who never met Michael, Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell), still becoming defined and corrupted by that evil Shape’s shadow. Hence the film’s brutally effective opening sequence where, scared to death by the idea of Michael Myers, Corey accidentally kills a kid on Halloween night. He is forever after a pariah in his community… until he becomes just like Mike.

It’s a great idea that is arguably too “elevated” for a slasher movie, and Halloween Ends never reconciles with that skepticism by having Myers be a literal character inexplicably living in a sewer for the year-plus two-thirds of the movie takes place during. He then inexplicably comes out of his hiding hole for a limp retread of Halloween 2018’s final showdown with Laurie Strode. The fact that the movie cannot commit to Corey being its main hero/villain, and ends by going through the motions, speaks to the film’s lack of conviction. The film was also marketed as a Michael Myers movie, which belies how dull all poorly written melodrama bits with Corey and Laurie’s granddaughter are. And they compose most of the film! It’s a great idea for a movie with terrible execution.

8. Halloween Kills (2021)

In a weird way, Halloween Kills is to 2018’s Halloween what 1981’s Halloween II was to the original movie: a more grisly yet rather unnecessary follow-up, this one with a far higher bodycount and a lot more callbacks to 1978. Fans who enjoy collecting onscreen “kills” like baseball cards may revel in Michael’s antics here, but director David Gordon Green and co-writers Danny McBride and Scott Teems squander nearly all the goodwill that was built up with the 2018 sequel/reboot.

That gripping film brought Jamie Lee Curtis back as an aged Laurie, whose ongoing trauma from her first encounter with Michael has affected not just her life but that of her daughter (Judy Greer) and granddaughter (Andi Matichak). Dismissing all the other sequels, it was a simple yet effective tale of grief, guilt, memory, and ultimately empowerment. Halloween Kills , on the other hand, sidelines Laurie for most of the film, focusing on half-fleshed-out characters from the original who make one stupid choice after another while the film drunkenly flops back and forth between them. There is an interesting thread of an idea about Michael’s evil infecting the entire town and turning its citizens into a revenge-crazed mob, but it’s never properly developed—like the rest of the empty sequel around it.

7. Halloween (2007)

After Halloween: Resurrection seemed to run the original timeline(s) into the ground, The Weinstein Company (ick) settled on the idea of just remaking the 1978 masterpiece while getting one of the hip new horror auteurs to slap his name on it. The result is Rob Zombie’s controversial and bizarre 2007 version of Halloween . Despised by many longtime fans for its demythologizing approach toward Michael Myers—who is essentially reimagined as a serial killer suffering from severe sociopathy among other personality disorders here—as well as Zombie’s undeniably trashy approach to characterization and dialogue, there are many detractors of this one. Yet we find quite a bit to like.

If you’re going to slaughter sacred cows and remake a classic—which everyone was doing in the horror genre in the 2000s—at least try to make it your own. Zombie definitely did that with a vision that is wholly not John Carpenter’s Halloween , but is pretty engrossing in its own right. This is most true during the movie’s extended first act where after brutally murdering his sister, her boyfriend, and even his stepfather, young Michael (Daeg Faerch) spirals in a mental asylum despite the best efforts of a much more empathetic Dr. Sam Loomis ( Malcolm McDowell ). No matter what the doc does, he can’t reach this boy, so he cashes in much to his shame by writing a true crime tell-all. Hence Loomis has a special obligation to Michael when his former patient escapes and the killings start again. And with adult Michael played by a towering Tyler Mane, the Shape hadn’t appeared this scary in decades; he’s an overpowering force of extreme violence. So extreme, in fact, that it’s still uncomfortable to watch.

Jamie LEe Curtis in Halloween H20: 20 Years Later

6. Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998)

Here is the first reboot in the Halloween franchise’s history. After paying Jamie Lee Curtis enough money to come back while still in the prime of her career, H20 effectively erased (or ignored) all the events between Halloween 4 and the disastrous Curse of Michael Myers . Instead we find a middle-aged and relatively content Laurie Strode working as a headmistress at a fancy boarding school where her teenage son (a young Josh Hartnett) cannot fathom why he isn’t allowed to celebrate Halloween. So this Samhain, he sneaks off with his girlfriend (a young Michelle Williams) to have a romantic evening while the rest of the school’s on a field trip.

But wouldn’t you know it, this is the same evening his long lost uncle decides to strike! Darn. The movie is based on a story idea by Kevin Williamson (screenwriter of the first two excellent Scream movies) and feels like it. Sadly, he didn’t actually write the script, which might explain why the film is a bit lethargic and lacks the snap and wit of those better ‘90s slasher movies. Still, Curtis is great, and her final showdown with Michael, which culminates with Laurie taking her big brother’s head off, is excellent. If David Gordon Green’s Halloween (2018) didn’t loosely revisit the same idea to better effect another 20 years later, H20 might’ve been higher on this list.

5. Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)

Once upon a time, Halloween was not supposed to be a franchise about Michael Myers. John Carpenter originally imagined it as a potential anthology series, with each film being a different proverbial ghost story set on All Hallows’ Eve. And after he killed off Michael Myers in 1981’s Halloween II , the filmmaker’s original brilliant idea got one movie to shine: Season of the Witch . The flick was rejected in its time by teen audiences who were flabbergasted by the lack of Michael, kitchen knives, or stabbings. But Season of the Witch has held up as a genuine cult classic nearly 40 years on.

Buoyed by the amusingly catchy “Happy Halloween from Silver Shamrock” song, the film centers on an evil coven of witches that has ascended to ‘80s corporate America and is using that little ditty in commercials to convince the youth of America to wear special Halloween masks—each with a microchip and piece of Stonehenge rock that will be used to sacrifice their bodies to the pagan gods of old and bring the Age of Witchcraft back! It’s batty, fun stuff and it’s a shame we never got more of it.

4. Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)

Halloween III showed the potential of what Halloween could become, and Halloween 4 showed what it would end up settling for over the next several decades. There is a lot more creativity and originality in the former, but if we’re being honest, Halloween 4 was just more fun. Realizing he was missing out, as Friday the 13th ripped off his franchise to greater year-in, year-out B-movie success, producer Moustapha Akkad greenlit this “me too” version of Michael Myers that belatedly jumped on the ‘80s slasher movie bandwagon, minus Carpenter or Hill’s high-minded intentions. Still, we’d take Halloween 4 over any Jason movie!

With Jamie Lee Curtis not returning, we pick up 10 years after the last movie and discover Laurie died in a car crash, but she left behind an orphaned and precocious daughter named Jamie Lloyd. Played endearingly by a young Danielle Harris—who after starring in two of the original canon’s films, plus Rob Zombie’s remakes, is a fan favorite—Jamie Lloyd makes a compelling protagonist because she’s so defenseless against Michael, particularly the first time out. Meanwhile Ellie Cornell provides a serviceable stand-in for Curtis as the teen heroine and put-upon older sister. And Donald Pleasence is on hand to deliver the ham, bacon, and a full English breakfast with his deliciously histrionic performance. The scene at the end where he discovers Jamie Lloyd has followed her uncle on the path of incomprehensible evil is still one of the best moments in any Halloween movie. Pity that the series didn’t follow up on it.

3. Halloween II (1981)

It’s almost a shame that a nearly perfect genre exercise like the original Halloween was successful enough to warrant the demand for a sequel, but here we are, 12 films later, and it all started with Halloween II (the first one). Written by Carpenter and Hill, and directed by Rick Rosenthal, Halloween II is clearly its predecessor’s offspring. Its narrative is as simple as ever, and Rosenthal is actually able to elicit quite a bit of suspense and terror out of large stretches of the film’s running time.

Picking up right where the original left off, Halloween II finds a relentless Michael heading for the hospital where poor Laurie (Curtis, just as effective as in the first film) has been taken, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake. In a twist worthy of Return of the Jedi , we discover that Laurie is actually Michael’s younger sister, sowing the seeds of a mythology that would be contorted and knotted over the course of several more sequels. Halloween II isn’t bad; it’s just gorier and contrived and, in the end, pointless.

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Still, it had a fitting ending to Michael’s story if they had stopped here.

2. Halloween (2018)

For the first time in the series’ history, Halloween (2018) felt like a real auteur was attempting to honor Carpenter and Hill’s original movie with a direct sequel. And in spite of his confusing title, filmmaker David Gordon Green mostly succeeded by going so far back to the source that he jettisoned the entire mythology built up around Michael Myers in all the other movies—including the twist from Halloween II that Michael was actually Laurie Strode’s long lost brother. In Green’s legacy sequel, Michael is instead returned to his purest form: the living incarnation of needless, merciless evil unleashed on the world at random.

The approach also gives Jamie Lee Curtis a lot more to do than she had in the similar 1998 reboot since her Laurie Strode is much more proactive here. This Laurie has grown up and grown old, turning into an isolated survivalist and pariah in her community after 40 years of trauma. Even her adult daughter (Judy Greer) and granddaughter (Andi Matichak) keep her at arm’s length. The whole movie thus builds in anticipation of a now fairly predatory Laurie standing face-to-face against her original stalker and taking him down. And the ending where all three generations of Strode women exact a terrible vengeance on Michael is so good . The series could’ve happily stopped there—and it probably should have.

Michael Myers stares at victim in Halloween

1. Halloween (1978)

The original is of course still the best. Where to begin, what to say about this movie that has not been said a thousand times before? Some 15 years after being incarcerated in a sanitarium for the seemingly motiveless murder of his sister, Michael Myers escapes and returns to his hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois on Halloween night, bent on more random slaughter. From that simple synopsis, and with the committed performance of Jamie Lee Curtis as the original “final girl,” Laurie Strode, the stuff of nightmares was woven. Director John Carpenter and co-writer Debra Hill turned their villainous Myers into “the Shape,” a living embodiment of evil that needs no reason to kill and apparently cannot be killed either.

When one watches Halloween now, it’s always striking just how spare and almost elegant it is. From the still-haunting score to the concise narrative, to Carpenter’s seemingly effortless use of shadow, light, and perspective to create scenes of almost unbearable tension, this is as well-oiled a machine as a horror film can be, with not a frame of film wasted or misused. And with that final, terrible shot of the empty patch of ground where Michael’s bullet-ridden body was lying a moment earlier, Carpenter also created a legend, a modern folktale that has become a permanent, still-frightening part of the culture.

HALLOWEEN ENDS In December When The Movie Arrives On Digital And Blu-Ray

Last Updated on June 8, 2024 by Topher DeRosia

Evil may not die tonight, but it can die in December if you choose, as Halloween Ends is getting a home video release. Universal Pictures has revealed the street dates for the latest film in the long-running horror franchise, with the movie arriving on Digital, Blu-ray, and 4K Ultra HD in December. Take your pick and watch Laurie Strode duke it out with Michael Myers one last time, for old-time’s sake.

Only one of them will survive! @jamieleecurtis stars as Laurie Strode in her final showdown with Michael Myers. #HalloweenEnds Collector’s Edition is yours to own with Deleted and Extended Scenes on Digital 11/15 and 4K UHD & Blu-ray 12/27 https://t.co/hX4RZNM5O5 pic.twitter.com/2EmPBrJkAM — #HalloweenEnds (@halloweenmovie) November 8, 2022

As odd as it may seem, getting a physical release of a big movie isn’t the guarantee it once was. Even Barbarian looks like it might be left to languish in the streaming world without ever making its way to Blu-ray. So, was it likely that Halloween Ends would be coming to disk? Sure. But it’s still nice to get confirmation for those who enjoy physical media, myself included. To that end, here is a list of the bonus features that will be included with the home video release:

Audio commentary by director/co-writer David Gordon Green, actors Andi Matichak and Rohan Campbell, first assistant director Atilla Salih Yücer, and production assistant Hugo Garza
Ending Halloween – Explore the creative team’s approach to crafting the film’s final sequence
Final Girl – Jamie Lee Curtis discusses the legacy of Laurie Strode
No Place Like Haddonfield – Filmmakers and cast reveal what makes Halloween productions so special
A Different Threat – Examine how evil has evolved in Haddonfield
The Visions of Terror – See how production departments came together to achieve the film’s unique style
Twisted Deaths – An up-close look at the film’s gruesome death scenes
6 deleted and extended scenes

While director David Gordon Green’s finale to his trilogy isn’t going to perform as well as Halloween or Halloween Kills , it has still done very well for Universal and Blumhouse. The movie recently crossed the $100 million mark at the box office and should finish its run in the $120 million range. Couple that with whatever benefit it added to Peacock with the streaming release, and the studio can chalk this up as an absolute win. The synopsis for the movie reads as follows:

“Four years after the events of last year’s Halloween Kills , Laurie is living with her granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) and is finishing writing her memoir. Michael Myers hasn’t been seen since. Laurie, after allowing the specter of Michael to determine and drive her reality for decades, has decided to liberate herself from fear and rage and embrace life. But when a young man, Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell), is accused of killing a boy he was babysitting, it ignites a cascade of violence and terror that will force Laurie to finally confront the evil she can’t control, once and for all.”

Meanwhile, Green made good on the movie’s title and truly ended the saga of Michael and Laurie. As such, it would seem that the franchise will be dead, at least for a while. That is unless someone wants to make good on John Carpenter and Debra Hill’s original idea and turn Halloween into an anthology series like they tried to do with Season of the Witch . But that’s a conversation for another time.

Halloween Ends is in theaters and streaming on Peacock now.

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Spirit Halloween’s 2024 Animatronic Lineup Includes These Legendary Horror Icons

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The Big Picture

Spirit Halloween teases new animatronic lineup for 2024 featuring horror heavyweights like Michael Myers and Ghostface.
Horror icons like Michael Myers and Ghostface remain relevant with recent slasher reboots and new franchises like Terrifier .
Decorate for Halloween with highly quality animatronics, including new additions like Art the Clown and characters from The Corpse Bride.

Halloween is over four months away, but it’s never too early to prepare for the killer spooky season. Horror fans can’t prepare without at least a couple of yearly trips to the seasonal one-stop-shop Spirit Halloween . Over the years, they've had some amazing life-like animatronics of the genre’s most beloved deadly characters. Now the eerie chain has just teased their animatronic lineup for 2024, and it’s full of horror heavyweights .

The new cinematic animatronics include Michael Myers ( Halloween ), Art the Clown ( Terrifier ), Ghostface ( Scream ) and Emily and Victor ( The Corpse Bride ) . They join the store's crazy lineup of genre giants, which have featured Leatherface ( The Texas Chain Saw Massacre ), Slim ( Killer Klowns From Outer Space ) and The Crypt Keeper ( Creepshow ) in the past . These horror icons will also be joining a long list of Spirit Halloween’s own terrifying creations this year, both old and new. This monster mash includes Graveyard Ghoul, Night Terror, The Ringmaster, Nibbles the Clown, Twitching Banshee, Wanda Webworth and much more.

While we don’t know what the final animatronics will look like, Spirit Halloween dropped a short eight-second teaser “Caranevil” that showed glimpses of Ghostface and Art with his playful sunflower sunglasses from Terrifier 2 . With each passing Halloween, decorating for the ghoulish holiday has become its own artful pastime. This includes highly quality animatronics which are only becoming more and more popular. Because of that, it’s great to see three of horror's most popular killers join this year’s rotation.

Horror Icons Are Still in Their Prime

While franchises like Halloween and Scream are decades old at this point, the recent slasher renaissance that was partially led by them helped Michael Myers and Ghostface remain pop culture relevant. Halloween (2018) and Scream (2022) remain the gold standard for modern slasher reboots, while new franchises like Terrifier have shown that this sub-genre still has a ton of blood-soaked thrills left in it. Director Damian Leone ’s creation Art the Clown has taken horror by storm with blood-drenched kills and particle gore. Thanks to the ultra success of Terrifier 2 in 2022, Art has arguably become the poster demon of the genre. While the Halloween franchise is about to enter its next era, the Christmas-themed Terrifier 3 is set to release this October, while Scream 7 will be ramping up its production soon with Neve Campbell returning to the meta-series.

While horror fans wait for Spirit Halloween ’s new batch of horrifying animatronics to go up for pre-order, you can browse the current scream-filled collection on their website . If you are looking to stream the films included in this year’s set, the Scream franchise is currently streaming on Paramount+ while Terrifier 2 and the original Halloween are free on Tubi and SlingTV respectively. The Corpse Bride is available to rent on all major VOD services, like Prime Video.

Halloween (1978)

Fifteen years after murdering his sister on Halloween night 1963, Michael Myers escapes from a mental hospital and returns to the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois to kill again.

Collectibles

Every David Lynch Movie, Ranked (and Where To Watch Them)

Although it has been nearly two decades since David Lynch’s last feature film, many viewers remain hopeful that the legendary filmmaker will one day direct another movie. Given the experimental, mystifying, absurd, and surreal nature of many of his works, he is often considered one of Hollywood's most intriguing and important contemporary directors. Although it’s unknown if he will ever direct another feature film, there are plenty of existing Lynch masterpieces to delve into. This guide will rank all of David Lynch’s feature films as well as reveal where to watch them using popular streaming services like Netflix , Prime Video , Max and more!

One of David Lynch’s most notable films is the one that kickstarted his career: Eraserhead . The low-budget surrealist body horror movie follows Henry Spencer (Jack Nance), a young man who finds himself raising a baby with deformities. Its experimental nature, sexual undertones, and body horror initially horrified and disturbed viewers. However, the film picked up popularity as a midnight film and is now considered a masterpiece, given its surrealist nature, highlighting of human anxiety, and the numerous ways it can be interpreted.

Lynch’s next movie, The Elephant Man , was less experimental and, thus, less divisive than his feature film debut. Starring John Hurt and Sir Anthony Hopkins, the film is inspired by the true story of Joseph Merrick, a man with deformities who lived in London in the late 19th century. It received high critical acclaim for its beautiful black-and-white cinematography and heartbreaking, moving exploration of humanity.

Although his biographical film The Elephant Man was a hit, David Lynch returned to his surrealist and experimental films many times in his career. Blue Velvet and Inland Empire are among his best works in these areas. Blue Velvet achieved cult status and is considered one of the best mystery movies ever for spinning a dark, ambiguous tale from a severed ear. Although Inland Empire earned less fanfare than most Lynch movies, the Laura Dern -led psychological thriller is notable for being one of his most abstract, surreal, and dream-like films yet.

David Lynch has also proven his versatility as a filmmaker, surprising viewers with his family-friendly The Straight Story , a hyperrealistic but beautifully crafted movie that couldn’t be further from surrealism. Meanwhile, even his less successful films, including his take on the Dune franchise and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me , have stirred lively debates among viewers and earned re-evaluations.

Where can I watch the best David Lynch movies online?

For those interested in exploring David Lynch’s filmography further, we have ranked all of his feature films from best to worst based on their critical reception, groundbreaking nature, and legacy. Read on to find out where to stream every title in the United States!

Where To Watch Every Film in The Conjuring Universe in Order

The Conjuring Universe is the most successful horror franchise of all time, and its story isn’t over yet. Creator James Wan has confirmed the main series will soon conclude with The Conjuring: Last Rites , although the franchise will continue to live on in the form of a spinoff TV series and potential spinoff movies. For those who want to delve into the franchise before the next movie premieres, this guide will explain where and how to watch The Conjuring Universe in order using streaming platforms like Netflix, Prime Video, Max and more.

In 2013, the franchise began with The Conjuring . Every movie in the franchise is inspired by the purportedly true haunting cases documented by real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren. The first movie sees Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) and Ed (Patrick Wilson) investigate the Perron family, who believe their new farmhouse in Rhode Island may be haunted. It proved a major success at the box office and earned high praise from critics for the performances of Farmiga and Wilson, the jump scares, and the tense atmosphere crafted by director Wan.

The first film’s success soon led to The Conjuring 2 and The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It , with Farmiga and Wilson reprising their roles as Ed and Lorraine. The Conjuring 2 adapts the Enfield poltergeist case, while the third movie tackles the Arne Cheyenne Johnson murder investigation, which marked the first murder trial in U.S. history where a defendant claimed innocence due to demonic possession.

Both movies were successful commercially, though the third film’s departure from its haunted house formula drew mixed reviews. Since viewers couldn’t get enough of the Warrens' terrifying and allegedly true cases, the franchise soon created the Annabelle and The Nun film series. Annabelle fashions a horror story from an allegedly haunted Raggedy Ann doll found in the Warrens’ Occult Museum. Meanwhile, The Nun and its sequel, The Nun II , were loosely inspired by the Warrens’ reports of meeting a ghostly nun.

All of the Annabelle and Nun movies were commercial hits, demonstrating the enduring appeal of The Conjuring Universe with its blend of alleged truth and fiction and return to classic horror with haunted houses, dolls, and jump scares. Meanwhile, the end of The Nun II features a cameo from Farmiga and Wilson, teasing the movie’s connection to The Conjuring: Last Rites.

How to watch The Conjuring Universe in order

Viewers can watch The Conjuring Universe in either release date or chronological order. Chronological order may be preferable because it ensures viewers have context for certain cases mentioned in The Conjuring movies. However, chronological order can be complex, given that films like Annabelle: Creation occur across multiple years.

For this article, we have listed the movies chronologically based on the most prominent year featured in each film. For example, although Annabelle: Creation starts in 1943, the majority of the movie takes place in 1955, resulting in the film coming after The Nun, which takes place in 1952. Here is the chronological order:

Annabelle: Creation

Annabelle Comes Home

The Conjuring

The Conjuring 2

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It

Alternatively, one can also stream The Conjuring films in the release date order detailed below. Read on to find out where to watch every entry in this franchise online in the United States.

Every Neon Genesis Evangelion TV Show and Movie in Order (And Where To Watch Them)

Since its release in 1995, Neon Genesis Evangelion has remained one of the most popular anime series of all time. It has grown into a sprawling media franchise that includes many films, books, manga series, and even amusement park attractions. Creator Hideaki Anno has also remained open to the idea of future TV shows and anime films under a new filmmaker. For those interested in delving into the franchise, this guide will demonstrate where to watch every Neon Genesis Evangelion film and TV show in order using streaming services like Netflix, Prime Video, Crunchyroll and more!

The franchise started in 1994 with a manga series of the same name to advertise the upcoming TV show. By 1995, Neon Genesis Evangelion arrived and told the story of Shinji Ikari, a teenage boy recruited by his estranged father, Gendo Ikari, to pilot Evangelion bio-machines and fight mysterious beings known as Angels. The show went far beyond the typical mecha anime and impressed viewers with its religious motifs and philosophical themes. It has since been hailed as one of the most outstanding anime series of all time.

However, its somewhat ambiguous ending received mixed reviews from viewers. As a result, Anno decided to make two films, Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death and Rebirth and The End of Evangelion , to provide an alternate ending to the anime series. Following the critical acclaim of The End of Evangelion, Anno decided he wasn’t done with the franchise yet and became chief director of the Rebuild of Evangelion film series.

Similar to the previous two films, the Rebuild of Evangelion tetralogy served as yet another alternate telling of Neon Genesis Evangelion. Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone and Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance essentially reshot episodes 1 - 23 of the anime with minor changes, while Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo diverged into a new story, and Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time offered a new ending.

There is also an original net animation (ONA) series called Petit Eva: Evangelion@School , which parodies the original series, and the short film Evangelion: Another Impact—Confidential . Also, be aware of the numerous unification films, such as Revival of Evangelion, which, despite its new title, is simply a double feature of Death and Rebirth and The End of Evangelion.

Where can I watch Neon Genesis Evangelion online?

Given the many remakes and alternate endings, the only way to watch the Neon Genesis Evangelion franchise is by the release date order below. Read on to find out where you can stream every entry in this popular franchise!

Where to Watch Every Entry in the PAW Patrol Franchise

In 2013, as superhero mania began to dominate Hollywood, another group of heroes emerged: the PAW Patrol. Led by the young boy Ryder, the team consisted of some unexpected members…puppies. There was Chase the police German Shepherd; Marshall, the firefighting dalmatian; and Skye, the piloting cockapoo, among others. But this kids’ show ended up taking the world by storm, eventually becoming a massive franchise. Use our guide below to find out where you can watch every entry in the PAW Patrol franchise in order using popular streaming services like Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video, Paramount+ and more!

The entire franchise began in 2013 with the original PAW Patrol series. The show is still airing, currently on its 10th season. So far, PAW Patrol has amassed over 250 episodes, and with its enduring popularity, season 11 is on the way. In each episode, the PAW Patrol must save someone and usually fight off some kind of “bad guy”. But being a kids show (mostly for very young kids) the series is often free of violence, with the action being more wholesome.

Starting in 2016, PAW Patrol began producing hour-long films. In North America, they were released as TV movies, but in other parts of the world, they actually went to theaters, sometimes grossing millions of dollars. Some of the most popular movie specials were Ready, Race, Rescue! and Jet to the Rescue .

But in 2021, PAW Patrol finally got their first official, big-screen debut with Paw Patrol: The Movie . In the film, the PAW Patrol discovers their arch-nemesis Mayor Humdinger has just been elected to lead the nearby Adventure City. Sensing the coming mischief, the team heads out to save the city. Once again, the conflict and action are all super family-friendly, with one of the disasters being that the mayor has constructed a roller coaster-style loop for the city’s subway (which to me sounds like a lot of fun).

In 2023, PAW Patrol returned with another major film, PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie . In the film, a strange meteor crashes into Earth. Inside are several crystals, each giving the pups superpowers. But with their new abilities, the pups must face their biggest foe yet. The movie was a massive hit, grossing more than $202 million at the worldwide box office. That same year PAW Patrol also received the spinoff series Rubble & Crew , which has also been renewed for a new season.

PAW Patrol franchise in release order:

PAW Patrol (2013-Present)
PAW Patrol: Mighty Pups (2018)
Ready, Race, Rescue! (2019)
Jet to the Rescue (2020)
PAW Patrol: The Movie (2021)
Rubble & Crew (2023-Present)
PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie (2023)

Where can I watch PAW Patrol online?

A third PAW Patrol movie is in the works and according to Variety, it’s set to hit theaters sometime in 2026. Until then, check out our guide below to find out where to watch the entire PAW Patrol franchise in order.

Every James Cameron Movie Ranked (and Where to Watch Them)

If you look at the five highest-grossing movies of all time, three of them have been directed by James Cameron. He knows how to strike the perfect balance between action, emotion, strong characters, and visual spectacle, creating an entire filmography of must-watch films. But what are Cameron’s best movies? Check out our guide below to find out where to watch every James Cameron movie (and discover which are his best).

There aren’t really any “bad” James Cameron movies. The director has somehow managed to create hit after hit, giving audiences four decades of masterpieces. But if someone had to choose, Cameron’s first film Piranha II: The Spawning could be considered his “worst”. The movie was a sequel to the schlocky 1978 horror hit Piranha , which was all about… killer piranhas. This time around, the piranhas are even more deadly and they can fly! Somehow, the movie is so bombastic and ridiculous that it’s actually hard to consider it a bad movie. It’s so insane that it becomes laugh-out-loud funny and is great to watch with friends.

On the other end of the Cameron spectrum, we have his best movies. Taking the #1 spot as the best James Cameron movie ever is Aliens . This sequel to Ridley Scott’s 1979 horror classic follows Ellen Ripley as she discovers that terraformers have attempted to colonize LV-426 – the same moon the xenomorph came from. Obviously, things don’t go well for the terraformers and it’s up to Ripley and her team to save them. Aliens swaps out some of the suspense from the original for more action and adventure, creating a unique action-horror movie that works flawlessly. Aliens isn’t just a great sequel, it also complements the original perfectly by shifting genres, making both films equally amazing for completely different reasons.

And of course, we can’t talk about James Cameron without talking about Titanic . The film takes the #2 spot on our list. For over a decade it was the highest-grossing movie ever and it was the first film to make over $1 billion at the box office. Staying true to Cameron’s genre-blending style, Titanic was loaded with romance, drama, and action. The movie tells a romantic love story between two passengers, Jack and Rose. But as the ship begins to sink, Titanic’s vibe completely changes, becoming a hardcore disaster film. Viewers who aren’t into romantic dramas will still be captivated by the unbelievably true disaster the doomed ocean liner experienced in the middle of the Atlantic.

Also ranking high on the list is Cameron’s often-overlooked hit The Abyss . Released in 1989 (just a few months before the Cold War ended), the movie imagines a near-future where Americans and Soviets are racing to retrieve a sunken submarine. Making everything worse is a looming hurricane that’s barreling toward both nations’ fleets. When America finally gets a dive team into the ocean, they begin experiencing strange phenomena and seeing unknown lifeforms. With claustrophobic conditions, a massive storm, and the excitement of unknown aliens, The Abyss is a fantastically captivating movie. It even won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects at the 1990 ceremony.

Here’s the full ranking of James Cameron’s films:

Aliens

T2: Judgement Day

Avatar: The Way of Water

The Terminator

Avatar

Piranha II: The Spawning

Where can I watch James Cameron movies online?

Cameron fans have a lot to look forward to since the filmmaker currently has two more Avatar sequels in development, with the next one expected to hit theaters in late 2025. Until then, check out our guide below to find out where you can stream all of James Cameron’s movies on popular platforms like Netflix, Prime Video, Max, and more.

Every Deadpool Movie In Order (and Where to Watch Them)

The Deadpool movie series is set to expand with the release of Deadpool & Wolverine , featuring a crossover between Hugh Jackman’s Logan (a.k.a. Wolverine) and Ryan Reynolds’ Wade Wilson (a.k.a. Deadpool) and marking Deadpool's first official entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe ( MCU ).

For those interested in catching up with all of the Deadpool movies, this guide shows you how and where to watch every movie in order. We'll also show you if you can watch them legally for free online.

Deadpool’s live-action career on the big screen had a shaky start with X-Men Origins: Wolverine . In the movie, he is introduced as Wilson, a katana-wielding mercenary who joins William Stryker’s (Danny Huston) Team X, along with Wolverine. However, Wilson becomes a victim of Stryker’s experiments and is transformed into Weapon XI. While Weapon XI had Deadpool’s incredible healing factor, he did not have his characteristic red suit. What’s even stranger is that he had his mouth sewn shut and was silent, even though he’s often referred to as the Merc with a Mouth. As a result, many criticized the movie’s non-traditional depiction of Deadpool.

Fortunately, when the timeline was reset in X-Men: Days of Future Past , it allowed 20th Century Fox to introduce an alternate version of the character in Deadpool . Reynolds reprised his role as Wilson, but viewers finally got a comic book-accurate version of the Merc with a Mouth. The R-rated movie captures Deadpool in all his vulgar, foul-mouthed glory, telling the tragic, bloody, and surprisingly humorous story of a man whose experimental cancer treatment leaves him mutilated and with an unparalleled healing factor.

It wasn’t long before Reynolds reprised his role as Deadpool in the short film Deadpool: No Good Deed to tease Deadpool 2 . The short film was played before Logan in some theaters, given that Deadpool has always tried to steal Wolverine’s glory. It was soon followed by the release of Deadpool 2, which introduced Josh Brolin’s Cable as he, Deadpool, and X-Force go on a zany time-traveling adventure to save humanity.

During the holidays, 20th Century Fox also released a PG-13 version of Deadpool 2, Once Upon a Deadpool , to allow a broader audience to see the film. After that, Deadpool’s fate was left uncertain as Disney acquired 20th Century Fox. Fortunately, the studio opted to bring Deadpool into the MCU, with Reynolds teasing the decision in the promotional short film Deadpool and Korg React. Disney celebrated its acquisition of the franchise by making Deadpool and Deadpool 2 the first R-rated movies available to stream on Disney+ and giving the greenlight to Deadpool & Wolverine.

Where can I watch Deadpool movies online?

There is only one order to watch the Deadpool films, as each movie was released in chronological order. Here you can find out where to stream every Deadpool movie in order, including every offer available to viewers in the United States.

Every Hannibal Lecter Movie and Series in Chronological Order (and Where to Watch Them)

Want to find out where you can watch every Hannibal Lecter movie (and series) in chronological order? Find out what order the series should be watched in, and find out where to watch each entry using our guide below.

In 1991, The Silence of the Lambs premiered and chilled audiences to their core. The film follows young FBI agent Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) as she works to stop a killer known as Buffalo Bill, who kidnaps women and skins them. To ensure her success, she seeks the help of renowned forensic psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter. The problem is that Lecter is a serial killer himself and has his own nefarious intentions. Trapped between two killers, Starling must walk a tightrope to save Buffalo Bill’s victims, while also keeping herself alive.

But The Silence of the Lambs isn’t the original Hannibal Lecter story. The movie was actually adapted from a sequel novel written in 1988. The original Hannibal book came out in 1981 and was titled Red Dragon. The Silence of the Lambs also wasn’t the first Hannibal movie. It was actually 1986’s Manhunter that first brought the infamous cannibal to the big screen (though he was played by Brian Cox instead of Anthony Hopkins). The movie is based on the original Red Dragon novel and centers on a detective who is almost murdered by Lecter. But once a new serial killer called the Tooth Fairy begins murdering families, he’s forced to seek Lecter’s help to save lives. In 2002, another film adaptation of Red Dragon arrived, this time having Hopkins reprise his now-iconic role as Lecter.

In 2006 a prequel novel was released titled Hannibal Rising, which then became the earliest entry in the series chronologically. The following year, a film adaptation premiered, this time with Gaspard Ulliel portraying the younger Hannibal Lecter. The film shows how Lecter’s tortured childhood during World War II caused him to become desensitized to murder while also leaving him with long-lasting, unresolved trauma, thus explaining his descent into murder and cannibalism.

The final entry in the Hannibal series is 2001’s Hannibal . Based on the 1999 novel of the same name, the film takes place a decade after The Silence of the Lambs, and Clarice Starling is now played by Julianne Moore. The movie is far more outlandish than the previous entries and shows a strange bond develop between Starling and Lecter. The movie is also filled with way more gore than the previous films, including wild hog mutilations, eating human brains, and more. Still, Hannibal was a huge success at the box office.

Here’s how to watch the Hannibal Lecter movies both in order of release and chronologically.

By Order of Release:

Manhunter (1986)

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Hannibal (2001)

Red Dragon (2002)

Hannibal Rising (2007)

By Chronological Order:

Hannibal Rising

The Silence of the Lambs

Fans of the franchise should also check out the highly acclaimed series Hannibal . While it doesn’t fit perfectly into the timeline, it’s still a fantastic series that’s developed a devout cult following thanks to its complex characters and excellent suspense. Another series, Clarice , premiered in 2021. Unlike Hannibal, it is very much rooted within the official timeline, taking place shortly after the events of The Silence of the Lambs.

Find out where to watch every Hannibal movie and series using our streaming guide below.

From The Matrix to Her: Where To Watch the 25 Best Films About AI, Ranked

Humanity has always been interested in the concept of artificial intelligence (AI), which is why the film industry has been tackling it since the first AI movie, Metropolis , in 1927. For decades, filmmakers have hypothesized and even warned about what a world with near-sentient, intelligent machines would look like. Now that real-life technology, such as GPT-4o, is genuinely starting to resemble the AI seen in movies like Her , interest in these movies is only increasing.

For those interested in AI from a filmmaker’s perspective, this guide will explain where to watch the 25 best movies about AI.

Some of the best AI movies are also some of the best sci-fi movies ever made, including The Matrix , 2001: A Space Odyssey , and Blade Runner . The Matrix sees Neo ( Keanu Reeves ), Morpheus (Laurence Fishburn), and Trinity (Carrie-Ann Moss) seek the truth about the reality they live in. It warned of unchecked technological advancement, probing a dark world where AI enslaves humanity, trapping them in a virtual reality.

The idea of a dystopian world where AI takes over humanity has been explored in countless films, including The Creator , Ex Machina , Westworld , and I Am Mother . In fact, even back in the 1970s, films like Colossus: The Forbin Project were already exploring malevolent intelligent machines, highlighting the long-standing anxiety over advanced technology.

Some movies, like Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, explore AI exerting control in a smaller capacity. However, Kubrick’s film is one of the most chilling, given that the AI, depicted as a simple red light, resembles modern voice recognition technology like Siri and Alexa.

Then, movies like Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner delve into other issues with AI, primarily the difficult question of what draws the line between humans and technology. As Rick Deckard ( Harrison Ford ) falls for a lifelike “Replicant,” it begs the question of what it will mean to be human once technology and humans become indistinguishable.

There are additional movies like Blade Runner where AI isn’t necessarily evil.

In films like Star Wars and Iron Man , AI machines like C-3PO and J.A.R.V.I.S. are friendly droids and AI assistants who help save the world. In the Joaquin Phoenix -led Her and Sam Rockwell-led Moon , the movies explore the concept of AI as a coping mechanism for human loneliness. Pixar’s 2008 animated hit WALL-E even delves into how AI may take charge simply because of sheer human laziness.

Where to watch the best movies about AI online

Whether it’s exploring dystopian worlds with evil AI, probing the concept of what it means to be human, delving into human-machine relationships, or exploring the potential of advanced technology, countless great movies have been made about AI.

Here is where to watch the 25 best AI movies ranked by quality, popularity, and how sophisticated their commentary on AI is.

100 Best Action Comedy Series of All Time – A Streaming Guide

Action comedy is one of the world's most popular TV genres, delivering heart-pounding action scenes and hilarious moments in equal measure. To help you find the best action comedy TV shows of all time, we've made a streaming guide with 100 must-see TV series to add to your watchlist. You can also use this guide to find out where you can watch them on streaming services such as Netflix , Prime Video , Max , Disney+ and more.

In addition to featuring hilarious gags and heart-racing action sequences, the best action comedy series have some of TV's most beloved characters. You can watch many action comedy series with iconic characters such as the sinster 'superhero' Homelander ( The Boys ), the lovable yet immensely powerful Aang ( Avatar: The Last Airbender ) and the ever-determined Lucy MacLean ( Fallout ).

While there are plenty of amazing live action TV series to enjoy, some of the best action comedy series are animated. Some of the very best TV series to animate action comedy adventures include the spy-spoof Archer , the TV-MA DC Comics adaptation of Harley Quinn , and the intergalactic explorations of Rick and Morty .

If you are specifically looking for top-rated action comedy series that are suitable for kids, check out The Powerpuff Girls , Teen Titans and Knuckles . You can also use JustWatch to filter by age rating to ensure you only see the kid-friendly titles on this list.

Where can I watch the best action comedy series?

Check out this JustWatch streaming guide, which features the best 100 action comedy series of all time and where to watch them on popular streaming services. This includes the latest streaming information for anybody streaming in the United States.

100 Best Superhero Series of All Time – A Streaming Guide

From animated classics like Justice League and X-Men to modern hits like The Umbrella Academy and Peacemaker , superheroes have been saving the day on the small screen for decades. To help you find the greatest superhero series to add to your watchlist, here's a steaming guide to the 100 of the best superhero series of all time. You can also use this guide to find out where you can watch them on popular streaming platforms like Netflix , Prime Video , Max and Disney+ .

There have been several Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) superhero series that have graced our screens over the years, including popular series such as Agent Carter and Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. As the universe grew in popularity throughout the 2010s, so did the number of TV shows to enjoy. This was accelerated by the launch of Disney+, which saw WandaVision become the first Marvel TV show to directly impacted the course of upcoming MCU movies. Other Disney+ MCU shows include The Falcon and the Winter Soldier , Loki and Ms. Marvel .

DC Comics also has a rich television history, with many adaptations of the company's most popular heroes in live action TV shows and animated cartoons. In addition to the many Batman and Superman produced over the years, the CW's Arrowverse kickstarted in 2012 with Arrow and continued until 2023. The interconnected titles featured in the Arrowverse included The Flash , Supergirl , Legends of Tomorrow , Black Lightning and Batwoman . With other titles like Superman & Lois , Doom Patrol , Peacemaker , Watchmen and Constantine , fans have a flurry of choice from either universe to binge-watch.

From 2015-2019, Netflix was home to more adult-oriented superhero series such as Marvel’s Daredevil , one of the most beloved superhero series of all time. Jessica Jones , Luke Cage , Iron Fist , The Defenders and The Punisher rounded out Netflix's collection of Marvel superhero series.

When looking for the best superhero series of all time, fans can also consider non-Marvel/DC shows such as Prime Video’s The Boys – an extremely successful TV series that combined superheroes, action, comedy and R-rated content. There are also many animated TV shows adored by fans of every age, such as Batman: The Animated Series , Spider-Man , Harley Quinn , Invincible and Young Justice .

Where can I watch the best superhero series?

Check out our complete list of the best 100 superhero series of all time below. Discover where to watch them on streaming services available in the United States.

100 Best Sitcoms of All Time – A Streaming Guide

Sitcoms have been a mainstay in television for generations. Beginning with the first ever TV sitcom, Mary Kay and Johnny , leading up to modern classics like The Office and Parks and Recreation , there will always be at least one title every TV watcher can proudly proclaim to be the greatest sitcom of all time. In this streaming guide, you'll find the best TV sitcoms and where to watch them on popular streaming services like Netflix , Prime Video , Max and Disney+ . We'll also let you know if there are any options to stream a sitcom online for free.

When discussing timeless sitcoms, one standout remains a fixture in television history: the iconic I Love Lucy . which aired from 1951 until 1957. Its enduring legacy, spearheaded by the performance of the titular Lucille Ball, continues to inspire serialized comedy and modern day sitcoms.

Throughout the 1950s and '60s, families eagerly awaited the latest episode of hit sitcoms like Leave It to Beaver , The Honeymooners and Gilligan’s Island . By the 1970s, TV shows like The Mary Tyler Moore Show , M*A*S*H , The Jeffersons and Happy Days featured memorable casts that kept viewers entertained season after season.

In the 1980s and ‘90s, there are several examples of sitcoms that showcase the daily challenges of American families and their familial bonds. Some of the best examples include Family Ties , Diff'rent Strokes , The Cosby Show , Full House , The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air , Cheers , The Golden Girls , Seinfeld , Friends and Frasier . The 2000s saw an increase in popular workplace comedies, utilizing mockumentary-style filmmaking and uncomfortable cringe comedy. TV shows like The Office and Parks and Recreation are considered sitcom masterpieces, depicting hysterically awkward situations and occasionally warring (yet endearing) coworkers. Other great shows with a similar comedic style include Abbott Elementary , Modern Family and Arrested Development . For more adult comedy, sitcoms such as Curb Your Enthusiasm , Peep Show and It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia never fail to deliver gut-busting laughs with their unique approaches to the sitcom genre.

Where can I watch the best sitcoms?

If you're looking for the best sitcom movies to add to your watchlist, you'll find plenty of amazing shows with this streaming guide. Here are the best 100 sitcoms of all time and where to watch them on streaming services in the United States.

100 Best Dark Fantasy Movies of All Time – A Streaming Guide

If you like your fantasy movies to be twisted, gruesome and ghastly – with stories of the dark arts and terrifying creatures – this guide to the 100 best dark fantasy movies of all time is perfect for you. In addition to a ranking of the top titles, we’ll show you where you can watch every movie on this list today on streaming services in the United States. We’ll also let you know if you can watch any of these iconic dark fantasy movies legally for free online.

The dark fantasy genre combines fantastical stories with themes of horror. Some of the most recognizable directors known for putting dark fantasy stories on the big screen include Guillermo del Toro ( Pan’s Labyrinth , Hellboy , The Shape of Water ), Tim Burton ( Coraline , Sleepy Hollow , Edward Scissorhands ) and Jim Henson ( The Dark Crystal , Labyrinth ).

Despite their themes of horror, there are plenty of dark fantasy movies that can be enjoyed by the whole family. A few examples include the animated adventure Don Bluth’s The Secret of NIMH , Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal , and George Lucas/Ron Howard’s Willow . Families with older children may also enjoy slightly darker adventures such as Roald Dahl’s The Witches , The Addams Family and Spirited Away .

If you’re interested in exploring some of the best dark fantasy movies produced outside of the United States, must-see titles include Onibaba (Japan), The City of Lost Children (France), Viy (Soviet Union) and In Fabric (United Kingdom). You can also enjoy dark fantasy anime movies such as Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust , Wicked City , Berserk: The Golden Age Arc trilogy and Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Movie: Mugen Train .

Where can I watch the best dark fantasy movies?

Below you’ll find the latest streaming information for the 100 best dark fantasy movies. You can filter your results by release year, price, IMDb rating, age rating and run time.

100 Best Crime Detective Movies of All Time – A Streaming Guide

The crime detective genre puts thrilling criminal investigations on the big screen. These movies follow a detective – who could be a hired private investigator, a member of law enforcement, or a complete amateur – as they attempt to uncover the mysteries of a crime. The genre includes plenty of incredible noir ( The Lady from Shanghai , The Maltese Falcon ) and neo-noir ( Memories of Murder , Brick ) movies, as well as light-hearted parodies ( The Pink Panther ) and action comedies ( Rush Hour ). Whether you’re looking for cinema’s bleakest noir movies or something for the whole family, you’ll find something for you with our list of the 100 best crime detective movies of all time.

Many of the best crime detective movies are adaptations of famous novels. Among the most famous detectives successfully adapted for the big screen include Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe ( The Big Sleep , Farewell, My Lovely , The Long Goodbye ), Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes ( The Hound of the Baskervilles , The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes ) and Agatha Christie's Poirot ( Murder on the Orient Express , Death on the Nile ). These characters have inspired many other movies on this top 100 list, so their movies are a great starting point for anybody who is new to the genre.

There are also plenty of options if you’re looking for unconventional detective crime stories that also belong to another genre. Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner: The Final Cut is a neo-noir science fiction movie starring Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard, who is tasked with hunting down a group of criminal replicants (androids). Another example is Matt Reeve’s The Batman , a superhero movie which tells the story of Bruce Wayne (Robert Pattison) as he searches for a dangerous criminal in Gotham City.

Where can I watch the best crime detective movies?

Below you can find our complete list of the 100 best crime detective movies of all time. We’ll show you where you can watch every movie online on popular streaming services in the United States. We’ll also let you know if you can watch any of these movies online for free, or if they are available to watch for free with ads.

100 Best Rom-Com Movies of All Time – A Streaming Guide

Romantic comedies have provided audiences with love, laughter and heartbreak on the big screen for over a hundred years. Whether you’re looking for modern rom-coms such as Anyone But You and No Hard Feelings , or timeless classics like as Some Like it Hot and The Philadelphia Story , we’ve got you covered with this guide to the 100 best rom-coms of all time. We’ll show you where to watch every movie on this list, including the latest offers from streaming services such as Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+. We’ll also show you if there are options to watch great rom-coms for free online.

Romantic comedies explore the subject of love in a humorous way. While there are iconic rom-coms from every decade since the silent era, the genre reached the peak of its box office powers in the 1990s. The wit and charm of writers such as Nora Ephron ( When Harry Met Sally , You’ve Got Mail ) and Richard Curtis ( Four Weddings and a Funeral , Notting Hill ) led to a slew of hit movies that are still synonymous with the genre today. Going back further, the works of Ernst Lubitsch ( Ninotschka , Trouble in Paradise ), Billy Wilder ( The Apartment , The Seven Year Itch ) and Howard Hawks ( Bringing Up Baby , His Girl Friday ) have undeniably stood the test of time. All three directors have multiple movies in our top 100, and their work inspired many of the tropes audiences now expect from a great rom-com movie.

If you prefer unconventional love stories, there are still plenty of rom-coms to enjoy – including the video game inspired Scott Pilgrim vs the World , the ABBA-inspired musical Mamma Mia! , or the time-traveling romance About Time . There are also many must-see rom-coms produced outside of the United States; Hit movies such as Amélie (France), Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (Italy) and Eat Drink Man Woman (Taiwan) are all among the best rom-coms of all time.

Where can I watch the best rom-com movies?

No matter what you’re looking for in your next rom-com movie night, you’ll find something for your watchlist with our best 100 rom-coms of all time. Here’s the complete list and where to watch them on streaming services in the United States.

15 of the Best Steven Spielberg Movies (and Where to Watch Them)

Steven Spielberg is one of (if not the) best directors in Hollywood history. He’s been nominated for a lofty 22 Oscars and has won three. On top of that, he’s directed some of the biggest blockbusters ever that have grossed billions upon billions of dollars and become cultural landmarks that have shaped not just entertainment, but our daily lives. So, what are the filmmaker’s best movies? Use our guide below to discover the best Steven Spielberg movies and where to stream them.

You can’t talk about Spielberg without talking about Jaws . Centered around a New England town that’s battling a man-eating shark, Jaws is so terrifying that many horror fans even consider it a horror movie. The shark animatronic was a modern marvel at the time and some scenes still look downright terrifying to this day. But what makes the movie even more impressive is that it was Spielberg’s first major film. He was just 26 years old when he directed the feature. The movie was so powerful that it actually fueled society’s paranoia about sharks and led to a massive increase in the killings of great whites . Spielberg regrets the impact his film had on wildlife, but creating such an evocative story is impressive nonetheless.

Spielberg is also credited with reinvigorating society’s interest in dinosaurs thanks to Jurassic Park . The movie centers around an island theme park where resurrected dinosaurs are the main attraction. Naturally, it all goes to hell and the dinos break out of their cages, causing absolute chaos. With great actors, a great story, and great special and practical effects, Jurassic Park continues to be a beloved movie that fans watch over and over again. A new film in the franchise is also currently in the pre-production stage, so more dino chaos is on the way!

On top of his blockbuster hits, Spielberg is also known for his award-winning masterpieces (many of which also became blockbuster hits). His first Oscar nomination came in 1978 for Close Encounters of the Third Kind . The film shows what humanity’s first encounter with extraterrestrials might be like, and it’s filled with a great sense of wonder… and suspense. That combination makes Close Encounters a unique entry in the alien genre because it isn’t about the horror of an alien takeover, but instead focuses on the mix of fear, curiosity, and excitement that people would likely have.

Spielberg’s most lauded film though is 1994’s Schindler’s List . The film tells the true story of Oskar Schindler, a man who saved over a thousand Jewish people during the holocaust by bribing Nazi leaders to assure their safety. The movie was met with universal praise and received 12 Oscar nominations. Schindler’s List went on to win seven awards, including Best Picture and Best Director - both for Spielberg since he directed and produced the film.

Where to watch the best Steven Spielberg movies

While almost every Steven Spielberg movie is fantastic in its own right, here are 15 you absolutely need to watch, from E.T. to Indiana Jones , and more. Find out where to watch Steven Spielberg’s best movies using our guide below.

Where To Watch Francis Ford Coppola’s 15 Best Movies, Ranked

After a 13-year hiatus from directing, legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola has returned with a new film, Megalopolis , which is already causing a stir following its Cannes premiere . A prominent figure in the New Hollywood film movement, Coppola is often hailed as one of the greatest directors of all time for his cinematic masterpieces with larger-than-life characters and rich stories. For those interested in delving into his work before Megalopolis, this guide will demonstrate where to watch his 15 best films.

Even those unfamiliar with Coppola will likely have heard of his best film, The Godfather , which is often hailed as one of the greatest movies ever made. The Godfather is credited with revolutionizing the gangster genre as it humanized the Corleones and their love of family. Additionally, the storytelling is rich, the criminals larger-than-life, and the performances of Marlon Brando as Vito Corleone and Al Pacino as Michael Corleone blew audiences away.

While the sequel, The Godfather II , couldn’t match the original's groundbreaking nature and historical significance, it is easily one of the greatest movie sequels ever made. The film arguably adds more depth and an even darker tone as it continues to delve into Michael’s deterioration intercut with masterfully crafted flashbacks of Vito’s ( Robert de Niro ) life.

Another movie that almost eclipsed The Godfather in quality and impact is Apocalypse Now . It is based on Joseph Conrad’s thought-provoking novel Heart of Darkness but switches the setting to the Vietnam War. Featuring the talents of Brando, Robert Duvall, Martin Sheen, and Laurence Fishburne, Apocalypse Now is one of the most haunting, mesmerizing, and unforgettable war epics of all time.

Although often overshadowed by The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, The Conversation also warrants special mention in discussions of Coppola’s greatest works. The movie follows surveillance expert Harry Caul (Gene Hackman), who faces an intense moral dilemma when he realizes the couple he has been tailing may be at the center of a murder plot. It’s a simple plot, but the layers to the story are numerous as viewers delve deep into the nightmarish sense of paranoia and probe questions of morals and power.

In addition to four of the greatest movies of all time, Coppola has made many more well-received hits ranging from the zany and amusing You’re a Big Boy Now to the experimental road trip drama The Rain People to the horror vampire film Bram Stoker’s Dracula .

If you’re looking for more of Coppola’s greatest works, see below for where to watch his 15 best films ranked by their quality, popularity, and historical significance.

Where To Watch Every Star Wars Live-Action and Animated TV Show in Order

The Star Wars franchise expanded in 2024 with the live-action TV series The Acolyte . Set 100 years before the events of Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace , The Acolyte marks one of the shows to take advantage of the vast galaxy and timeline the franchise has to work with. For those interested in further exploring Star Wars’ TV show collection, this guide will demonstrate how and where to watch all the live-action and animated Star Wars TV shows in order.

While most are familiar with the Disney+ Star Wars shows, the franchise moved to the small screen long before Disney’s acquisition. By 1985, sister animated series Ewoks and Star Wars: Droids arrived on ABC and followed the adventures of the Ewoks, R2-D2, and C-3PO. However, it would be over two decades until the next TV show, Star Wars: The Clone Wars , arrived.

Fortunately, by 2003, George Lucas had established Lucasfilm Animation, which rang in a new era of Star Wars TV shows. Star Wars: The Clone Wars follows Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Ahsoka Tano between the events of Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones and Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith . It went on to earn high critical acclaim for its groundbreaking visuals, voice performances, and story. Star Wars: The Clone Wars later received an equally well-received spinoff series, Star Wars: The Bad Batch .

Another prominent animated series is Star Wars Rebels , which follows Ezra Bridger, Kanan Jarrus, Sabine Wren, and the rest of the Ghost Crew as they retaliate against the Galactic Empire’s oppressive rule following Order 66.

In 2019, the first live-action Star Wars series arrived with The Mandalorian . Set after the Galactic Empire's fall, The Mandalorian won fans over with its tale of Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal), a bounty hunter entrusted with protecting a Force-sensitive youngling, Grogu, from the remnants of the Empire. The series also brought back Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) from the Star Wars movies and transitioned Ahsoka to live-action, portrayed by Rosario Dawson . Out of The Mandalorian’s success came the spinoff series The Book of Boba Fett and Ahsoka .

The franchise has explored additional periods through its shows, too, such as the Rebellion with Star Wars: Andor or post-Order 66 in Obi-Wan Kenobi .

How to watch all the Star Wars TV shows in order

Unlike Marvel or DC, Star Wars TV shows aren’t divided into different universes. Almost all the shows are largely considered canon except the early Ewoks and Droids series and the anthology series Star Wars: Visions . Meanwhile, every series fits somewhere within the overall Star Wars timeline, making it possible to watch them in chronological order. Star Wars: Visions is the only show that doesn’t fit in the chronological order since it spans multiple timelines.

Otherwise, here are all the Star Wars TV shows chronologically:

Young Jedi Adventures

The Acolyte

Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Star Wars: Droids

Star Wars: Tales of the Empire

Star Wars: The Bad Batch

Obi-Wan Kenobi

Star Wars Rebels

Star Wars: Andor

The Mandalorian

The Book of Boba Fett

Star Wars Resistance

Where to watch all the Star Wars TV Shows online

There are a few problems with watching in chronological order: many TV shows take place over multiple years, they are difficult to place because they are anthologies, or, in the case of The Mandalorian season 3 and Ahsoka season 1, sometimes run concurrently with one another. Hence, another approach is simply to watch all the Star Wars TV shows by the release date order which is provided below:

Furiosa and 10 Other George Miller Movies You Need to Watch (and Where to Stream Them)

George Miller easily has one of the most unique directorial careers in Hollywood history. On one hand, he’s known for directing all the Mad Max movies , making him one of the most prolific action directors ever. But did you know that he’s also directed quite a few successful family films as well? Remember watching Happy Feet … that movie about the singing penguins? Yep, that’s George Miller too.

So, check out our guide below to find out where you can watch all of George Miller’s best movies, from action hits to kid’s favorites and more.

Miller is best known for creating, writing, and directing Mad Max . The film takes place in a post-apocalyptic Australia where the overconsumption of fossil fuels has created so much pollution that ecocide has virtually destroyed all plant life on Earth, forcing humans to battle for the few precious resources that are left. Unlike many franchises, where the directors are constantly swapped out, Miller has had full control of Mad Max since the beginning and has stayed on as director for every film in the franchise, including Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga . He’ll also be directing the upcoming Mad Max: Fury Road sequel, Mad Max: The Wasteland.

In 1998, Miller went in a completely different direction when he wrote and directed the children’s classic Babe: Pig in the City , which was a sequel to 1995’s Babe (a movie that he wrote). This time around, Babe finds himself lost in the big city and eventually goes on a whirlwind adventure with the help of some of his animal pals.

Miller’s newfound reputation as a family film director grew even bigger in 2006 when he released the hit film Happy Feet. The movie was a jukebox musical following the life of penguins… who happen to absolutely love singing and dancing. The movie had a huge cast of A-List talent like Elijah Wood, Nicole Kidman, and Hugh Jackman , and featured songs like ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ by Elvis and ‘Somebody to Love’ by Queen. The movie became a huge hit, grossing more than $384 million at the box office. In 2011, Miller returned to write, produce, and direct its sequel, Happy Feet Two .

One often-overlooked project of Miller’s was his involvement in 1983’s Twilight Zone: The Movie . The film was an anthology feature with different directors creating vignettes, similar to the TV show. For the film, Miller remade the iconic 1963 episode ‘Nightmare at 20,000 ft.’ where William Shatner played an airplane passenger who sees a gremlin on the wing of the plane. In Miller’s remake, John Lithgow takes over Shatner’s role and thanks to newer practical effects, the gremlin looks much more realistic and terrifying.

Looking for more of George Miller’s best movies? Use our guide below to find out where you can watch all of his best films.

How to Watch Every Movie at Cannes Film Festival 2024

The 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival takes place from May 15, 2024 until May 25 2024. In addition to screening many of 2024's best movies, this is also where production companies can strike distribution deals for upcoming theatrical and streaming releases. In this guide, we'll show you where you can watch every feature-length movie and short film at Cannes Film Festival 2024. While it may be some time before these movies are available to the public, this guide is regularly updated so you'll be the first to know when a movie is available on streaming services such as Prime Video , Netflix , Criterion , Apple TV+ and many more.

Which movies are screening at Cannes 2024?

In competition, this year’s lineup includes the latest movies from renowned directors such as Francis Ford Coppola ( Megalopolis ), Andrea Arnold (Bird), Yorgos Lanthimos ( Kinds of Kindness ), David Cronenberg ( The Shrouds ) and Paolo Sorrentino ( Parthenope ). The festival opener is Quentin Dupieux’s Second Act, while movies screening out of competition include George Miller’s Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and Kevin Costner’s Horizon, an American Saga .

Who is on the jury at Cannes 2024?

Oscar-nominated writer/director Greta Gerwig presides over the 2024 Cannes film festival jury as president. Last year, the director’s Barbie became a worldwide hit, grossing more than $1.4 billion at the box office. Canadian filmmaker Xavier Dolan is President of the Un Certain Regard jury. The director has previously won several awards at Cannes, including the Jury Prize for Mommy in 2014 and the Grand Prix (the second most prestigious Cannes award after the Palme D’or) for It's Only the End of the World in 2016. At the time of writing, the full list of judges has not been released. Check out the full lineup for the Cannes Film Festival 2024 here:

The Second Act - Quentin Dupieux

Competition

All We Imagine as Light - Payal Kapadia

Anora - Sean Baker

Bird - Andrea Arnold

Caught by the Tides (Feng Liu Yi Dai) - Jia Zhang-Ke

Emilia Perez - Jacques Audiard

Grand Tour - Miguel Gomes

Kinds of Kindness - Yorgos Lanthimos

L’Amour Ouf - Gilles Lellouche

Limonov: The Ballad - Kirill Serebrennikov

Marcello Mio - Christophe Honore

Megalopolis - Francis Ford Coppola

Motel Destino - Karim Ainouz

Oh Canada - Paul Schrader

Parthenope - Paolo Sorrentino

The Apprentice - Ali Abbasi

The Girl With the Needle - Magnus von Horn

The Shrouds - David Cronenberg

The Substance - Coralie Fargeat

Wild Diamond (Diamant Brut) - Agathe Riedinger

Un Certain Regard

Armand - Halfdan Ullman Tondel

Black Dog (Gou Zhen) - Guan Hu

The Damned” (Les Damnes) - Roberto Minervini

L’Histoire de Souleymane - Boris Lojkine

Le Royaume - Julien Colonna

My Sunshine (Boku No Ohisama) - Hiroshi Okuyama

Norah - Tawfik Alzaidi

On Becoming a Guinea Fowl - Rungano Nyoni

Santosh - Sandhya Suri

September Says - Ariane Labed

The Shameless - Konstantin Bojanov

Viet and Nam - Truong Minh Quy

The Village Next to Paradise - Mo Harawe

Vingt Dieux! - Louise Courvoisier

Who Let the Dog Bite? (Le Proces du Chien) - Laetitia Dosch

Cannes Premiere

C’est Pas Moi - Leos Carax

En Fanfare (The Matching Bang) - Emmanuel Courcol

Everybody Loves Touda - Nabil Ayouch

Le Roman de Jim - Arnaud Larrieu and Jean-Marie Larrieu

Misericorde - Alain Guiraudie

Rendez-Vous Avec Pol Pot - Rithy Panh

Out of Competition

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga - George Miller

Horizon, an American Saga - Kevin Costner

Rumours - Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson, Guy Maddin

She’s Has No Name - Chan Peter Ho-Sun

Midnight Screenings

I, the Executioner - Seung Wan Ryoo

The Balconettes (Les Femmes au Balcon) - Noemie Merlant

The Surfer - Lorcan Finnegan

Twilight of the Warrior Walled In - Soi Cheang

Special Screenings

Apprendre - Claire Simon

The Beauty of Gaza (La Belle de Gaza) - Yolande Zauberman

Ernest Cole, Lost and Found - Raoul Peck

L’Invasion - Sergei Loznitsa

Le Fil - Daniel Auteuil

Where can I watch Cannes film festival 2024 movies?

While many of the movies showing at Cannes film festival 2024 won’t be available to watch in theaters or streaming online until after the festival has ended, we’ve already got you covered with a streaming guide. This includes the latest streaming details for every movie in all categories (in competition, out of competition, the opening act, Un Certain Regard, Cannes premieres, midnight screenings and special screenings).

Where To Watch Every Naruto Movie and TV Show in Order

Naruto is one of the longest-running and most popular anime of all time. Based on Masashi Kishimoto's manga of the same name, the series has captivated audiences with its story of one young ninja’s dream to become the Hokage of his village. However, with a two-part anime series, a spinoff series, and 11 anime movies , the Naruto franchise can be daunting to dive into. Hence, this guide will demonstrate where and how to watch every Naruto show and film in order.

The TV series kicked off in 2002 with Naruto , which follows Naruto Uzumaki, an orphaned boy who is ostracized by his village for having the Nine-Tailed Fox sealed in his body. Eager for acceptance, Uzumaki works to prove his skill as a ninja, eventually joining Kakashi Hatake’s Team 7 with Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno to complete missions and protect the village.

After Naruto concluded in 2007 with 220 episodes, Naruto Shippūden was released that same year. Naruto Shippūden is considered Part 2 of the anime series, serving as a direct sequel to the original series and following Uzumaki during his teenage years. The series begins with a two-year time skip, during which Uzumaki was training with ninjutsu master Jiraiya. Upon returning, he resumes his ninja missions with Team 7 and seeks to bring Sasuke home after the boy leaves, seeking revenge on his brother.

Interspersed throughout both series are 11 films; three premiered during Naruto’s run, while the latter eight premiered during Naruto Shippūden. Of all the films, only the 2014 movie, The Last: Naruto the Movie , is a canon in the series. The 2014 film, along with Boruto: Naruto The Movie , is among the most well-received films, as it largely leads into the Naruto spinoff series. Naruto The Movie: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow and Road to Ninja: The Naruto Movie are also often heralded as fan favorites.

As mentioned above, the Naruto series received a spinoff series, Boruto: Naruto Next Generations , which focuses on the eponymous son of Naruto. The series’ first part concluded last year, while the second part, Boruto: Two Blue Vortex, is still awaiting a release date as the manga tries to get ahead of the show.

How to watch the Naruto franchise in chronological and release date order

Although the movies aren’t canon, they are meant to accompany the series and sometimes reference events from their complementary episodes. For those who don’t mind jumping between the shows and movies, the chronological order of the Naruto franchise is as follows:

Naruto Episodes 1 - 101

Naruto the Movie: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow

Naruto Episodes 101 - 160

Naruto the Movie: Legend of the Stone of Gelel

Naruto Episodes 161 - 196

Naruto the Movie: Guardians of the Crescent Moon Kingdom

Naruto Episodes 197 - 220

Naruto Shippūden Episodes 1 - 32

Naruto Shippūden the Movie

Naruto Shippūden Episodes 33 - 71

Naruto Shippūden the Movie: Bonds

Naruto Shippūden Episodes 72 - 126

Naruto Shippūden the Movie: The Will of Fire

Naruto Shippūden Episodes 127 - 143

Naruto Shippūden the Movie: The Lost Tower

Naruto Shippūden Episodes 144 - 196

Naruto Shippūden the Movie: Blood Prison

Naruto Shippūden Episodes 197 - 251

Road to Ninja: Naruto the Movie

Naruto Shippūden Episodes 252 - 493

The Last: Naruto the Movie

Naruto Shippūden Episodes 494 - 500

Boruto: Naruto the Movie

Boruto: Naruto Next Generations Episodes 1 - 293

However, since the movies aren’t canon to the series, another option is to watch each series in full, followed by their respective films in release date order, as seen below.

Furiosa: 10 Best Anya Taylor-Joy Movies and TV Shows (and Where to Stream Them)

In 2021, Anya Taylor-Joy arrived at the Golden Globes with two nominations: One for her film Emma and the other for her hit miniseries The Queen’s Gambit . Later that night she won the Globe for The Queen’s Gambit. That same year she also received a SAG award and an Emmy nomination. Since then, Taylor-Joy has become one of the biggest names in Hollywood. But did you know she’s been starring in fantastic movies and TV series for almost a decade?

Check out our guide below to discover Anya Taylor-Joy’s best movies and TV shows so far and where to stream them online right now. We'll let you know which of her performances can be enjoyed on streaming services such as Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+. We'll also show you if there are any Anya Taylor-Joy movies to watch online for free.

Anya Taylor-Joy had her first big breakout role in 2015’s The VVitch . The movie centers around a family in the 1600s who have been banished from a Puritan village. Now forced to live in a remote homestead, the family battles with famine and starvation, pushing them to madness. Making everything even more dire… there might be a witch secretly watching the family, relishing in their downfall. The movie was a hit and cemented the young studio A24 as a real power player in Hollywood.

No list of Taylor-Joy’s best roles would be complete without The Queen’s Gambit , which served as her most notable role to date, launching her onto Hollywood’s A-List. In the acclaimed miniseries, she plays a young orphan who becomes a chess prodigy. But she also battles with depression and drug addiction. As her chess fame grows, so do her problems. The series won a boatload of awards, including Best Limited Series at the Emmys.

A role that many fans often forget about is Taylor-Joy’s turn as Casey Cooke in M. Night Shyamalan ’s hit film Split , and its sequel Glass . In Split, Taylor-Joy is kidnapped by a man suffering from multiple-personality disorder. Some of his personalities seek to harm, while others want to help. She returns for the sequel Glass, which also brought back Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson from Unbreakable, bringing all three superhumans together and concluding the Unbreakable trilogy.

In 2023, Taylor-Joy also had a prominent voice role in The Super Mario Bros. Movie , where she portrayed the iconic Princess Peach. The movie brought tons of famous Nintendo characters to life, like Mario, Luigi, Donkey Kong, Bowser, and more. It was also a massive blockbuster hit, grossing $1.3 billion at the box office. Nintendo has also announced that the cast will return for a sequel in 2026, so Mario fans have a lot to look forward to.

Where can I watch Anya Taylor-Joy movies and TV shows online?

Looking for more of Anya Taylor-Joy’s best roles after watching Furiosa ? Then check out our streaming guide below to find out where you can watch her best movies and TV shows. This includes all the latest streaming details for viewers in the United States.

Where To Watch the 10 Best Michael Bay Movies, Ranked

From Bad Boys to Transformers , Michael Bay is the director behind some of the most well-known action franchises and film series. While critics often erroneously reduce his work to little more than explosions and formulaic action heroes, Bay’s craftsmanship and technical filmmaking skills are paralleled by few in the industry. All of his films have a distinct style and demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of every aspect of filmmaking, from set scenery to camera speed and angles.

For those interested in the films that best illustrate Bay’s skill as a director, this guide will explore his 10 best movies and where to watch them.

In recent years, Bay has shifted more to producing. He is the producer behind two of the year's most-anticipated movies: A Quiet Place: Day One and Transformers One . For the purposes of this article, though, we’ll be focusing on the films that gained him prominence as a director.

One of Michael Bay’s most enduring films is the one that started his career: Bad Boys . The 1995 buddy cop comedy starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence earned praise for its frantic pace, the dynamic between Smith and Lawrence, the extended action sequences, and the hilarious tale of two reckless detectives searching for missing narcotics. It was a substantial enough commercial success to earn three sequels, although Bay only returned to direct Bad Boys II , which further ramped up the action, dark humor, and stunning visual effects.

After his directorial debut, Bay followed up with arguably the best film of his career, The Rock . Boasting a stacked cast including Nicolas Cage and Sean Connery, the film tells the thrilling story of an Alcatraz break-in. It boasts some of the most extravagant action sequences of any Bay movie and runs at a pace that keeps the adrenaline pumping for every minute of its runtime.

Meanwhile, Pain & Gain and 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi are notable as Bay’s most mature and sophisticated movies. Pain & Gain, starring Mark Wahlberg , Anthony Mackie, and Dwayne Johnson , sees Bay expertly craft his filmmaking to convey the satirical and dark tone of the story, while 13 Hours thrillingly and heartbreakingly captures the 2012 Benghazi attacks.

Bay’s penchant for groundbreaking visual effects and larger-than-life action plots was also well-suited for the exhilarating and visually stunning Transformers. At the same time, his love of breakneck pacing elevated the Jake Gyllenhaal -led Ambulance to one unforgettable car chase thriller.

If you’re looking for more unforgettable action thrillers in Bay’s signature filmmaking style, read on for his ten best movies, ranked from the best.

Where to Watch Every Bad Boys Movies in Order

Will Smith and Martin Lawrence returned to their iconic roles as Mike and Marcus in 2024's Bad Boys: Ride or Die . It marked the fourth film in the franchise and latest entry in the series since the finale of the spin-off show LA’s Finest in late 2020. If you want to find out where to watch every Bad Boys movie, check out our list below which provides information on where to stream the movies on platforms like Netflix , Max , Prime Video and more!

The first Bad Boys movie premiered in 1995, and on top of being a blockbuster hit for Smith and Lawrence, it also served as the breakout role for actress Téa Leoni. In the film, Smith and Lawrence play two police detectives in Miami who are trying to find a massive cache of heroin that’s been stolen from the department’s evidence locker. Things get even more complicated when they’re forced to provide protection for a woman who witnessed a mob hit. The movie grossed almost $66 million in North America alone, making it a bona fide hit.

Thanks to the home rental market, the film continued to be popular, and in 2003 it received a sequel: Bad Boys 2 . This time around, Smith and Lawrence were joined by more famous faces like Gabrielle Union and Michael Shannon. In the film, Mike and Marcus are investigating a drug trafficking ring and Mike is secretly seeing Marcus’ younger sister Syd (Union). But neither of the guys know that Syd is actually an undercover agent for the DEA. The dynamic between the three stars really helped keep the sequel feeling fresh and the movie became a smash hit, grossing more than $273 million at the box office.

The franchise then went dormant for almost 20 years, returning in 2019 with the spin-off series LA’s Finest . In the show, Union reprises her role as Syd and is joined by Jessica Alba who plays her partner at the LAPD. Sadly, the show premiered as a Spectrum Original back when the cable company was attempting to create original content. With hardly anyone knowing about the service or what Spectrum was, the show suffered from poor viewership. Just three years later, Spectrum announced it wouldn’t produce more shows after its handful of original series all performed poorly. The good news is that LA’s Finest has been given a second life on other streaming services.

In 2020, Bad Boys finally returned for a third film with Bad Boys for Life . Mike and Marcus return and encounter a vengeful enemy from their past who is hellbent on avenging his father (who was sent to prison after being caught by the duo). Released in January 2020, Bad Boys for Life was one of the only major blockbusters to be released in 2020 before the COVID pandemic shut down theaters around the world. The movie continued performing well in cinemas even through the weekend of March 7-8, just a few days before lockdown began. Still, despite COVID, Bad Boys for Life remains the highest-grossing film in the franchise, earning an impressive $426 million.

Bad Boys: Ride or Die found Miami's Finest turning into Miami's Most Wanted as the duo are on the run from the law after being accused of murdering their old Police Chief.

Where to watch all the Bad Boys movies online

The hilarious Bad Boys have been a beloved buddy cop duo for decades. Find out where you can stream the entire Bad Boys franchise in the United States using our guide below!

Where to Watch Guillermo del Toro’s Best Movies and TV Shows

Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro is known for many things – he’s noted for his unique style that often takes inspiration from dark fairytales. He’s also an integral figure in the horror genre thanks to his numerous horror films (plus, he often cites classic horror movies as his inspirations), and in more recent years, he’s become known as an award-winning director who isn’t just popular with genre fans, but who can hold his own against the Hollywood greats.

If you want to watch del Toro’s best movies and TV shows, use our guide below to find out where they are streaming.

Guillermo del Toro’s trademark film is easily Pan’s Labyrinth . While it wasn’t del Toro’s first movie, it was the first to earn him international acclaim. In the film, a young girl escapes her domineering stepfather by entering into a fairytale world…but not everything about the realm is good. She encounters both light and dark, good and bad, and friends and enemies. The movie was lauded for its gorgeous visuals and raw, emotional story. At the 79th Oscars, Pan’s Labyrinth received six nominations and won three awards, including for Best Cinematography.

But long before Pan’s Labyrinth, one of del Toro’s earliest hits was the sci-fi horror film Mimic . The movie takes place in New York City, where a deadly disease spread by cockroaches is killing hundreds of children. To stop the spread, scientists bioengineer a new bug that secretes a toxin that kills off the cockroaches. But some years later, the new bugs have continued to evolve and are now hunting humans. Though a moderate success in theaters, Mimic became a huge hit in the rental market and is now a cult classic among horror fans.

More recently, the film that most fans know del Toro for is The Shape of Water . At the 90th Oscars, the movie was nominated for a whopping 13 awards and won two major categories: Best Director for del Toro and Best Picture. The film centers around a lonely employee of a secret government facility during the Cold War. One day she discovers that the compound is hiding a dark secret… a mysterious sea creature that’s being kept trapped in a tank. Heavily inspired by Creature from the Black Lagoon, the movie took horror elements and blended them with a love story.

del Toro also used his love of monsters to create another hit movie: Pacific Rim . Heavily inspired by Godzilla and other Japanese monster movies, the film sees humanity fight off towering monsters known as kaijus using giant mechs called jaegers. Stylistically, it’s pretty different from most of del Toro’s films, but it very much plays into the filmmaker’s love of classic monster movies. For fans of the MonsterVerse , Pacific Rim is a must-watch.

Looking for more great del Toro movies? Check out our guide below to find out where you can watch more of his best films (and even some hit TV shows).

Where To Watch Every DC Animated Movie in Order

Most viewers are familiar with the DC Extended Universe (DCEU). However, if one wants to dive even deeper into the world of DC Comics, consider exploring the enormous collection of DC animated movies. Animated film adaptations of DC Comics have been produced since 1993, with multiple cinematic universes and continuities being developed over the years. Delving into the vast collection may be daunting to newcomers, but this guide will break down where to watch every DC animated movie in order.

The oldest shared universe is the DC Animated Universe (DCAU), which kicked off in 1992 with the TV show Batman: The Animated Series . The series soon inspired the theatrical film Batman: Mask of Phantasm in 1993, with Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill reprising their roles as Bruce Wayne (a.k.a. Batman ) and The Joker, respectively. Ultimately, the DCAU continuity would consist of eight films, including the critically acclaimed Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker .

While the DCAU was the first continuity, another major universe that has sprung up is the DC Animated Movie Universe (DCAMU). It is one of the largest continuities, consisting of 17 movies, beginning with Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox . The film is a unique crossover film that sees the return of voice actors like Conroy’s Batman and Nathan Fillion’s Green Lantern while introducing some new voice actors, including Michael B. Jordan as Victor Stone.

All 17 movies in the DCAMU are loosely based on the New 52 storylines from the comics, which explore the rebooted DC timeline following Flashpoint. It heavily focuses on the Justice League, Batman, and Batman’s son, Damian. Some of its most well-received films include Batman vs. Robin , Batman: Bad Blood , The Death of Superman , and Justice League Dark: Apokolips War .

Another large universe is Origins, a group of movies that aren’t necessarily interconnected but are lumped together because, as the title suggests, they focus on DC heroes’ origin stories. Origins comprises 14 movies, including Batman: Year One and Wonder Woman (2009). Then, there are many standalone films that don’t belong to any specific universe but are based on DC Comics. These movies can be pretty fun, such as Batman vs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Batman vs. Dracula , since they’re not confined to any one continuity. Like Origins, these largely non-related standalone films are grouped into their own universe: Animated Elseworlds.

There are also two smaller universes known as the Tomorrowverse and Arkhamverse. Tomorrowverse is the successor to the DCAMU, while the Arhamverse consists of one movie and the Batman: Arkham video game series.

How to watch the DC Animated Movies in Order

You can either watch DC animated movies by universe or by release date. Given the multiple continuities, watching by universe is the closest one can get to chronological order. Meanwhile, there’s no set order to watch the universes in. However, it’s largely agreed upon Origins is the best to start with since it introduces so many DC heroes. Afterward, we recommend going with the more recent DCAMU before moving on to the three smaller universes and concluding with the standalone movies in Elseworlds.

Find out how to view the movies by universe below, followed by how to stream them in release date order.

Batman: Year One
Batman: Gotham Knight
Wonder Woman (2009)
Green Lantern: First Flight
Green Lantern: Emerald Knights
All-Star Superman
DC Showcase: Superman / Shazam!: The Return of Black Adam
Superman / Batman: Public Enemies
Superman / Batman: Apocalypse
Superman: Unbound
Batman: Under the Red Hood
Batman: Death in the Family
Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths
Justice League: Doom
Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox
Justice League: War
Son of Batman
Justice League: Throne of Atlantis
Batman vs. Robin
Batman: Bad Blood
Justice League vs. Teen Titans
Justice League Dark
Teen Titans: The Judas Contract
Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay
The Death of Superman
Constantine: City of Demons
Reign of the Supermen
Batman: Hush
Wonder Woman: Bloodlines
Justice League Dark: Apokolips War
Constantine: House of Mystery
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
The Batman / Superman Movie: World’s Finest
Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero
Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker
Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman
Superman: Brainiac Attacks
Batman and Harley Quinn
Justice League vs. The Fatal Five

The Tomorrowverse

Superman: Man of Tomorrow
Justice Society: World War II
Batman: The Long Halloween Part One
Batman: The Long Halloween Part Two
Green Lantern: Beware My Power
Legion of Super-Heroes
Justice League: Warworld
Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths - Part One
Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths - Part Two

The Arkhamverse

Batman: Assault on Arkham

Animated Elseworlds

The Batman vs. Dracula
Superman: Doomsday
Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo
Justice League: The New Frontier
Superman vs. The Elite
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 2
Justice League: Gods and Monsters
Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders
Batman vs Two-Face
Batman: Gotham by Gaslight
Batman Ninja
Teen Titans Go! To the Movies
Batman vs Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Teen Titans Go! vs. Teen Titans
Superman: Red Son
Deathstroke: Knights & Dragons: The Movie
Batman: Soul of the Dragon
Catwoman: Hunted
Batman and Superman: Battle of the Super Sons
Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham

Where To Watch the Men in Black Movies in Order

Men in Black is over 25 years old yet still remains a sci-fi cult classic. The ‘90s movie kicked off a film series as well as a contemporary spinoff. For those interested in the memorable franchise, which still has the potential to expand, this guide will demonstrate where and how to stream the Men in Black franchise in order.

The franchise began as a comic book series from Aircel Comics, which is now owned by Marvel Comics . The comics were inspired by the Men in Black (MIB) conspiracy theory, which posits that secret government agents use tactics like memory-wiping to prevent knowledge of UFOs or other extraterrestrial occurrences from reaching the public. In 1997, director Barry Sonnenfeld and writer Ed Solomon put a comedic spin on the MIB theory.

Men in Black sees Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones take on the roles of Agent J and Agent K, respectively, as they navigate the extraterrestrial-investigating titular organization and form a close bond while saving the world. The movie was a major critical and commercial hit, with its witty script, palpable chemistry between Smith and Lee, and stunning blend of practical effects and CG elements.

By 2002, Men in Black II arrived on the big screen, with Smith and Jones reprising their iconic roles. Rosario Dawson , Johnny Knoxville, Rip Torn, and Michael Jackson also appeared in the film. Once again, it was a significant box office hit, though it suffered from mixed critical reviews for veering too close to the original story.

Fortunately, Men in Black 3 got the series back on track by introducing a time-traveling element. Agent J travels back in time to save Agent K’s life. In the process, he meets the young Agent K (Josh Brolin) from the 1960s. Although it was a well-made, refreshing, and humorous sci-fi movie, it didn’t quite eclipse the original. Still, the moderate critical and box office success should’ve been enough to move forward with Men in Black 4.

Instead, the franchise was rebooted in 2019 with the spinoff Men in Black: International . The film did not feature Smith or Jones; instead, it introduced two new agents, Agent H ( Chris Hemsworth ) and Agent M (Tessa Thompson), as they investigated a mole in the agency. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the same without Smith and Jones, with many feeling the spinoff and reboot weren’t necessary, resulting in mostly negative reviews.

So far, no news has arisen of further movies in the franchise, although its success and enduring legacy mean the door is never wholly closed on Men in Black 4.

For those interested in diving into the memorable sci-fi series, here’s how to watch the Men in Black franchise in release date order, including the animated series (although it's not canon to the movies).

The Best Luca Guadagnino Movies to Watch After Challengers (And Where to Stream Them)

Challengers has become one of the hottest movies of the spring thanks to a great performance from Zendaya and the bubbling queer sexual tension that director Luca Guadagnino is so famous for. If you loved the pulpy, exciting melodrama of Challengers , check out our guide below to find out where you can watch more of Guadagnino’s best movies and TV shows.

Luca Guadagnino began his career in Italy and has directed everything from commercials to music videos, documentaries, short films, and feature-length movies. His first major hit around the globe was 2009’s I Am Love . An official selection at the Sundance, Berlin, Venice, and Toronto film festivals, the movie centers around a woman (Tilda Swinton) who begins a new life in Italy and marries into a wealthy family. But soon, she begins having an affair with one of her son’s friends. Filled with sexual tension, lies, and lust, the movie is salacious and captivating.

Arguably the most famous Guadagnino film is Call Me By Your Name . In the film, a 24-year-old (Armie Hammer) arrives in Italy to help a professor with a project during the early ‘80s. Soon, he begins to fall in love with the professor’s 17-year-old son ( Timothée Chalamet ). The film received praise for its sexual tension and emotional exploration of what life was like for closeted men who fall in love. Call Me By Your Name received ample amounts of praise and was even nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. Chalamet would team up with the director again a few years later for Bones and All .

Guadagnino also directed the 2018 remake of Suspiria , a film about a reclusive German dance school that’s actually run by a coven of bloodthirsty witches. Despite being a horror movie, Suspiria was praised for its cinematography and gorgeous visuals. It also had an all-star cast that included Tilda Swinton, Mia Goth, and Dakota Johnson .

Discover where to stream more of Luca Guadagnino’s best movies (and even his HBO miniseries We Are Who We Are ) using our guide below.

9 Best Tennis Movies to Watch After Challengers (and Where to Stream Them)

Maybe it’s because it stars Zendaya , or perhaps it’s the now-infamous ménage à trois scene, but Challengers has stolen the spotlight as one of the buzziest movies of the spring. If you liked it, check out our guide below to discover more great tennis movies you can watch right now. From a biopic starring Emma Stone to a Kirsten Dunst rom-com, and more.

What are some of the best tennis movies?

If you want to watch a great tennis movie, one of the most notable is 2017’s Battle of the Sexes . The film tells the true story of when Billie Jean King played a match against tennis legend Bobby Riggs. King ended up beating Riggs, which became a monumental event in the tennis world, proving that women could hold their own against the men and should be taken seriously in the sport. Emma Stone played King and Steve Carrell portrayed Riggs. In 2001, a made-for-TV movie called When Billie Beat Bobby covered the same event, this time with Holly Hunter portraying King. The movie was well-received and Hunter even earned an Emmy nomination for her role.

Another high-profile tennis biopic is 2021’s King Richard , which starred Will Smith as Richard Williams, the father of tennis superstars Venus and Serena. The movie follows the Williams sisters as they grow up under the watchful eye of their dad who is determined to turn them into tennis pros, no matter how hard it might be. The film was nominated for six Oscars, with Smith winning for Best Actor. However, that same night Smith had the infamous “Oscars slap” incident and was promptly banned from the Academy Awards for a decade.

For a more romanticized tennis film, check out 2004’s Wimbledon . The movie stars Kirsten Dunst and Paul Bettany as two tennis players at Wimbledon. Bettany is a fading star, while Dunst is a rising tennis competitor. The two meet, sparks fly, drama is had, and the duo must navigate how to win their matches despite all the distractions of their relationship. The movie was loaded with other stars too, like Sam Neill and Jon Favreau.

Another movie set in Wimbledon is 7 Days in Hell . The film is based on the unbelievably true story of the longest match in tennis history. Played in 2010 between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut, a series of constant ties forced the game to be played for more than 11 hours over three days. The movie starred Andy Samberg and Kit Harington as two fictitious tennis players (who are based on Isner and Mahut) who get locked into a neverending tennis match.

Where can I watch the best tennis movies streaming online?

There are tons more excellent tennis movies and series out there, including documentaries. If you want to watch more great tennis action, check out our guide below to find out where you can stream them all. We'll also show you where you can watch the best tennis movies online for free.

The 10 Best Jason Momoa Films, Ranked (And Where To Watch Them)

Jason Momoa has quickly become one of the most recognizable actors in Hollywood, boasting roles in numerous high-profile franchises, including Dune , the DCEU , Game of Thrones , and Fast & Furious. He will also star in the Minecraft movie next year alongside Jack Black . For viewers who wish to acquaint themselves with Momoa’s work before his next projects arrive, this guide will rank his ten best movies and detail where to watch them.

Momoa’s first major film role was as the titular character in Conan the Barbarian (2011), a reimagining of the film of the same name starring Arnold Schwarzenegger . While Momoa’s acting was praised, the movie itself was a critical and commercial failure. Fortunately, Conan the Barbarian didn’t derail his career.

He bounced back with the underrated Bullet to the Head in 2012, where he proved his skill as an action star alongside Sylvester Stallone . However, it wasn’t until 2018 that he had his breakthrough with Aquaman .

Aquaman became the DCEU’s highest-grossing film to date, surpassing $1 billion at the box office. Momoa received high praise for embodying the half-human, half-Atlantean superhero Arthur Curry. He reprised his role as Curry in Zack Snyder’s Justice League , as well as Aquaman’s sequel Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom , which failed to match the success of its predecessor.

Momoa also starred in Braven in 2018, elevating the film beyond a typical action-thriller with his emotional and fierce performance as a man desperate to save his family.

By 2021, Momoa had joined another major franchise when he appeared in Denis Villeneuve ’s critically acclaimed Dune . He held his own alongside A-list actors like Timothée Chalamet and Oscar Isaac while portraying Duncan Idaho, one of Paul Atreides’ most beloved mentors.

The following year, he debuted in the Fast & Furious series as Dante Reyes in Fast X . Despite the film receiving mixed reviews, Momoa’s unhinged villain role received unanimous praise, marking one of his career-best performances.

Ranking his movies is a bit difficult as some of his best performances were in movies that weren’t very well-received by critics. Hence, this list considers both the quality and significance of his role in each film, as well as the film's overall quality.

Here are Jason Momoa’s ten best performances, ranked from the best, and where to stream them online.

Where To Watch Every Marvel TV Show in Order

Marvel has recently been expanding its small screen presence through several Disney+ original series, which are canon to the Marvel Cinematic Universe . More Marvel TV series are on the way, including some, like Daredevil: Born Again , that tie into Marvel’s pre-Disney+ era. For those looking to catch up on every Marvel-based TV show, this guide will demonstrate where and how to watch all the series in order.

The Marvel shows canon to the MCU began with the Disney+ series WandaVision in 2021. However, there were several important Marvel series before 2021 — they just weren’t produced by Marvel Studios. Marvel’s live-action TV presence started with ABC’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. in 2013, which ran for seven seasons and achieved high critical acclaim. Although not considered canon to the MCU, it does center on Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg), an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. who first appeared in Iron Man . MCU star Samuel L. Jackson also appears as Nick Fury in the series.

The success of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. led ABC to greenlight Agent Carter , another non-canon spinoff focused on the MCU character Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell). Despite receiving stellar reviews, Agent Carter was canceled after two seasons. Meanwhile, the third ABC series, Inhumans , also faced speedy cancellation after being critically panned.

Netflix also invested in several Marvel series from 2015 to 2019. The streamer created what is known as the Defenders saga, consisting of six interconnected series. Of the series, the most critically acclaimed were Daredevil and Jessica Jones . Charlie Cox’s performance as Daredevil and Vincent D’Onofrio’s performance as Kingpin were so beloved that Marvel decided to integrate the characters into the MCU, despite the Defenders series technically not being canon. Cox and D’Onofrio will soon star in the Daredevil reboot Daredevil: Born Again. Hulu, FX, Fox, and Freeform have also briefly dabbled in Marvel series, with shows like Runaways and Cloak & Dagger .

By 2021, the MCU decided to move to the small screen with the Emmy-winning WandaVision, which saw Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany reprise their roles as the Scarlet Witch and Vision, respectively. In total, the MCU has released ten original Disney+ series. Of those series, What If…? and the Tom Hiddleston -led Loki were popular enough to warrant season 2 renewals. Future series include Agatha , Ironheart , and Eyes of Wakanda.

It’s impossible to watch every Marvel series in chronological order, given that not all of them occur in the same universe. Hence, the best way to watch is in the order of release date. See below for where to watch every live-action or MCU canon Marvel TV show (and TV special) in release date order.

Where To Watch Every Movie in the After Series in Order

The After film series is set to expand soon, with a prequel and fifth sequel reportedly in development. Based on the book series of the same name by Anna Todd, the movies have garnered attention for dramatically capturing a complicated modern college romance. For those interested in catching up on the series before the prequel, Before, releases, this guide will demonstrate where and how to watch every After movie in order.

After premiered in 2019 and featured Josephine Langford in the lead role of Tessa Young. Hero Fiennes Tiffin, Ralph Fiennes's nephew, starred opposite Langford as Hardin Scott. Fiennes Tiffin had previously portrayed young Tom Riddle in the Harry Potter film series . After follows Tessa, an innocent freshman college student who finds her life upended by Hardin, the manipulative and selfish “bad boy” she finds herself inexplicably falling for.

The movie received mixed reviews, as it drew criticism for being a rather generic romance but was praised for its drama and beautiful cinematography. It was also a hit at the box office, earning nearly $70 million worldwide on a budget of just $14 million.

Hence, a sequel, After We Collided , soon arrived. Langford and Fiennes Tiffin reprise their roles as the young lovers who re-enter a tumultuous relationship after regretting their breakup. It received slightly more negative reviews than the first. Still, it was a comparable commercial success to the original, resulting in three more sequels: After We Fell , After Ever Happy , and After Everything .

However, critical and commercial reception continued to fall, with After We Fell and After Ever Happy receiving a score of 0% on Rotten Tomatoes and box office earnings dropping to around $20 million. Still, After Everything was greenlit. It was the first movie to boast an original story outside of Todd’s books and was advertised as the final film in the series. Although it received a limited theatrical release, it made $10 million at the box office and received relatively favorable audience reviews.

Soon, After Everything director Castille Landon confirmed the movie wasn’t the last chapter in the series, as a prequel was in development. Additionally, another untitled sequel is in development, inspired by the epilogue of the After Ever Happy book, which will focus on Hardin’s and Tessa’s children. It is believed the prequel and sequel will be the first movies without Langford or Fiennes Tiffin.

For those interested in catching up with the series before the prequel and sequel, here is where to watch the After movies in release date order.

Where To Watch Every Pixar Animation Studios Movie in Order

Pixar Animation Studios is one of the most influential and successful animation studios of all time, having made unparalleled contributions to the film industry in computer animation. The studio has produced 27 feature films and is gearing up to expand its film slate with Inside Out 2 , which is set to release on June 14, and is one of the most highly anticipated films of 2024 . Read on to discover where to stream every Pixar Animation Studios film.

Pixar began as a part of Lucasfilm’s Computer Division. Under Lucasfilm, it created the first wholly computer-animated sequence in a feature film by designing a scene where a planet transforms in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan . By 1986, Steve Jobs bought the Computer Division and formed it into the independent company Pixar, which quickly began collaborating with Disney.

Out of Pixar and Disney’s collaboration, the very first computer-animated feature film, Toy Story , was born. The computer-animated movie was released in 1995 and explored a world where toys like Woody ( Tom Hanks ) and Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) come to life. It was like nothing viewers had ever seen before and quickly became the most important film of its kind, setting a precedent for further computer-animated features.

Since then, Pixar has stayed on top of the computer animation field, with every film boasting cutting-edge technology, innovation, and creativity. Nearly every Pixar film has achieved high critical acclaim, but a few stand out especially. Finding Nemo took home the studio's first Best Animated Feature win at the Oscars, while The Incredibles was the first wholly animated film to earn the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.

Cars became a profitable trilogy and introduced Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson), one of the most iconic and recognizable Pixar characters. Meanwhile, the emotional and adventurous Up became the first Pixar film and second animated film in history to be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. Toy Story 3 soon became the third animated film to earn a Best Picture nomination and broke $1 billion at the box office.

Its movies have only become more sophisticated, with films like Inside Out , Coco , Soul , and Turning Red seeking to celebrate girlhood and other cultures and exploring concepts like grief and mortality. With Inside Out 2 poised to explore emotions in puberty and raise awareness for struggles with anxiety in adolescence, the studio could be adding another critically acclaimed film to its slate.

For those looking to catch up on Pixar’s movies before Inside Out 2, here is how to watch them in release date order from oldest to newest.

Where to Watch the Entire Sonic Cinematic Universe in Order

Sonic is the ultimate hero and the undefeated underdog. He single-handedly saved SEGA in the '90s, and when the first trailer for his live-action 2020 film debuted, it became the center of jokes and memes thanks to Sonic’s terrifyingly real animation. But after the movie received tons of praise from audiences and grossed more than $319 million at the box office, one thing became clear: Sonic is no joke. Check out our guide to find out where you can watch every movie and show in the Sonic Cinematic Universe in order. We'll also show you if there are options to watch Sonic movies legally for free in the United States.

What is the Sonic Cinematic Universe?

A lot of fans are probably wondering what exactly the “Sonic cinematic universe” is. It’s all the films, shows, and shorts that take place in the new live-action era of Sonic. Believe it or not, Sonic has actually had quite a few shows throughout his three decades – like Sonic the Hedgehog (1993), Sonic Underground (1999), and Sonic X (2003). So it’s important to differentiate that the new franchise doesn’t include those older entries.

So, where does the Sonic Cinematic Universe start? That would be with 2020’s Sonic the Hedgehog , where Sonic uses a golden ring to transport himself to Earth. But once Dr. Robotnik discovers his location, Sonic is forced to escape with the help of his new friend (played excellently by James Marsden).

Thanks to the movie’s success, it was followed by Sonic the Hedgehog 2 in 2022. This time around, Dr. Robotnik is back for revenge and audiences get to see more iconic Sonic characters brought to life like Knuckles and Tails. The mid-credits scene also introduces the villainous Shadow, who is going to play a large role in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 later in 2024…and be voiced by none other than Keanu Reeves.

There’s also the spin-off series Knuckles , which premiered in April 2024. The show centers around Knuckles, who helps the dimwitted town sheriff by teaching him the ways of the echidna warriors. The show features a fantastic cast that includes Hollywood veterans like Christopher Lloyd and Stockard Channing, as well as both Tika Sumpter and Ben Schwartz reprising their roles from the film series. In the franchise’s timeline, Knuckles fills the gap between Sonic 2 and Sonic 3.

There’s also a non-canonical short film Sonic Drone Home which is technically part of the new Sonic Cinematic Universe as well. The short was released as part of the special features on the Sonic the Hedgehog 2 Blu-Ray and follows Sonic, Knuckles, and Tails as they encounter a (somewhat evil) scrapyard robot who loves poetry. Luckily, the short has been uploaded to YouTube for anyone who wants to watch it.

How can I watch the Sonic Cinematic Universe online?

You can find out where to watch every entry in the Sonic Cinematic Universe using our guide below. This includes every official entry into the live action Sonic movie series in release order, and every streaming option currently available to viewers in the United States.

Where to Watch the Entire Hotel Transylvania Series In Order

In 2012, Hotel Transylvania became an unexpected hit film. Released at the end of September (one of the worst months for cinemas), the movie ended up grossing over $358 million globally. Since then, three more films and a TV series have been released in the franchise. Check out our guide below to find out where to watch the entire Hotel Transylvania franchise in order.

The original Hotel Transylvania film starred a huge array of Saturday Night Live alums, like Adam Sandler , Andy Samberg, and Molly Shannon, along with other big names like Selena Gomez. The movie centers around a monsters-only hotel in Transylvania run by the vampire (and overprotective single-father), Count Dracula. But everything changes when Johnny, a human, checks into the hotel, unaware of who inhabits it. Things go even more awry when he starts to fall in love with Dracula’s daughter.

Then, in 2015 the sequel Hotel Transylvania 2 began by showing that Johnny and Dracula’s daughter Mavis got married and had a baby. But, questions arise about whether the baby will be a vampire or a human. The entire original cast returned for the sequel, and more comedic actors joined in on the fun too, like Mel Brooks, Nick Offerman, and Megan Mullally. The movie became an even bigger hit than the original, grossing more than $474 million globally.

From 2017-2020, there was also Hotel Transylvania: The Series . The show is actually a prequel to the first movie and follows a younger Mavis who has adventures throughout the hotel with her friends. The animated series had a different voice cast from the films and ran for 52 episodes. For hardcore fans of the franchise it’s a fun addition to watch, but seeing the show isn’t necessary to enjoy the films.

In Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation , the gang desperately needs a vacation, so they book a cruise. Little do they know, the infamous vampire hunter Van Helsing is onboard along with his great-granddaughter Ericka. But, despite the Van Helsings' desire to kill Dracula… Ericka finds herself falling in love. Once again, the entire main cast reprised their roles, this time joined by newcomers like Chrissy Teigen and Kathryn Hahn.

The fourth film, Hotel Transylvania: Transformania , was released as an Amazon Prime exclusive in 2022. True to the movie’s title, this time around all the humans become monsters and vice versa. The only way for Johnny and Dracula to turn back to their old selves is to finally love each other and see each other as family.

Currently, there’s no news about a potential fifth film (though there are a bunch of fake fan-made trailers on YouTube). Hopefully fans will get a fifth installment, but until then, check out our guide below to find out where you can stream all four Hotel Transylvania movies and the prequel series.

How to Watch The Matrix Movies in Order (and Where to Watch Them)

In this guide, we’ll show you how to watch The Matrix franchise in order and show you where you can watch them on popular streaming services in the United States. We’ll also let you know if there are options to stream The Matrix movies legally for free.

In 1999, The Matrix became an overnight sensation when the directorial duo Lana and Lilly Wachowski unveiled their kung fu science fiction classic to the world. Starring Keanu Reeves as Neo, Carrie-Anne Moss as Trinity and Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus, this groundbreaking movie grossed $460 million worldwide at the box office on a $63 million budget. This marked the beginning of an ongoing blockbuster franchise that is still beloved by fans today.

The Matrix franchise now includes a trilogy ( The Matrix , The Matrix Reloaded , The Matrix Revolutions ), an anthology of anime short films ( The Animatrix ) and a soft meta-reboot ( The Matrix Resurrections ). There are also tentative plans for an upcoming fifth installment by Warner Bros. Whether you’re watching The Matrix for the first time or rewatching the classic sci-fi franchise, this guide shows you where to watch them all online and the different viewing orders (release vs chronological).

How to watch The Matrix movies in order

If you only want to watch The Matrix feature-length movies, you can watch them chronologically in exactly the same way they were released.

The Matrix (1999)

The Matrix Reloaded (2003)

The Matrix Revolutions (2003)

The Matrix: Resurrections (2021)

This is a great viewing order if you are new to the franchise and want to enjoy the main storyline without getting overwhelmed by the franchise’s expanded universe of short films and canonical video games. However, the Wachowskis and Warner Bros. have always been ambitious when expanding The Matrix as a multimedia franchise. They have released several canonical stories in video games (Enter the Matrix, The Matrix Online and Path of Neo) and The Animatrix. In particular, The Animatrix offers some of the franchise’s best storylines that you won’t want to miss. So, if you’re ready to ‘take the red pill’ and go deeper, here’s how to watch the franchise in its entirety.

How to watch entire The Matrix franchise in chronological order

While watching the Matrix movies in order isn’t too complicated, this becomes more difficult if you want to watch the entire story unfold in every movie, short film and video game. Technically, The Matrix video games Enter the Matrix, The Path of Neo and The Matrix Online are all canonical, so we’ve included these in our complete Matrix timeline. Similarly, the short films included in The Animatrix anthology take place at various times throughout the story.

The Animatrix: The Second Renaissance, Part I and II

The Animatrix: A Detective Story

The Animatrix: Kid's Story

The Animatrix: Final Flight of the Osiris

Enter the Matrix – Video game

The Matrix Reloaded

The Matrix Revolutions

The Matrix: Path of Neo – Video game

The Matrix Online: The Matrix Online – Video game

The Animatrix: Beyond

The Matrix: Resurrections

The Animatrix: World Record – Exact timeframe unknown

The Animatrix: Matriculated – Exact timeframe unknown

The Animatrix: Program – Exact timeframe unknown

The Animatrix: The Second Renaissance, Part I and II takes place during the human/machine war in the mid-21st century. According to Morpheus’ estimations, everything from The Animatrix: A Detective Story until The Animatrix: Beyond then takes place circa 2199. The Matrix: Resurrections picks up the story 18 years later. Three Animatrix shorts have no discernable timeframe, so the best option is to watch those last.

The Matrix documentaries

The Matrix Revisited (2001)

Another important release for Matrix completists is The Matrix Revisited. This 2001 documentary shows the making of the first movie in 1999, revealing how many of the stunts were performed and explaining the movie’s revolutionary CGI techniques.

Where can I watch The Matrix movies in release order?

Below you can find the latest streaming information for every Matrix movie. You can check each movie’s availability on streaming services and find out if they are available online.

Where To Watch Every Fifty Shades of Grey Movie in Order

Shortly after becoming one of the fastest-selling adult paperbacks of all time, E. L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey earned a film adaptation . The film was a major commercial success, leading to the whole book series being adapted into a movie trilogy. This guide will demonstrate where and how viewers can watch and stream the entire Fifty Shades of Grey series in order.

The first movie in the series, Fifty Shades of Grey , premiered in 2015, starring Dakota Johnson in the lead role of Anastasia “Ana” Steele and Jamie Dornan in the role of Christian Grey. It is often credited with kickstarting both Johnson and Dornan’s careers. Like the book, the film follows Ana’s experiences as she finds herself falling for the billionaire businessman Christian, though his interest in BDSM complicates their relationship.

Similar to the books, Fifty Shades of Grey received mixed-to-negative reviews but was a major commercial hit, grossing $381 million on a budget of $55 million. Although many disagree on the movie’s quality and how it chooses to frame BDSM, it has garnered widespread attention for tackling topics considered “taboo” and highlighting women’s sexuality.

Hence, it wasn’t long before the sequel, Fifty Shades Darker , was greenlit, with Johnson and Dornan returning. Luke Grimes and Rita Ora also returned to reprise their roles as Mia and Elliott Grey, respectively. Anticipation for this movie was relatively high, especially since James’ husband, Niall Leonard, signed on to write the script. The sequel sees the story heat up as Christian’s past comes back to haunt him while he tries to rekindle his relationship with Ana. Although Fifty Shades Darker received even poorer reviews than the original, earning just an 11% score on Rotten Tomatoes, it matched the original’s commercial success.

In 2018, the final movie in the series, Fifty Shades Freed , premiered. Johnson, Dornan, Grimes, and Ora returned while Leonard wrote the script again. The plot allows viewers to see the culmination of Christian and Ana’s relationship. Like its predecessor, the final film was also critically panned but proved a box office success. Despite its mixed reception, the series’ subject matter ensures the conversation and interest around it remains ongoing.

For viewers wishing to delve into the erotica series, here is where to watch it in order. There is only one viewing order, as the chronological and release date orders are the same.

Where to Watch Mad Max Movies in Order – A Streaming Guide

Check out our guide to watching all the Mad Max movies online including 1979's original film, Tom Hardy in Fury Road and the Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga prequel in 2024 starring Anya Taylor-Joy . Here you can find out how to watch every Mad Max movie in order (chronological vs release) and where to watch them all on streaming services in the United States. This includes the latest offers from services such as Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+. We'll also let you know if you can watch any of the Mad Max movies online for free.

How to watch Mad Max movies in release order

The first Mad Max film premiered in 1979 and was set in a near-future dystopian Australia where society has collapsed due to oil shortages and widespread ecocide. Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson) works for the only remaining law enforcement agency in the country, the Main Force Patrol, and he’s tasked with roaming the wasteland to hopefully bring as much justice as he can.

The sequel, Mad Max 2 , released two years later in 1981, sees Max discover a small community living in a village built around a working oil rig. After noticing the village is constantly attacked, he tries to strike a deal: protect them in exchange for fuel.

The third film, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome , has become arguably the most iconic. Released in 1985, Beyond Thunderdome stars Tina Turner as Aunty Entity, the leader of an outpost that gets its power from an underground refinery. Max is enlisted to take down the ruler of the underworld, who is plotting to overthrow Aunty Entity.

Mad Max fans had to wait 30 years until the next release in 2015, when Mad Max: Fury Road premiered to critical acclaim. This time around, Max is played by Tom Hardy. Fury Road follows Max as he joins forces with Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron), who is trying to liberate a group of “wives” who have been imprisoned by Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne). Mad Max director George Miller has never been clear on whether Fury Road is a sequel to Thunderdome or a reboot.

The next movie to watch in release order is Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga , the prequel to Fury Road. It portrays a young Imperator Furiosa, this time played by Anya Taylor-Joy. She is taken from the Green Place of Many Mothers and falls into the hands of a dangerous biker horde.

There’s also another Mad Max sequel in the works, titled Mad Max: The Wasteland. The film is still in the early stages of development, but it appears to be a sequel to Fury Road and will see Hardy reprise his role.

How to watch Mad Max movies in chronological order

Because Mad Max is treated like a mythological character in George Miller's post-apocalyptic franchise, the exact order of the movies isn't as clear (or important) as other franchises. However, this is our suggested order if you want to follow Mad Max's adventures through the Wasteland.

Mad Max (1979)
Max Mad 2: The Road Warrior (1981)
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024)
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Where can I watch Mad Max movies online?

You can use this guide to find out where to watch every Mad Max movie online. Browse through the complete franchise below to see every streaming offer for viewers in the United States. This includes the availability of Mad Max movies to buy, rent and stream on all popular streaming services.

Where To Watch Every Disney Live-Action Remake in Order

Recently, Walt Disney Studios has been ramping up its remake strategy. The studio is capitalizing on the enduring legacies of its biggest animated classics, such as Beauty and the Beauty , Peter Pan , and Pinocchio , by remaking them in live-action. These remakes have been extremely successful at the box office, appealing to older audiences through nostalgia while giving younger audiences a chance to experience the magic of seeing Disney's iconic stories on the big screen for the first time. In this guide, you can find out how to watch every live action Disney remake on streaming services in the United States.

Disney began dabbling in remakes in the 1990s with Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book , 101 Dalmatians , The Jungle Book: Mowgli’s Story , and 102 Dalmatians . However, the studio only distributed (but did not produce) Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, while Mowgli's Story was a direct-to-video release. Hence, the studio’s first big live-action adaptation success was One Hundred and One Dalmatians , which grossed $320.7 at the box office on a $67 million budget.

The studio waited until 2010 to release another remake, starting with Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland . Technology advancements meant the studio could truly capture the full scale of the classics. Disney then picked up the frequency with which it released live action remakes.

Beauty and the Beast (2017) is one of the biggest standout remakes. Emma Watson and Dan Stevens bring Belle and Beast to life in an enchanting, magical movie with lavish details and beautifully crafted songs. It also became one of the highest-grossing movies of all time, solidifying the appeal of live action Disney remakes.

The studio also released The Jungle Book and The Lion King . While these remakes were CGI-heavy, the special effects were so lifelike that it’s difficult to label them as “animated,” especially since The Jungle Book had a prominent human component in actor Neel Sethi, who brought Mowgli to life.

Disney has gotten creative with its remakes in other ways, too, such as with Christopher Robin and Cruella , which are adaptations of Winnie the Pooh and One Hundred and One Dalmations, respectively. Instead of being straightforward adaptations, they were live-action reimaginings that probed the iconic villain Cruella’s ( Emma Stone ) origins and the life of an adult Christopher Robin (Ewan McGregor).

Following the recent success of the Halle Bailey-led The Little Mermaid , Disney is developing more live action remakes of their own classics, with Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and Moana on the horizon.

Where can I watch live action Disney remakes online?

Here are all of Disney’s live-action adaptations in release date order, from oldest to newest. In this guide, we've included the latest streaming information so you can easily find where to watch every live action Disney remake. You can also use JustWatch to find out which movies are available to stream legally for free.

How to Watch Pitch Perfect Movies in Order – A Streaming Guide

Aca-scuse me? If you’re looking to watch the three Pitch Perfect movies and their spin-off series Bumper in Berlin, check out our guide below to find out where you can stream them all.

Pitch Perfect premiered in 2012 and was somewhat of a sleeper hit. The film centered around a struggling college acapella group, the Barden Bellas, who hilariously struggle to return their group to its former glory. It starred Anna Kendrick in what many consider her career-defining role, as well as Brittany Snow, Anna Camp, and Rebel Wilson in her breakout role. Pitch Perfect initially had a limited release, followed by a wide release the following week.

Thanks to social media and word of mouth, the movie gained tons of publicity. While it never topped the box office, it continued to perform well week after week, staying in theaters well into February of the following year. In total, the movie made $115 million on a budget of just $17 million.

The success of the first movie led to a sequel, Pitch Perfect 2 , which premiered in 2015. Now, the Barden Bellas are among the top acapella groups in the world…but after a scandal, the Bellas need to save their reputation and re-earn their glory. The film was an even bigger success than the original, grossing more than $287 million.

A third film, Pitch Perfect 3 , came out in 2017. The Bellas are now graduated and struggling with the monotony of their jobs. But they hatch a plan to reunite and perform at a USO tour overseas. The movie was the biggest and craziest yet, involving global travel and even kidnapping. However, Pitch Perfect 3 received worse reviews than the first two films and remains the final Pitch Perfect movie to date.

But in 2022, the franchise received a spin-off series with Pitch Perfect: Bumper in Berlin . The show follows Bumper, who has been a struggling musician since graduation. But after one of his songs becomes a hit in Germany, he heads to Berlin to hopefully jumpstart his career. The show had a fantastic cast including Adam DeVine who reprised his role as Bumper, along with Sarah Hyland and Jameela Jamil. After initially being renewed for a second season, the 2023 writers’ and actors’ strike ended up causing the show’s cancellation.

Hopefully more Pitch Perfect films are on the way, but until then, find out where to watch all three Pitch Perfect movies and Bumper in Berlin with our guide below.

How to watch the LEGO Movie franchise in order

The LEGO brand is huge, spanning movies, TV series, animated specials, video games, and of course, the iconic block toys. One of the brand’s biggest successes has been The LEGO Movie franchise. While LEGO has produced tons of movies and series, like the various LEGO Star Wars specials on Disney+, The LEGO Movie franchise is its own universe separate from the other LEGO franchises. Check out our guide below to find out how to watch every entry in The LEGO Movie series in order.

The series began in 2014 with The LEGO Movie . Starring Chris Pratt , Elizabeth Banks, and Morgan Freeman, the movie centers around a LEGO city under attack and the heroes who must save it. In the finale, however, it turns out that it was all taking place inside a giant LEGO set-up in a family’s basement. The movie had some surprisingly great humor and became a hit, earning more than $468 million at the box office.

Then, in 2017, the film received two spin-off sequels. First up was The LEGO Batman Movie . Will Arnett reprised his role as Batman and was joined by other stars like Michael Cera as Robin, Zach Galifianakis as the Joker, and Rosario Dawson as Batgirl. In classic DC fashion, Batman must stop Joker’s evil plans…but instead of being gritty like modern Batman movies, the film was loaded with lots of LEGO humor.

Just seven months later, another spin-off hit theaters. The LEGO Ninjago Movie centered around the famous ninja-inspired LEGO brand of the same name. The brand already had the long-running animated TV show Ninjago , which began airing in 2011, but the film is actually considered part of The LEGO Movie universe instead. The plot follows the son of an evil mastermind who does everything in his power to stop his dad from taking over the world.

Also in 2017, the series Unikitty! premiered and followed the fan-favorite character Princess Unikitty from the first film. As an episodical, the show followed the various misadventures and hijinks of the Princess and her fellow inhabitants of the Unikingdom. The show ran for three seasons, airing over 100 episodes.

The most recent addition to the franchise is 2019’s The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part . This time around, the team faces their biggest threat yet: space invaders destroying everything in sight. The hilarious part is that the space invaders are actually toys from the LEGO Duplo line, which is the brand’s toy collection made for toddlers.

According to Variety, Universal Studios acquired the rights to produce LEGO content in 2020, so more movies are expected sometime in the future. Until then, check out our guide below to find out where you can watch every entry in The LEGO Movie franchise so far.

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4 New Horror Books to Read, Including Stephen King’s Latest Collection

Our columnist reviews May’s most chilling releases.

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This illustration features an assortment of scary objects — a mouth with spiky sharp teeth, a clown’s face, bat silhouettes and moths — but rendered in bright colors that belie their menace.

By Gabino Iglesias

Gabino Iglesias is a writer, editor, literary critic and professor. He is the Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson award-winning author of “The Devil Takes You Home.”

YOU LIKE IT DARKER: Stories (Scribner, 502 pp., $30) is an outstanding collection from Stephen King, the master of horror, that features 12 eerie tales full of darkness, loss, danger, resilience and even aliens.

There are no throwaways here, but some stories merit individual attention. The first story,“Two Talented Bastids,” opens the book brilliantly. It’s a tale about an aging author and an old friend who was a famous painter that begins normally enough and then delves into the dark secret of how both creatives got their skills. Its gradual slide into terror perfectly sets the tone for the entire collection. “The Fifth Step,” about a man who opens up to a stranger in a park, is a literary shanking — it’s fast and violent in equal measure. “On Slide Inn Road,” about a family that encounters two murderers while stuck on a country road, is a master class in tension and is full of King’s dark humor. “Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream,” the crown jewel of the collection, is a 150-page crime novella about a man dealing with the aftermath of a strange dream and the obsessed detective with arithmomania hellbent on pinning a crime on him.

This book will please any horror reader, but loyal King fans will find these stories particularly rewarding, especially because of the callbacks to his previous works.

“You like it darker? Fine. So do I,” King states in his afterword. He knows what we like, and he delivers. This collection proves King is still king.

Layla Martínez’s debut novel, WOODWORM (Two Lines Press, 149 pp., $21.95), is a wonderfully bizarre and ceaselessly creepy novel about women trapped in a haunted house where shadows devour people.

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COMMENTS

Halloween Ends movie review & film summary (2022)
Rather than pick up after the chaos of the last film that left Judy Greer's Karen Nelson dead—a stupid choice that still annoys me—"Halloween Ends" opens in 2019 with a new character named Corey Cunningham (the downright bad Rohan Campbell, poorly directed to a dull performance).He's babysitting for a kid in Haddonfield who's a little scared by all the murder around town.
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As the two reminisce and recover, Michael Myers escapes the burning house from the end of the first film and begins a truly brutal rampage. On that note, "Halloween Kills" is a much darker film than the last one, filled with more than a dozen of what slasher fans used to call "quality kills.". As Myers makes his way across Haddonfield ...
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'Halloween Ends' director David Gordon Green talks spoilers and the stunt Jamie Lee Curtis insisted on doing herself

Green felt opening the movie with a kid's death would grab audiences 'by the throat'

Green defends his choice to not have Michael Myers show up until 30 minutes into the movie

Michael Myers might not have special powers, but Green says he's an 'extraordinary human'