5 Franchises Where Every Movie Is a Masterpiece

Franchises, by their very nature, work against themselves. The more successful a franchise becomes and the more entries are made, the more the franchise risks becoming stale, repetitive, and diminished. It’s an ouroboros of futility and self-destruction. It’s why we have so few franchises where every entry could be considered a masterpiece. Even the most critically acclaimed or fan-favorite franchises have entries that, if not outright bad, couldn’t reasonably be considered masterpieces. Many have maintained a commendable level of quality throughout their entire runs, but few are perfect all the way through. Even some of the best have been ruined by an unnecessary prequel, sequel or spin-off that brings the whole series down an entire grade. Every Lord of the Rings has a Hobbit, every Harry Potter has some Fantastic Beasts.

When it comes to franchises like those two, many might count their prequels as separate and distinct, but if we’re going to grade them based on quality, we need to take every single entry into account, no matter how painful. That’s rule number one, and rule number two for this completely biased and subjective listing of masterpiece franchises will be that a franchise must consist of at least three entries to be considered as such; after all, a franchise is launched off the success of a sequel, not a singular film. If The Empire Strikes Back had flopped hard and George Lucas had been run out of Hollywood, we’d all consider Star Wars a failed attempt at a franchise. Don’t like that distinction? Please see yourself to the comments to argue the greatest two-film franchises. Now, without further ado, and within the arbitrary parameters that’ve been set, these are the five movie franchises where every movie is a masterpiece.

The Apu Trilogy (1955-1959)

Image via Aurora Film Corporation

It feels like cinephile heresy to apply such a capitalist term to an artistic achievement like Satyajit Ray‘s Apu Trilogy. Whether you call it a franchise, a series, or a trilogy, there are enough films here to meet the qualifications, and there are few franchises (ugh) that could claim to be as tremendously influential or as deeply humanistic as Ray’s realist coming-of-age masterpieces. Full transparency, this entry could just as easily have been written about Masaki Kobayashi‘s trilogy The Human Condition, but that trilogy is often referred to as a single work, so, for purely arbitrary reasons, it’s Ray’s films that will get the praise this time. It’s futile to argue that they don’t deserve it, as Pather Panchali, Aparajito, and The World of Apu are collectively among the most impactful efforts in Indian cinema and, individually, often ranked among the greatest films ever made. Charting the development and maturation of the titular Apu from childhood through young adulthood, the films announced Ray as an independent filmmaker with a powerful voice and talent to be watched.

Pather Panchali was Ray’s directorial debut. Based on Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay‘s novel of the same name, the film was adapted by Ray into a series of notes and storyboards and was shot without a formal script. It details the life of Apu (Subir Banerjee) and his family as they live in poverty in rural Bengal. Made on a limited budget that was scraped together by Ray, it’s a slowly paced and intimately detailed film of social realism. The success of Pather Panchali led Ray to direct the follow-up Aparajito, based primarily on Bandopadhyay’s second novel, which follows the further tribulations of Apu (Pinaki Sengupta and Smaran Ghosal) and his family as they suffer the death of his father, leaving only Apu and his mother, with their relationship later strained by his success. The World of Apu adapts the remainder of the Aparajito novel and follows Apu (Soumitra Chatterjee) into adulthood, marriage, widowership and fatherhood. It culminates Ray’s trilogy with poignancy, and all three films remain essential masterpieces of international cinema.

The Dollars Trilogy (1964-1966)

Sergio Leone gave the cinematic community the Spaghetti Western and directed three of its most essential and influential films with his Dollars Trilogy. The three loosely connected films, which all star Clint Eastwood as the Man with No Name, brought a distinct style and attitude to the existing Euro-westerns, and precipitated a wave of similarly stylish films with anti-heroes. While Eastwood’s laconic character was given his moniker by the films’ American distributor in an effort to connect them all, there’s no denying the tissue shared between A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. All three completely redefined the Western genre for the better part of a decade, and Leone’s direction, as well as Eastwood’s performance and the iconic musical scores by Ennio Morricone, still hold influence across all genres of cinema today.

A Fistful of Dollars introduces “Joe” (Eastwood), a stranger who rides into a small town where warring families vie for control. The plot is lifted wholesale from Akira Kurosawa‘s Yojimbo, which resulted in a lawsuit by production company Toho, though both films owe a debt to Dashiell Hammett‘s Red Harvest. For a Few Dollars More features an original plot where the stranger, now a bounty hunter called Manco, reluctantly joins forces with fellow hunter Colonel Mortimer (Lee Van Cleef) to collect the reward on an infamous outlaw. Eastwood and Van Cleef would both return for the epic final installment, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, as the titular Good and Bad, respectively, two gunslingers in search of a hidden stash of Confederate gold. Joining in the search is Tuco (Eli Wallach), aka the Ugly, and the film is one of the most significant Western masterpieces of the 20th century. It was the pinnacle of the Spaghetti Western genre and of Leone’s revisionist revitalization.

The Before Trilogy (1995-2013)

Image via Warner Independent Pictures

Richard Linklater‘s casual, nuanced and beautiful portrayal of a relationship developed over three films across eighteen years is perhaps the greatest cinematic achievement in the romance genre ever accomplished. It certainly is for an American filmmaker, and the realistic courtship and relationship between the two lead characters in Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, and Before Midnight blows anything with the name Nicholas Sparks attached to it out of the water. As equally responsible for the films’ success as Linklater are Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, who not only bring a natural chemistry to their characters of Jesse and Céline, but also helped develop them in the scripts as well, being officially credited and Oscar-nominated for the latter two films. The Before Trilogy may not be what anyone thinks of first when considering Hollywood franchises, but the films are more emotionally exhilarating than any spandex-clad superhero film.

We first meet Jesse and Céline in Before Sunrise, as they meet on a train to Vienna, where they spend the night together, experiencing the city as they slowly reveal themselves to each other. At sunrise, they leave each other, promising to return to Vienna in six months. In Before Sunset, set and made nine years later, the two reconnect in Paris, as they share what became of their individual lives in the intervening years and the regrets they hold. It ends with them staying together, and another nine years later, in Before Midnight, the two are now married with children. On a vacation in Greece, they grapple with their personal and professional decisions, and whether they even still love each other. It’s an honest portrayal of love, and the Before Trilogy is never afraid to acknowledge the messiness that comes with it.

Harold & Kumar (2004-2011)

Image via Warner Bros.

Yes, the Harold & Kumar films may be crass, juvenile and politically incorrect, but they are also undeniably hilarious, clever and surprisingly inclusive. You may not like it, but this is what peak cinema looks like. Debuting in the mid-2000s amid a new wave of raunchy, R-rated comedies, the films were built on the comedy chemistry of John Cho and Kal Penn, who were ignominiously identified as the “Asian guy from American Pie” and the “Indian guy from Van Wilder” in the first film’s marketing. As the uptight Harold and the slacker stoner Kumar, the two actors join the rarefied air of classic duos like Cheech & Chong and Bill & Ted. Their adventures range from a midnight munchies adventure to a satire of post-9/11 America to a heartfelt Christmas film, all of them featuring Neil Patrick Harris as a drug addicted sex pest version of himself.

Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle is their first film, a road movie that never leaves New Jersey as the duo seek out the titular fast food franchise and get caught up in all kinds of raunchy antics. They eventually make it to White Castle, and Harold tells his cute neighbor how he really feels about her. They both try to follow her to Amsterdam, where, after being racially profiled as terrorists and imprisoned in Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay. On the run from Homeland Security, they break up a Ku Klux Klan rally and get high with George W. Bush in a broadly accurate depiction of life in America in the late 2000s. A few years later, after Penn had worked for the Obama Administration, and Cho had joined Starfleet, they returned to celebrate A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas. The yuletide shenanigans are just as crazy as their two prior efforts, featuring a baby on cocaine, a stop-motion animated sequence, and Danny Trejo shooting his load onto a Christmas tree in 3D. A fourth movie is currently in development, which means we can expect to see this duo at least one last time. Ironically, they’re masterpieces, all of them, but maybe unironically, too.

‘The Trip’ (2010-2020)

Image via Picturehouse Entertainment

Featuring real-life friends and comedians Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon as fictionalized versions of themselves, The Trip franchise was broadcast in the UK as four individual series, which were edited into feature films for their American release. Featuring restaurant tours of the UK, Italy, Spain and Greece, the films are highly improvised hangouts where the two stars get to showcase their comedic talents, including dueling Michael Caine impressions. Between the verbal jousting are some surprising insights into the two men’s careers, their friendship and the very nature of male relationships. Each installment was directed by Michael Winterbottom, known for his provocative dramas that often blur the lines between reality and fiction, and The Trip films are by far his coziest work.

Describing the “plots” of the individual films is like describing a fun lunch with friends. The humor is all in the moment, and you really just need to be there to enjoy it. The films could be compared to any number of buddy comedies or road movies, but they are far looser in structure, and more comparable to something from the likes of Jim Jarmusch or Christopher Guest, but with the distinctly English sense of humor of Brydon and Coogan. The two previously collaborated with Winterbottom on Tristam Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, where they also played fictionalized versions of themselves, but The Trip franchise is even more free-form. They’re little comedic masterpieces that are as comforting as the food enjoyed by the two stars.