Every “Final Destination” movie, ranked from worst to best

Michael Lee Simpson, Britt HayesSat, October 10, 2026 at 1:20 PM UTC

0

Ali Larter and Devon Sawa in ‘Final Destination’; Ali Larter and A.J. Cook in ‘Final Destination 2’; Brec Bassinger in ‘Final Destination: Bloodlines’Credit: New Line Cinema/Courtesy Everett; Shane Harvey/New Line Cinema/Courtesy Everett; Eric Milner/Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.EW definitively ranks all six films in the death-obsessed horror franchise.

The Final Destination movies prove that there is a fate worse than death — like getting obliterated by a truckload of poorly secured logs or frying to death in a tanning bed.

Death is the ultimate villain in Final Destination (hence the title), a franchise that takes glee in gratuitously killing its protagonists via elaborate accidents, effectively punishing them for cheating Death and refusing to die as intended. The Final Destination movies embody the essence of horror, allowing us to explore our fear of death and release our anxieties through grisly spectacle. In other words, watching a bunch of characters die in exceedingly improbable and cartoonishly gory scenarios is kind of like therapy. (These statements have not been evaluated by the American Psychiatric Association.)

Released in 2000, the first film in the series follows a teen whose premonition saves him and several other passengers from a horrible plane explosion. Unfortunately, Death comes to collect its debts as the survivors begin dying one by one in Rube Goldberg-esque accidents. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, franchise creator Jeffrey Reddick explained that Final Destination actually began as a spec script for The X-Files.

“The original idea came from an article I read about a woman who was on vacation and her mother told her to switch flights because she had a bad feeling. The woman switched planes, and the plane she was scheduled to be on crashed,” said Reddick, who thought it was an interesting setup for an episode of the Fox sci-fi series. “I had one of Scully’s brothers have the premonition, and it went from there. My friends at New Line read the script and they were like, ‘Dude, you should develop this as a feature.’” So he did.

Since the release of Final Destination, the franchise has produced five sequels, the most recent of which, Bloodlines, was released in 2025. Keep reading for EW’s ranking of every movie in the Final Destination series.

01 of 06

The Final Destination (2009)

(From top to bottom) Bobby Campo and Shantel VanSanten in ‘The Final Destination’Credit: Everett Collection

Released in 3D, The Final Destination falsely promised one last celebration for this long-running horror narrative. College students Nick (Bobby Campo), Lori (Shantel VanSanten), Hunt (Nick Zano), and Janet (Haley Webb) are on semester break, cheering in the grandstands of an auto race at the McKinley Speedway when Nick’s premonition shifts to reality. The stadium erupts in pandemonium as race cars crash, stray tires decapitate spectators, and concrete crushes the crowd — and the surviving characters later perish in a string of poorly executed, straight-to-video-worthy deaths.

Unlike its predecessors, The Final Destination seems to go nowhere. After hitting the bullseye with that phenomenal first Final Destination sequel years prior, the mark is missed here with uninspired filmmaking, a disjointed screenplay, and anticlimactic scares.

02 of 06

Final Destination 3 (2006)

Amanda Crew, Ryan Merriman, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead in ‘Final Destination 3’Credit: Everett Collection

When high schooler Wendy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) boards a roller coaster called Devil’s Flight with her friends and other classmates, a premonition causes her to have a meltdown that persuades nine people to hop off. Then, skeptics who stay on the ride plunge hundreds of feet to the concrete as the hydraulics securing the restraints fail. But those who skipped Death are now targets of ingenious kills in salons, gyms, drive-thru restaurants, and hardware stores.

“One of the reasons why Final Destination is such an enduring franchise is because the audience has a real chance of experiencing the horrors the characters face on screen,” director James Wong told EW. “While it’s unlikely you’ll have a face-to-face with a serial killer like your typical slasher movie, I can’t tell you how many times people have come up and told me a story about how they had a ‘Final Destination moment.’”

03 of 06

Advertisement

Final Destination 5 (2011)

Tony Todd in ‘Final Destination 5’Credit: Everett Collection

While riding a bus on the North Bay Bridge, doom flashes before Sam’s (Nicholas D’Agosto) eyes and he convinces his colleagues to evacuate before the structure collapses. In classic Final Destination fashion, the survivors inevitably meet graphic deaths — for example, a Buddha statue crushes Isaac (P. J. Byrne) during an acupuncture appointment — with some being influenced by real-life events.

But Molly (Emma Bell), Nathan (Arlen Escarpeta), and Peter (Miles Fisher) steal the show, leading us to an unexpected twist: Final Destination 5 turns out to be a prequel, not a sequel. After the disastrous 2009 film at the bottom of this list, Steven Quale’s follow-up restored some faith in the franchise, with the director bringing his cinematic flair to the production.

04 of 06

Final Destination: Bloodlines (2025)

Brec Bassinger in ‘Final Destination Bloodlines’Credit: Eric Milner/Warner Bros

Released 14 years after the previous film in the franchise, Final Destination Bloodlines avoids the legacy sequel trap, instead inventing a mythology of its own based on new characters — a mythology that’s every bit as delightfully convoluted as the series’ famously absurd death sequences. And there are plenty of worthy additions on that front, from an all-timer of an opening sequence that culminates in a morbidly crowd-pleasing death (we won’t spoil, but you’ll be surprised at how much you’re rooting for it to happen) to an ingenious end via MRI machine.

Directed by franchise newcomers Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein, Bloodlines is difficult to place in the series ranking. While it’s arguably as entertaining and satisfying to watch as the first two entries, it’s also the most recent, so it hasn’t had the chance to stand the test of time. It might be slightly better than the second film, but we’ll have to wait a few more years to know for certain.

05 of 06

Final Destination 2 (2003)

A. J. Cook and Ali Larter in ‘Final Destination 2’Credit: Everett Collection

Perhaps the most famous sequence of the entire franchise is Final Destination 2‘s “log truck scene,” in which Kimberly (A.J. Cook) foresees a catastrophic highway pileup and saves several motorists from the wreckage. Here, Ali Larter returns as Clear Rivers — the Sidney Prescott-esque survivor of the original film, now hiding from Death in a psychiatric hospital — and uses her knowledge of the previous film’s events to warn the new survivors. However, Death comes for them anyway, this time in reverse order, opening the door to broken necks, car explosions, and more.

Cowritten by J. Mackye Gruber and Eric Bress from a story co-credited to Reddick,this relentless, exhilarating sequel cemented the franchise’s place in horror fandom. “Almost every week, somebody sends me a photo of them behind a log truck, which is kind of fun,” Reddick told EW. “As a horror fan, I’m really grateful and humbled by the fact that something I started has had the life and the legs that it has. This is what you dream about when you’re a child. I could die happy tomorrow. I don’t want to!”

06 of 06

Final Destination (2000)

Ali Larter, Devon Sawa, and Kerr Smith in ‘Final Destination’Credit: Everett Collection

James Wong’s supernatural horror classic reminded audiences that true danger doesn’t always come from a masked villain chasing people through the dark. Sometimes, it’s an unseen force. While aboard Volée Airlines Flight 180, high schooler Alex (Devon Sawa) foresees the plane he’s taking on a class trip to Paris crashing and convinces some of his peers to get off. When the plane does crash, Death’s dominoes start to fall.

“The stories usually start off normal enough, but through a set of improbable events, people end up having a close call with death,” Wong told EW. “I myself still check for signs whenever I board a plane, and nobody wants to follow a logging truck on the highway. Final Destination has made the mundane dangerous, and if you cheated Death, well, anything and everything can kill you.”

on Entertainment Weekly

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Entertainment”