The 10 Best Third Movies In Trilogies, Ranked

This Valentine’s Day isn’t just for lovers — it’s for fans of a couple of very different franchises. While the big-name title of the weekend is “Captain America: Brave New World,” in which Anthony Mackie takes over the shield and mantle from Chris Evans, the notable counterprogramming comes in the form of a very good bear indeed: Paddington. Arriving Stateside after being released in the United Kingdom over the holidays, “Paddington in Peru” (read our review here) is the long-awaited third entry in the adaptation of Michael Bond’s stories about an upbeat and friendly bear who travels from Darkest Peru to London and is adopted by the Brown family and gets into all sorts of adventures. The rousing success of the 2018 film “Paddington 2” not only helped revive Hugh Grant’s career with his charming and flamboyant performance as a devious actor; it sent director Paul King to bigger titles like “Wonka,” and it raised the bar very high for the inevitable third chapter in the trilogy.

But let’s be real: the third entries in film trilogies aren’t always the best ones. Sometimes a second chapter, like with “Paddington 2,” can be a huge step forward from its predecessor, but it’s rare for the concluding chapter to bring things out on an incredibly high note. That said, there are some great third entries in film trilogies. Does “Paddington in Peru” belong on the list, and if so, how high should its placement be? Let’s rank the ten best third entries in film trilogies. Before we do, keep one thing in mind: if a film is part of what is now more than just a trilogy, then it’s not going to be on the list. So, for example, “Toy Story 3” absolutely would have qualified for this list … if Pixar had not eventually made a fourth film (and had a fifth one on the way). That does mean a number of big-name franchises will be absent here, because their studios just can’t keep churning out titles. Enough housekeeping — let’s go!

A theme that will recur on this list is very simple: talking about a movie that’s very good, but is a) not as good as its predecessors and b) is often seen as lesser simply because of fact a). Is “The Godfather Part III” the best film in Francis Ford Coppola’s three-film adaptation of Mario Puzo’s novel about a Mafia leader coming to power in New York City? Of course not, partly because the first two films are among the very best ever made, and each was made so close together that they feel in tandem in ways that a third entry can’t. But the fact that the bar for success for this 1990 capper is so high doesn’t mean it’s not a quality film in its own right. The final story about Mob boss Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) is a bit of an inversion of what happens in the first story; that time, Michael was the upstanding member of the Corleone family who almost inadvertently takes over for his ailing father, whereas now, he’s being beset upon on all sides as others try to wrest the power he’s wielded from him. That there are missteps in the film, such as Sofia Coppola’s performance (which is still not as bad as some people would argue), doesn’t deny the fact that Coppola is able to bring this operatic trilogy to a fitting and dramatic close, even if there was a 15-year gap between chapters.

More than a decade later, it’s hard not to watch Christopher Nolan’s final Batman movie, “The Dark Knight Rises,” and be simultaneously amazed at its disturbing prescience while also wishing it hadn’t aimed so high in its ambitions. Each film in the trilogy, starring Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne and the Caped Crusader, isn’t content to focus on just one fight with one villain, but the 2012 threequel feels overstuffed even though it clocks in at 165 minutes long. Primarily, after eight years in hibernation, Batman has to face off against the terrifying and implacable Bane (Tom Hardy), the man with the mask and the sing-songy voice. But there’s also the arrival of Catwoman (Anne Hathaway), the lengthy period of time in which Bruce has to recuperate after a devastating injury at Bane’s hands, an extended sequence in which Gotham is at the mercy of a charismatic strongman and his followers, and so much more that the film barely has time to breathe. Nolan being Nolan, there are some jaw-dropping action sequences (most notably the opening scene aboard a hijacked plane) and enough intensity to propel the film forward. But there’s arguably too much going on here, as much as Nolan’s auteurist techniques may serve the visual experience. If nothing else, it’s commendable that he seems unwilling to ever revisit the character, ensuring that this will be a three-and-out version of Batman.

Before he went fully down the rabbit hole of technological wizardry, director Robert Zemeckis went back to old-fashioned storytelling for the final entry in the “Back to the Future” trilogy. The second film, released in the fall of 1989, ends on a true cliffhanger: Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) successfully fixed his timeline to ensure that Biff Tannen didn’t oversee a hellish version of Hill Valley, but in doing so, his friend Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) was sent back to 1885 with the time-traveling DeLorean, leaving Marty in 1955. When Marty visits the 1955 version of the Doc (right after the Doc sent the original Marty back to 1985), Doc faints dead away. When the third film begins, Marty realizes he has to go back to 1885 to prevent Doc from being killed by Biff’s outlaw ancestor. Once there, “Part III” has a lot of fun playing around with Western-movie tropes (such as the name Marty gives himself, which may show up again on this list), as well as throwing familiar faces into new environments and giving Doc a love interest of his own, the kindly Clara (Mary Steenburgen). “Part III” is a more straightforward adventure than, really, either of its predecessors, but considering how ridiculous Zemeckis’ filmography has become since then, something simple is almost more enjoyable.

It’s important to note that after “Paddington in Peru,” the films on this list jump from the very good to the excellent. That’s not to say that this new film isn’t perfectly enjoyable and entertaining; it very much is, but still isn’t quite to the same level as its predecessor. That’s almost to be expected, considering a few key details that will be noticeable to anyone who recognizes enough about this franchise from the opening credits. Because Paul King was working on the aforementioned “Wonka,” neither he nor co-writer Simon Farnaby were deeply involved in this third entry. Though they’re each credited with the screen story of this adventure in which Paddington and his adopted family travel to his native Peru to locate the missing Aunt Lucy, King didn’t direct the film and neither of them wrote the script. Add to that the fact that Emily Mortimer has stepped in to play the kindly Mrs. Brown in place of Sally Hawkins, and it would be easy to wonder if this film might feel a bit hollow or stale. Fortunately, that’s not the case. New director Dougal Wilson keeps the film moving well without being frantic or relying on lazy comic gags or tropes, and new cast members Olivia Colman as a chipper nun overseeing the retirement home where Aunt Lucy lives, and Antonio Banderas as a handsome boat captain with gold on his mind, fit in very well and are clearly enjoying themselves. “Paddington in Peru” is not quite as good as its two predecessors, but the margin of quality between this and the 2015 original is actually pretty thin, which is about as good as you can ask for. 

Now, fair is fair: it’s a little difficult to carve out specific trilogies within the broader Marvel Cinematic Universe. It may be true that, for example, there are only three “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies (each directed by James Gunn, who’s now moved onto DC), but the characters within those films show up in plenty of other places. The same is even truer of Tony Stark, AKA Iron Man, since that hero has shown up in a ton of the MCU titles. But there are only (at least for now) three official, undeniable “Iron Man” movies, and “Iron Man 3” remains a hidden gem. It helps that the 2013 film was following up the not-particularly-enjoyable 2010 film “Iron Man 2,” which introduced us to Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, but is otherwise mostly best left forgotten. “Iron Man 3” reunites Robert Downey, Jr. with writer-director Shane Black, who partially aided in Downey’s revival as an actor with the neo-noir comedy “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.” With “Iron Man 3,” we do get plenty of the whiz-bang action sequences you want or expect from the MCU, such as a thrilling rescue from Iron Man as a plane is about to crash, but we also get a film that upends expectations to delightful extremes. Some fans may argue, but the big reveal with Ben Kingsley’s version of The Mandarin may yet be the single best and surprising scene in the MCU’s existence. Though this movie may not be quite as good as the 2008 original, it’s a lot of fun.

Time has been kind to “Return of the Jedi,” the 1983 film that concluded the original “Star Wars” trilogy. On one hand, no, it’s not as good as either “Star Wars” or “The Empire Strikes Back.” And yes, it does have the Ewoks being cutesy, and the barely logical notion that Luke and Leia had been twin siblings all along, hidden in plain sight. On the other hand, “The Rise of Skywalker.” That could be enough to clarify here, simply that the bar for the other concluding entries in other “Star Wars” trilogies is so low. (Some people may argue that “Revenge of the Sith” is a solid concluding entry for the prequel trilogy, but that isn’t going to fly here.) 

What this film does have are some of the better action sequences in the original trilogy, which helps it out enormously. The speeder chase in the forest of Endor is solid, but most of all, the climactic fight scene between Luke, Darth Vader, and the Emperor is just about as exciting as you could hope for from such a highly anticipated film. And the opening stretch of the story, in which the heroes save Han Solo from a lifetime of carbonite and Jabba the Hutt, is well-executed and exciting. Though it may be undeniably true that the “Star Wars” franchise is generally not very good at ending the stories it begins, “Return of the Jedi” wound up being the best-case scenario for the property, even if we didn’t all realize it back in the 1980s.

You may consider this a case of slight cheating, since “The World’s End” is more the concluding chapter of a spiritual trilogy than a true trilogy. But fans of Edgar Wright know a lot about his so-called Cornetto Trilogy, which started with the hybrid of zombie horror and romantic comedy known as “Shaun of the Dead,” followed up with the action comedy “Hot Fuzz,” and ended here with this unexpected blend of Gen X nostalgia and post-apocalyptic science-fiction. Longtime collaborators Simon Pegg and Nick Frost lead the film, as two of five friends who reunite after a long time to make a fabled trek across a series of pubs near where they grew up, only to gradually realize that the people in those pubs are being possessed by aliens with plans of world destruction. 

“The World’s End” is an absolutely outrageous and outlandish film, whose plot sounds ridiculous if you write it out or say it out loud, but Pegg, Frost, and the rest of the ensemble cast make it all effective and convincing. Partly, it’s thanks to how the film is more serious than you’d expect from the logline, since Pegg’s character, Gary King, was once the alpha of the group and is now an alcoholic whose desperate attempts to revive the past are full of pathos thanks to Pegg’s fiercely committed and sometimes unlikable performance. “The World’s End” is genuinely brilliant and uncompromising, as effective an entry as the other Cornetto films.

We have now broken the nine-year cycle for the films in the “Before” trilogy, starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, and directed by Richard Linklater. The series began in 1995 with “Before Sunrise” as Jesse (Hawke) and Celine (Delpy) meet on a train and spend an evening in Vienna together, getting to know each other and pretty clearly falling in love. In 2004, the characters returned in “Before Sunset,” an unexpected and wonderful follow-up that allowed us to learn gradually what happened to the duo in the intervening nine years and let us wonder if they might rekindle their romance after reconnecting in Paris for one more night. And then, in 2013, we got “Before Midnight,” which allowed us to see what Jesse and Celine were like as an actual couple, now parents to twin girls. 

This time, the pair are in Greece, but otherwise, the film is much the same in that it thrives heavily on the undeniable chemistry between Hawke and Delpy, as well as on Linklater’s willingness to let conversations play out at length. The “Before” trilogy is the most deceptive on this list; there are no big action sequences, no genre twists, just a fascinating and compelling series of films that rely on our ability to be charmed by two attractive individuals who can keep our interest high simply by talking to each other. But because of how amazing and romantic the first two entries were, the stakes were high for “Before Midnight,” and Linklater, Hawke, and Delpy matched audience expectations. Here’s a case where there certainly could be a fourth film — all of the key players are still working in the business — but there shouldn’t be. Three perfect entries is enough.

More than twenty years later, it’s honestly impossible to imagine how on Earth or Middle-earth Peter Jackson and his filmmaking team were able to pull off “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, let alone making an incredible final entry with “The Return of the King” in 2003. Here is a film series that had its principal photography take place over the course of more than a year, months before audiences had seen any of the films. What if audiences hadn’t flocked to the fantasy adventure about a group of unlikely heroes who team up to destroy the One Ring so that it cannot destroy humanity itself? What if the films weren’t any good? Whatever the case, Jackson did pull off the unthinkable, especially with the final film, which netted a whopping 11 Oscars (a number as impressive as the fact that the film was nominated for that many Oscars, meaning it didn’t lose a single one), including Best Picture. 

The entire series is one of the most fascinating and instructive to watch, in terms of how it effectively tells multiple stories under one umbrella, how it marries groundbreaking special effects with believable character arcs, and its ability to craft propulsive action. But even with the eye-rolls some people give about its multiple endings, “The Return of the King” is a fantastic final film. It’s almost more amazing in hindsight, because Jackson couldn’t help himself and returned with his “Hobbit” trilogy in the 2010s, which had some flashes of brilliance but mostly faltered because it wasn’t as able to tell discrete stories or utilize FX in a way that felt phenomenal.

And for the top film, we once again look to something of a spiritual trilogy. Director Sergio Leone helped cement Clint Eastwood as a massive movie star with his Man with No Name series in the 1960s, culminating in “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.” This 1966 Spaghetti Western is one of the all-time greats of its genre, and arguably the best film in the trilogy (a true rarity). Set during the American Civil War, the film focuses on three gunslingers who each embody the concepts in the title. The “good” would be Eastwood as the Man with No Name, a taciturn and tough dude who doesn’t even have to raise his eyebrows to get his message across when he means business. The “bad” is the so-called Angel Eyes, played by Lee Van Cleef, a mercenary psychopath whose propensity for violence is matched by his enjoyment of enacting such terrible acts. And the “ugly” is the chatty Tuco (Eli Wallach), a Mexican bandit with as many lives as a cat. 

The three of them are all on the hunt for some gold amidst the Western-fought battles of the Civil War, inevitably facing off in a quintessential Mexican standoff in the climax. Leone’s artistry in capturing the vast expanses of the West is impressive in no small part because this most American of genres was being conquered by an Italian filmmaker. “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly” is the kind of iconic genre entry that has spawned so many reference points, in-jokes, and inspirations that they’re too countless to name, but it’s also a singularly brilliant conclusion to a trilogy that raised the bar impossibly high for everyone else.