Making one great movie is hard. Making three great movies in a row is like catching lightning in a bottle. And it’s no exaggeration. Plenty of trilogies begin with promise only to lose momentum because of a weak sequel or an underwhelming finale. Thor: The Dark World remains the weak outlier in an otherwise great Thor trilogy. X-Men: The Last Stand squandered one of Marvel’s best storylines. Alien 3 failed to live up to the groundbreaking first two films. Blade: Trinity ended a beloved franchise on an extremely disappointing note.
Today, we’re celebrating the trilogies that avoided those pitfalls. These are the trilogies where each film builds naturally on what came before, and seemingly minor details can pay off years later. And together, they work like a complete story told across three chapters. Here are the 10 best movie trilogies in all of film history.
10
‘Before’ Trilogy (1995-2013)
Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, and Before Midnight follow Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) across 18 years of their lives, and the films were actually shot nine years apart, so you get to see these characters age in real time. Sunrise is the dreamy romcom. Jesse convinces Celine to get off a train in Vienna, and the two of them just walk and talk until sunrise, slowly falling in love. They part ways with a promise to meet again in six months, without exchanging phone numbers or even last names. Nine years later, Sunset reveals that reunion never happened because Celine’s grandmother died. Jesse is now a married novelist in Paris, and their reunion is filled with longing and regret about the life neither of them got to choose, but in the end, they finally choose one another.
And then Midnight comes in and refuses to let the romance stay a fantasy. Nine years later, Jesse and Celine are together, but their marriage isn’t all sunshine and rainbows as they imagined. So many small details from the first movie take on new meaning, like the German couple arguing in the opening scene. The loud bickering was what caused Celine to change seats and sit across from Jesse, and then, 18 years later, you realize Jesse and Celine have become just like them. This entire trilogy is one of the most authentic portrayals of a relationship ever put on screen, tracked all the way from youthful idealism and the pain of yearning to the very unglamorous work of actually staying together.
9
‘Captain America’ (2011-2016)
Every movie in this trilogy changes genres completely, but all three are top-tier cinema. The First Avenger started things off with a great superhero origin story set in WWII. And then Winter Soldier came out and turned Steve (Chris Evans) from a boring one-note goody two-shoes into a lot of people’s favorite superhero. It’s a slick spy thriller set inside the MCU, with mind-bending plot twists and some of the greatest action set pieces the franchise has ever seen. To this day, it’s still many people’s favorite MCU movie of all time.
Then Civil War upped the spectacle even more. It’s essentially Avengers 2.5, with the entire team facing off against each other over political ideology. Over the course of these movies, you see Steve go from a man who blindly adores his country and desperately wants to serve it to someone who willingly gives up the shield and fights against his own government when he believes it’s doing the wrong thing. Yet he never becomes morally grey or loses sight of who he is. He’s still the same stubborn, idealistic guy who stands up for what he believes is right.
8
‘Indiana Jones’ (1981-1989)
The original Indiana Jones trilogy is basically the blueprint for every modern adventure movie. The first film introduces Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) as a professor of archaeology who spends his free time punching Nazis and looking for ancient treasures. It was the perfect mix of action, comedy, mystery, fantasy, and old-school pulp adventure.
From there, the trilogy kept constantly one-upping itself on scale and grandeur. The giant boulder chase that opens Raiders is still one of the most iconic scenes in movie history. Temple of Doom answers it with the mine cart chase, and then Last Crusade tops both with the three trials guarding the Holy Grail, a gauntlet of riddles and leaps of faith that turns the climax into a puzzle box instead of just another shootout. If the story had ended right there, it would have been a flawless action adventure franchise. It’s a shame the sequels that came decades later undid the ending this one earned.
7
‘How to Train Your Dragon’ (2010-2019)
DreamWorks doesn’t get talked about in the same breath as Pixar nearly enough, and this trilogy is the reason that needs to change. The first film sets up a classic underdog story: Hiccup is the scrawny son of the Viking chief Stoick, expected to kill dragons like everyone else on Berk, until he shoots down a Night Fury he can’t bring himself to finish off. He names the dragon Toothless, and from there, the series grows into a genuinely wholesome story about Hiccup and Toothless’ bond and their mission to show humans that dragons don’t have to be their enemies. The first movie gets most of the praise, but the entire trilogy has so much more heart than you’d expect from an animated adventure series.
Then The Hidden World ends the trilogy on an incredibly bittersweet note. Hiccup realizes the dragons can never truly be safe as long as they remain in the human world, so he decides to send them all into the Hidden World. That means giving up his everyday life with Toothless too. It’s an incredibly mature ending that refuses to force a conventional happily-ever-after and instead teaches kids that sometimes loving someone means letting them go.
6
‘Star Wars’ Original Trilogy (1977-1983)
A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi were part of the first-ever blockbuster trilogy that popularized multi-film, continuous event storytelling on a massive global scale. A New Hope is a perfect space-fantasy adventure. Empire is the one that’s widely considered not just the best Star Wars movie but one of the best sequels ever made, period. It had insane action set pieces and a plot twist that completely changed the franchise while doing something blockbusters rarely dared to do: letting the heroes lose.
Return of the Jedi had the impossible job of bringing all of that to a satisfying conclusion, from Luke’s (Mark Hamill) temptation toward the dark side to Vader’s potential redemption. And it largely pulls it off by refusing to let Luke win through violence. He throws away his lightsaber rather than kill his own father, and that act of mercy is what finally brings Vader back to the light. The whole trilogy is packed with groundbreaking practical effects and incredible world-building, and each movie has its own distinct personality: a fairy tale, a tragedy, and finally a redemption story. And together, they form one of the most satisfying hero’s journeys ever put on film.
5
‘Toy Story’ (1995-2010)
The core premise of the first Toy Story instantly hooked you in: what if your toys were alive the second you left the room? It introduced us to a cast of characters we had no idea we’d grow to love this much. Woody. Buzz. Ham. The Potato Heads. Slinky. Rex. These characters have become so iconic that the biggest criticism people had of Toy Story 5 was that we didn’t get to see enough of them, because this trilogy did such a phenomenal job of making us care. The first movie told a complex, mature story about jealousy and identity that adults connect with just as much as kids do. The sequel took everything that worked with the first one and dialed it up, introducing new fan favorites and exploring what happens when toys get broken.
And the third one is undoubtedly the greatest Toy Story movie, perhaps even one of the most perfect movies ever made. Andy ages from a young boy into a college-bound adult, and the audience who saw the first film in theaters grew up right alongside him. Those final five minutes, Andy having one last play session and then handing the toys off to Bonnie, absolutely wreck you. Quentin Tarantino has gone so far as to call Toy Story 3 one of his favorite movies, saying that the third film ends the story “as perfect as you could,” and he refuses to watch any Toy Story movie made after it because nothing could top that finale.
4
‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ (2014-2023)
Guardians introduced the galactic, zany side of the MCU and did it incredibly well, with a rare unified artistic voice that most multi-director franchises just don’t have. This entire trilogy is undeniably James Gunn, from the ragtag crew and the wholesome bond between them that felt so natural right from the first film, to the incredible soundtracks and needle drops. Not to mention, every single movie in this trilogy is easily in the MCU’s top five funniest of all time.
The trilogy had sneakily been hinting at Rocket’s traumatic past for years, and Vol. 3 finally puts it front and center, making it easily the darkest, most heartbreaking entry of the three. It’s such a perfect ending for the series that’s also subversive (but not in the Game of Thrones way). Peter (Chris Pratt) walks away from the Guardians to go live a normal life on Earth, and it makes total sense for the character. And the film refuses to hand Peter and Gamora (Zoe Saldaña) a happily-ever-after just because the story is ending. It’s messy, it’s heartbreaking, and they don’t get to be together, because this version of Gamora simply doesn’t remember him. Most franchises would’ve taken the easy way out.
3
‘The Lord of the Rings’ (2001-2003)
The Lord of the Rings is widely hailed as the greatest film trilogy ever made, and you have to start at the beginning to understand why it worked so well. New Line Cinema took a massive risk by greenlighting three films shot back-to-back, which was basically unheard of at the time. From there, you get the rare combination of genuinely great filmmakers who were also die-hard fans of the source material. That is why Peter Jackson pushed for the full trilogy from day one.
Howard Shore‘s score ties all of it together and is legendary in its own right. And then there’s the casting. Most of these actors weren’t movie stars yet; they were picked purely on merit because they fit the characters on the page, and that paid off. These films were also shot on actual film, and Jackson used forced perspective sets, miniatures, bigatures, revolutionary digital color grading, and CGI in just the right amounts to create something truly groundbreaking that still holds up decades later.
2
Sam Raimi’s ‘Spider-Man’ (2002-2007)
We’ve had Jon Watts‘ completed trilogy in the MCU, but Sam Raimi‘s is undoubtedly the superior Spider-Man trilogy because these movies were so true to the Spider-Man mythos. You see Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) barely scraping by. He’s taking photos for the Daily Bugle to make rent, dodging Mr. Ditkovich (Elya Baskin) because he’s overdue on payments, and failing classes because being Spider-Man keeps getting in the way of being Peter Parker. Every time he gets a win, life finds another way to knock him back down. That’s always been the essence of Spider-Man, and Raimi understands it better than anyone else.
The trilogy is packed with A-tier villains, and New York City feels so alive that it becomes a character in its own right. Every single movie has these small, deeply human moments that hit like a ton of bricks, like J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons) refusing to tell the Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe) where Peter is, or the passengers on the train promising to keep Spider-Man’s identity a secret. Even Spider-Man 3, flaws and all, understands this better than most comic book movies. Throughout the trilogy, Mr. Ditkovich hounds Peter for rent. But when Peter finally snaps under the symbiote’s influence and yells at him, Ditkovich doesn’t yell back. He just says, “He’s a good boy. He must be in some kind of trouble.” It’s such a small moment, but it says everything about the empathy that runs through these films.
1
‘Planet of the Apes’ (2011-2017)
Movies about talking apes shouldn’t work this well, but they do, and each entry somehow gets progressively better than the last. Rise follows Caesar as a super smart baby chimp who grows up sheltered and loved inside a human home, only to be later tossed into a brutal ape sanctuary, where the abuse he endures sparks the ape revolution to come. The aura Caesar carries through these movies is insane, genuinely reminiscent of Thomas Shelby (Cillian Murphy) or Batman. The very first time he speaks and yells “No,” it’s instant chills.
The entire trilogy’s got top-tier visuals. Top-tier action sequences. And top-tier emotion. The way Caesar constantly defends the humans, sometimes over his own kind, despite everything they’ve put the apes through, and the other apes love him and follow him blindly while never quite understanding why he extends that grace to the species that’s hurt them, because none of them were ever loved the way he was. It’s way darker and more mature than you’d ever expect from a blockbuster about talking apes. And War pulls out every stop for the finale, ending in a world where humanity has nearly been wiped out, and Caesar has to fight his way back from becoming exactly what Koba warned he might become. It’s a perfect story from start to finish, and it cemented Caesar as one of the greatest original characters cinema has ever created.