The Twilight Movies Ranked From Worst To Best
"I've never given much thought to how I would die, but dying in the place of someone I love seems like a good way to go." Now that's how you start a franchise!
Since 2008, the "Twilight" films have been a cultural mainstay for better and for worse. A film so beloved that cosmetics companies are selling out of "Twilight"-inspired collections in under 10 minutes 15 years later, and so hated that it inspired the $20 million studio-produced parody film "Vampires Suck." Few multi-billion dollar franchises are quite this polarizing, and even fewer have had as powerful of a cultural reclamation years later. Love them or hate them, the "Twilight" films are one of the most important products of the late 2000s and 2010s, and no amount of whining about vampires sparkling or commenting "still a better love story than 'Twilight'" is going to change that.
There has been talk that Lionsgate intends to reboot the franchise with a new TV series, so now feels like the perfect time to revisit the series and rank the films from worst to best. Were Twi-haters just in their fury? Were Twi-hards all suffering from collective madness? Let's head back to Forks, Washington, and fall in love with dangerously handsome boys who love us so much they want to literally tear us apart.
5. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1
"The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1" centers on one of the most important moments of a young woman's life: graduating high school and immediately marrying her 100+ year old vampire boyfriend in his parents' house. And of course, now that they're united in unholy matrimony, they can finally have sex and not isolate Stephenie Meyer's very young (and very Mormon) fanbase. Alas, thanks to the public school system's lack of comprehensive sex education, Bella has become pregnant after having sex for the first time. There's only one problem, she's still a human, and that baby inside her is growing from Edward's powerful vampire sperm.
This baby grows with the same rapidity as Robin Williams in "Jack," which makes Bella sicker and sicker. Her pregnant belly looks like a Cronenbergian nightmare, and she has to drink blood to give the baby the nutrients it needs, despite not being a vampire yet herself. Meanwhile, Jacob is a massive baby about "losing" to Edward.
When Bella finally does give birth, it's extremely traumatic and violent in a way that feels unearned. She dies, and Edward decides to change her right then and there in the hopes being an undead vampire will save her. It looks like Bella has died but then at the last second, she opens her eyes and reveals her new blood-red irises. This movie is the worst in the series because it is all build-up for the final chapter. Nothing feels like a complete story, and it's mostly just a lot of cheesy dialogue with random slow-motion bits of brooding before randomly diving into borderline exploitation body horror. It's a mess, but the film that kicked out casual viewers once and for all. (BJ Colangelo)
4. The Twilight Saga: New Moon
The first sequel in the franchise had a lot working against it. For one, I'd argue that "New Moon" is the weakest of Stephenie Meyer's books, and with Chris Weitz taking over for Catherine Hardwicke and changing the entire look and feel of the film in the process, the second film in the series feels a lot like growing pains. Edward is absent from the majority of the film while he hides out in Italy with the Volturi vampires in their Not The Vatican home base, and Bella copes by randomly screaming in the middle of the night like she's being actively murdered and dabbling with reckless behavior.
With her vampire boyfriend away, this gives Bella more time to hang out with Jacob the werewolf and his family on the Quileute Tribe reservation where everyone is apparently allergic to wearing shirts. A reminder that the Quileute Tribe are an actual Indigenous community that Meyer completely appropriated for her book without any actual consultation, which is pretty dang gross!
But this is the film that really set the stage for the Bella, Edward, and Jacob love triangle that would usher in a new generation of fandom wars and also gave us the unintentionally hilarious moment of Kristen Stewart running in slow-motion through a fountain in Italy as a blindingly pale Robert Pattinson steps into the light to reveal himself as a vampire, stopping him with the power of a really big hug. (BJ Colangelo)
3. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
Although the meatier narrative aspects of the "Twilight" saga pick up in the series' two-part finale, "Eclipse" is the essential turning point in this young-adult fantasy franchise. This installment encapsulates the epitome of the "Team Edward" versus "Team Jacob" sentiments, creating enough tense melodrama to cast a shadow of doubt on Bella's decision to pick one suitor over another. This love-triangle aspect is balanced pretty well with gradual worldbuilding — something that the first two films don't really focus on — and gives us more insight into the world of vengeful vampires who are at odds with The Cullens, who wish to protect Bella. We also learn more about the werewolves, their motivations as a pack, and how Jacob's sentiments toward Bella lead to a temporary truce between the Quileute and the Cullens, which adds significant depth to an otherwise barebones story.
Although there's a kernel of unintentional hilarity in every "Twilight" film, "Eclipse" embraces a brand of self-aware humor that works well with its core themes, resulting in an entertaining teen drama that never takes itself too seriously. After all, "Eclipse" gifted us with this incredibly hilarious scene between a smug Jacob and a visibly disgusted Edward. Moreover, the expansion of Victoria's role as a formidable threat, and the emergence of a new breed of bloodthirsty newborns adds the right amount of action-focused zest to a film that could have just been another installment with angsty romance, shapeshifting werewolves, and vampires sparkling under the sun. (Debopriyaa Dutta)
2. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2
"The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2" is a movie made for two very different audiences. On the one hand, it's the grand finale, the culmination of everything for longtime fans hoping to see these characters reach a gratifying conclusion. But on the other, it is, somehow, totally a movie for people who hate these movies, or love to hate them, because it ratchets up the camp to such deranged heights that it gives non-fans permission to laugh along with the escalating absurdity of it all. This has to be intentional. How else do you explain the grisly action climax that simultaneously feels like the slam-bang battle fans want and the goofball, "hilarious when seen out of context on YouTube" sequence the haters would dig?
The credit must go to director Bill Condon, the first filmmaker since Catherine Hardwick to truly have a handle on the batsh*t tone these movies should be shooting for. I'm not saying every major franchise needs to have a thin vein of haterade lurking beneath the surface, but it really does work wonders for "Breaking Dawn — Part 2," a movie that knows it's a big dumb vampire soap and leans into it so hard it does an impressive backflip. (Jacob Hall)
1. Twilight
In what should be a shock to absolutely no one (save for you maniacs with "Bella! Where the hell have you been, loca?" tattooed on your arms), the best "Twilight" film is the one that started it all. Directed by Catherine Hardwicke, who was notoriously removed from the franchise after it became a box office juggernaut and it was clear that Hollywood no longer trusted a woman at the helm despite the film being overwhelmingly popular with women, "Twilight" is the North Star of one of the biggest teen movie series ever made.
The film has permeated pop culture with its now iconic blue filter, over-the-top moments like Vampire Baseball, Robert Pattinson's line deliveries of absolute madness like "Hold on tight, spider monkey," and a soundtrack of 2000s era alt-rock that goes so unbelievably hard it's almost criminal. As I've said before, "Twilight" was stupid lighting in a stupid bottle, and despite my visceral hatred of the series as a teenager, I've become one of the film's most vocal defenders of its place as a sociological institution."Twilight" is the best film in the series not only from a technical and storytelling level but also because the film is so much bigger than itself.
Sure, it certainly wasn't going to win any Oscars, but the overwhelming majority of "Twilight" fans know that the books and movies are schlock. People have every right to love something even if it's "bad," and it's high time we admit much of the "Twilight" hate was solely rooted in misogyny. "Twilight" is no more nonsensical than half of the tights and capes male power fantasies cranked out in the years that followed, it just has a lot more upturned eyebrows, lower lip biting, and the skin of a killer. (BJ Colangelo)