Every Zack Snyder Comic Book Movie, Ranked

Of the 12 films under Zack Snyder's directing belt, half of them come from comic book worlds that are adored by millions. Some have been by-the-book efforts, whereas others are the consequence of the director taking beloved superheroes and villains and giving them his own specific spin (most likely while in slow motion). The outcome has led to some of the most divisive contributions to the genre and even played a part in one franchise being completely rebooted as a result. 

Like them or not, though, Snyder has delivered some daring interpretations of well-known costumed (and in some cases, barely clothed) characters. Doing so has allowed him to bring some of the most revered moments in the medium to life in a way that only he could. It's in thinking about these big-screen endeavours that we've ranked every comic book movie Zack Snyder tried, failed, or succeeded in stupendously pitch-perfect fashion.

Alien refugees, unhinged detectives, and do-or-die heroes with nothing but their swords, a shield, and their abs to keep the enemy at bay have all made appearances in Snyder's comic book movies. Now, after putting them all in a neat little line, here's every one of Zack Snyder's comic book movies in order of awesomeness, starting with the one that he had the least involvement in, no matter what the end credits might say.

Right, well, let's get it out of the way. "Justice League" might not just be one of Zack Snyder's worst films in his filmography, but is easily one of the worst comic book movies ever to dare to grace the screen. This is no fault of Snyder's, of course. His name might be on the tin (albeit no where as prominent as the updated version that's elsewhere on this list), but the majority of offences within this film have to be split between Warner Bros. working damage control and Joss Whedon, who was called in to work his "Avengers" level magic after personal tragedy forced Snyder to part ways with the project. Unfortunately, that change of hands simply made things worse.

The result is a project that's pieced together from two very different directors aiming for very different tones, and it's as clear as the absent mustache hair from Henry Cavill's face. Besides being a team-up movie that feels four films too early, the grand, yet undeniably muddled vision of Snyder's DCEU gets lost and rushed together, leading to a CGI splodge of a movie where the team feels anything but cohesive. At this point, in the doomed DCEU timeline, "Justice League" demonstrated in a two-hour runtime just how bad the next six years would be, and the lengthy demand from fans to see a darker, longer, and more Snyder-y vision four years later.

Pitting Superman against the Caped Crusader for the first time in live-action was a task in itself. Still, daring to pull from the pages of both "The Dark Knight Returns" and essentially "The Death of Superman," only one film after Superman's debut, seems flat-out wild. It's also why "Dawn of Justice" feels so bogged down in its storytelling, spending even more time depicting Supes as a gloomy god among men, while Ben Affleck gives one of the best Batmen, who is at his most brutally unforgiving and incredibly paranoid.

There are highlights that can't be ignored, though. Batfleck's warehouse invasion that has goons seemingly suffering life-altering injuries is an all-time great Batman-based sequence, as is the arrival of Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman and the theme tune that might go down as one of the greats. Unfortunately, all that's overshadowed by the likes of Jesse Eisenberg's megalomaniac, Lex Luthor (which he himself deemed a "career-ending" performance), pitting the two heroes against each other, and it only takes a name to realize they're on the same side. Throw in a rushed last-minute round-up of the Justice League, and one of them coming to Bruce in a time-travelling dream that the uninformed would be clueless to, and "Dawn of Justice" feels like a bitter taster of what's to come.

The second round with the Justice League is more than anything a testament to the power of fandom. A hashtag ultimately brought Snyder's true vision of the "Justice League" movie to life, arriving four years after the mismatched Whedon-helmed dumpster fire.

At this point, if you weren't invested in the Snyderverse, then sitting through four more hours of it was not going to sway you. This was an accomplishment for the die-hards, plain and simple, with the director giving us his unfiltered vision of mythic-level comic book action. The story (drawn out as it was) feels far more cohesive and put together than the theatrical version we originally got, as do some of the characters that get a little more fleshed out. Steppenwolf is upgraded from boring CGI lackey to Darkseid's evil excessively pointy exile on a mission, called into action following Superman's death cry that kicks off the film, and sees him return in a fancy black suit, because this time he really means business.

And yet, for every narrative tweak that benefits the story, the director's excessive use of slow-motion (which accounts for 10% of the film) adds grandeur to granular moments, but also slows it down. Additionally, questionable glimpses into a post-apocalyptic world, where Batman wore a duster and The Flash resembled a Transformer, were great, but it was a glimpse at a final chapter that shouldn't have been teased.  The four-hour meal we were sitting through had so much going on. Justice was served, but it didn't need to be that big a dish.

It might not be held as high now, given the soul-soaring take on "Superman" that we've had recently, but Zack Snyder's take on the birth and super-awakening of Kal-El still sits as one of his best comic book movies, simply because of how easily accessible it is. There's a level of restraint to Snyder's take on Superman that vanished the deeper the director went into the DCEU. Here, though, "Man of Steel" goes through the motions of a classic Superman retelling, giving it a realistic edge that works in some areas, but not in others. Kicking things off with a trip to Krypton in its final days, Snyder pulls out the big guns by way of Russell Crowe's Jor-El going head-to-head with Michael Shannon's scenery-chomping, unhinged military leader, General Zod. That's even before Henry Cavill comes in to show his worth as The Last Son of Krypton, which makes the fact he never got another solo super stint absolutely criminal.

The journey of Clark from alien boy to man has plenty of hair-raising moments, even with the occasional bumps in the road. Moan about Jonathan Kent (Kevin Costner) making his son question if he should save others or even himself all you like, but it's a moment that can be easily overlooked in place of Clark's final fight with Zod (destruction levels be damned) or his first flight, backed by Hans Zimmer's score that dared to make its own path when John Williams' score was still right there.

Even with all their faults and heinous runtimes, there are moments in both "Rebel Moon" films that are reminiscent of a time when Zack Snyder was edging towards his peak. Watch those slow-motion shots across fields and heroes shoulder-barging and swinging their swords in slow-motion, and it's hard not to remember 300 Spartans cut from marble, slicing through Persians in the same fashion. Snyder's "300" feels, besides being one of the closest page-to-screen adaptations in comic book history, encapsulates everything the director would include in his repertoire from then on. It would also house an impressive collection of stars that would go on to make massive careers in their own right, and all it took was wearing a red cloak and wielding a six-pack you could cook an egg on.

Gerard Butler's career might've been action-packed since this role, but few of his other gigs have packed quite such a punch as his stint as brave King Leonidas, who made a god bleed, became a legendary screen hero for kicking people down pits and shouting about where he lived. Add in the supporting talent of stars like Michael Fassbender, Dominic West as sneering traitor Theron, and Lena Headey showing us what "Game of Thrones" Cersei would be like if she were just a bit nicer, and this gory epic still holds up. Tonight, dine in hell or fight in the shade, and remember just how great Snyder's handling of a narrowed-down epic movie could be.

On the list of superhero slip-ups in Zack Snyder's comic-book-based filmography, omitting a giant squid doesn't feel quite so egregious when you consider that the director achieved what many before him deemed nearly impossible to do. That's probably because Zack Snyder's adaptation of the thought-to-be unfilmable "Watchmen" has so much more going for it than every other film on this list, earning its right in the conversation of one of the greatest comic book films ever made. As overwhelmingly dense as it might be in its story and attention to detail, Snyder does an impeccable job of pulling out piles of panels of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' GOAT limited comic book series and throwing them up on the screen.

Between the final drink with The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) to Rorschach's (Jackie Earle Haley) journal landing on a news desk, this consistently visually charged murder mystery involving gods and monstrous men packs a brutally charged whallop that still lands. Nothing Snyder has done since can compete with that incredible intro to the tune of Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin'," the birth of Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), or Rorschach giving a prison mate a face full of pan oil. Above all, though, it proves without a doubt that when Snyder follows someone else's hymn sheet instead of his own, he can deliver the kind of chest-thumping, operatic hit that he tried to and struggled to replicate with the films that followed.