Star Trek has had an unusual road to its fandom. It began as a short-lived television series, and yet it’s a highly influential and long lasting franchise that has spawned four sequel series and thirteen motion pictures. These two formats can be incredibly different, both in terms of tenor and tone, despite taking place in the same universe with the same casts. It is, to quote Mr. Spock, “fascinating.”

Some make the case that this is a story that deserves to be told on a cinematic canvas, while others argue that Trek is best served as an episodic series. Some pay great homage to the feeling of the original series, while others feel like they should have aired on television. It’s a rich, diverse film franchise where even the failures are intriguing.

So let us boldly go, and start with the weakest entry in the series thus far:

13.) Star Trek Into Darkness

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Image via Paramount Pictures

I must politely disagree with my colleague Chris Cabin on the merits of Star Trek Into Darkness. While it’s not as bad on a second viewing, it’s still suffering the growing pains of not knowing what Star Trek really is.

That’s the conundrum with the J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek movies: if you want to take them as simple action movies, they’re serviceable enough, but that’s a waste of a world and disrespectful of what Trek is about. If you’re not a Trek fan, I doubt you’ll care, but imagine if someone made a Star Wars movie and tried to take the mystical force and turn it into something scientifically measurable (oh wait). It’s fine to update Trek with new uniforms, a new ship design, a new score, etc. That’s the artistry, but that’s not the core of what makes Star Trek tick.

Star Trek is about science fiction, and J.J. Abrams isn’t interested in that. He’s interested in making Space Adventure! and he does a poor job of telling the story. It may stimulate the lizard parts of your brain with the bright colors, canted angles, lens flares, and set pieces, but it’s bad storytelling that tries to steal from a far superior picture.

I understand that for Kirk, this is a learning experience film for him, and he has to overcome his cockiness and irresponsibility (you wonder how someone who responds to breaking the Prime Directive with “Big deal,” should ever be a captain in Starfleet -- assuming you care about Starfleet), but it’s such a drag, and the character is so deeply unlikable that you’re almost rooting for him to fail. It also fails as a friendship tale, as there’s little chemistry between Pine and Quinto, so the big “Khan!” moment comes off as laughably terrible.

Rather than boldly build a new world, Into Darkness steals from the old one, and does so poorly. For some it may pass as mindless entertainment, but it’s mindless to waste Trek in such a vicious, vacuous manner.

12.) Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

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Someone give William Shatner a participation trophy. Watching Star Trek V, it’s like Shatner saw the lighthearted success of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and wanted to redo it for his directorial contribution to the franchise. Unfortunately, Star Trek V is constantly silly and nonsensical rather than fun and upbeat. It starts out from a promising position, but quickly falls into lethargy, and missing the point of what makes a Trek movie with The Original Series cast work so well.

When it comes to movies with the TOS cast, the best thing to do is keep the focus on the cast. Unless you have a villain like Khan (Richardo Montalban), a villain who is rooted in the old show and who’s utterly captivating on his own merits, then your greatest strength is the camaraderie of the old cast working together.

Unfortunately, Final Frontier shortchanges the original cast on two fronts. First, it invests far too much in its villain Sybok (Laurence Luckinbill). While I like that Sybok isn’t an outright evil person, he comes off like an overly familiar camp counselor. He’s not creepy so much as he’s irritating, and then there’s his whole spiel about tapping into a person’s pain, which then in turn somehow brainwashes that person into being completely loyal to him.

That leads to the film’s second major failing: separating Kirk (William Shatner) from his crew. If that’s the route they were going to take, then they really should have carried more major stakes with it. Instead, it feels like a cheap shortcut that in turn deprives supporting characters like Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), Sulu (George Takei), and Chekov (Walter Koenig) of character arcs and motivations. The movie also had an opportunity to delve into Spock’s loyalty to Sybok, but that plays more as ambivalence than a source of real conflict between the characters.

Caught between a weak villain and ignoring its greatest asset, you have a film that’s trying so hard to be goofy and constantly missing the mark. While it’s endearing in the odd way that Shatner is trying so hard to please his audience, it doesn’t change the fact that he’s missing the mark, and comes up with jokes like Scotty (James Doohan) hitting his head after saying he knows the ship like the back of his hand. So when we finally come to the comical “Why would God need a spaceship?” it’s just the summation of all of the film’s flaws rather than its final error.

11.) Star Trek: Insurrection

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Image via Paramount Pictures

On the one hand, I can respect that the Star Trek: The Next Generation movies were in a difficult position. Unlike the TOS movies, which were set in the 23rd century and didn’t have to worry about how their events would affect the TV shows, TNG was right in the prime of other Trek on television even though their own show had ended. Rather than be audacious and tie into what was happing in the TV series (which, granted, is a big ask for any movie), the TNG films were largely content to tell standalone stories that only briefly acknowledge the larger Trek universe.

That’s how we get something as tepid and forgettable as Insurrection, a movie that could have delved deep into its interesting premise, and instead looks like a cheap, two-parter that went unaired because it’s the cure for insomnia. Insurrection had the opportunity to take on an interesting question: what happens when the Federation is wrong? It’s an issue that had popped up repeatedly during the series, but Insurrection could have tackled it on a massive scale, and even incorporated the weakened Federation brought low by Deep Space Nine’s Dominion War.

Instead, rather than question what the Federation means and how important it is to the crew of the Enterprise (a crew that always agrees, which is nice, but doesn’t invite conflict), the plot to remove the peaceful Ba’ku (who look like they were pulled out of an L.L. Bean catalog) to profit the greedy Son’a and the Federation is the work of a couple of bad apples rather than something endemic to Starfleet. The lines are clearly drawn from the beginning, and rather than challenge the audience to question Starfleet and the loyalty of the Enterprise crew, the characters ditch their uniforms without much fuss and go help the Ba’ku.

10.) Star Trek: Nemesis

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Again, it starts out from an interesting place—nature versus nurture, and who would Picard be if his life had been one of torment rather than one in Starfleet? Unfortunately, the film is so hard up to make its villain, Shinzon (Tom Hardy), unequivocally evil that there’s no dramatic pull. It’s not simply enough for Picard to see a dark mirror that reaffirms his righteousness. The film also doesn’t challenge Shinzon to find the good in himself. Had they pushed Shinzon in that direction, it would have made him a more tragic figure rather than the moustache-twirling villain who wants to destroy Starfleet with a super-weapon.

Nemesis also suffers from the same problem as all of the TNG films in that in cannot get enough Data. For some reason, even though you have a rich, diverse case with Next Generation, the movies treat Picard and Data as the main characters and ignore everyone else. This kind of thinking is how you get to disgusting things like Shinzon mind-raping Troi (Marina Sirtis) just because, and then doing nothing with that assault other than using it later for a plot device to let her empathically guide the photon torpedoes.

The movie also wants to get away with killing Data, but not having any of the emotional impact of actually killing Data. Data has to live, so his “sacrifice” is rendered meaningless because he has B-4 back on the Enterprise as a backup.

9.) Star Trek: Generations

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This film seems to exist so it can pass a torch that never needed passing. Looking back on Star Trek: Generations, it’s a story that seems more suited to fan fiction than something that actually serves Star Trek of any generation. The original series cast had already gotten a great send-off with Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, and it’s a bit of a bummer to see an incomplete cast some back for a second encore. Additionally, the Next Generation cast was already well-established and had a full series under their belt. The producers should have trusted them to carry their own story.

Instead, the movie tries to play to two audiences and ends up serving neither. Buried beneath all the dreck and talk of the Nexus and Data obnoxiously showing off his new emotion chip, there’s actually a compelling story about the cost of duty to Starfleet. Kirk and Picard are united by what they’ve personally sacrificed for Starfleet—and how they lost out on having families because they chose to be explorers instead. If you must have Kirk and Picard share the screen (and you really don’t), then this is solid thematic ground to walk.

But Generations bungles it completely with how tonally scattershot it is and the atrocious structure of the narrative. It’s a movie where you kill off Captain Kirk, an incredibly beloved and revered character, and then your next scene is the crew of the Enterprise-D playing dress up on the holodeck. They then keep Kirk out of the film until the third act, so there’s no real time for Picard and Kirk to build a bond before they have to take down Soran (Malcolm McDowell). And then Kirk gets killed by a bridge.

8.) Star Trek: The Motion Picture

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The biggest problem with The Motion Picture is that it lost Star Trek’s sense of identity. The film is trying to ape 2001: A Space Odyssey, and so it thinks that what the audience wants it a slow, meditative motion picture, and while there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, it loses Trek’s greatest strength. It’s the opposite end of the spectrum from Star Trek Into Darkness—it’s not that Star Trek needs to be a non-stop action thrill ride, but it also shouldn’t be something understandably derided as “The Motionless Picture.”

There’s no good reason why the docking sequence should take as long as it does, and it feels like half of this movie is just people looking at the view screen. While I understand Star Trek taking a chance and going with something unexpected, The Motion Picture doesn’t play to the strengths of the original series or its cast.

It’s particularly frustrating that the movie pushes The Original Series crew to the background to play up new characters Decker (Stephen Collins) and Ilia (Persis Khambatta) to the point where it feels like The Motion Picture is their story that just happens to include The Original Series cast along for the ride. It doesn’t move the characters we know forward, and while the V-ger reveal is kind of neat, it elicits more of a shrug than any contemplation.

7.) Star Trek Beyond

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I both kind of love and kind of dislike Star Trek Beyond. On the one hand, I knew I had a fun time while I was watching it. It felt like it was embracing classic Trek in a way we hadn’t really seen since Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. But that being said, it’s almost impossible to remember this movie because beyond showing its love of classic Trek, it doesn’t have much in the way of a personality.

The plot of Star Trek Beyond finds the gang stranded on an alien planet (The Enterprise is destroyed. Again.) where the natives are ruled by a mysterious leader Krall (Idris Elba) who wants to unleash a powerful weapon against the Federation. This crash-landing allows the group to pair off in ways that hadn’t really been done before and allows for unique pairings like Spock and Bones that give the movie a lot of its power. The strongest asset of the new Trek movies has been the casting, and that really gets to shine here.

Unfortunately, the film fails to leave much of an impact because it never makes any bold choices. You can feel that this is a movie caught in a post Star Wars world where as the first two rebooted Trek movies could simply be Star Wars substitute, Beyond is wrestling with what it means to try and get out from under the shadow of the mammoth sci-fi franchise. Sadly, it never really finds an answer to that question, so while it makes for a fun, enjoyable picture with a better script than 2009’s Star Trek, it also lacks the necessary punch to make it more than disposable summer fare.

6.) Star Trek

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J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek is a movie I really enjoyed when I first saw, but it has not held up well on repeat viewings. On a surface level, it’s really shiny and fun, and Abrams has the wherewithal to give his Trek an interesting new aesthetic (lens flares and shaky camera aside). It’s a fun compromise between the iconography of the original (they use communicators instead of com-badges) and an energetic, clean art design that sucks you into this new world.

The problem with Trek 2009 is that its story falls apart if you so much as glance at it the wrong way. For starters, like Into Darkness, it could not care less about what makes Star Trek special. It’s a movie where a suspended cadet gets promoted all the way to first office because the captain likes the cut of his jib. It’s a movie that doesn’t have a sci-fi bone in its body beyond trying to make sure that the original continuity remains intact while also forging an alternate reality. It’s a movie where they build the Enterprise on land rather than in space just so there can be a shot of Kirk looking at it in Iowa.

But even if those Trek concerns don’t bother you, there are still the larger story problems. For example, Spock strands Kirk on a planet where Kirk could easily die, but it’s okay because Kirk conveniently runs into Spock Prime (Leonard Nimoy) and Scotty (Simon Pegg), the only two people who can help get him back to the Enterprise. Or there’s the moment when Kirk confronts Nero (Eric Bana), and there’s no emotional baggage to it even though this is the man responsible for the death of Kirk’s father.

The success of Star Trek is that you don’t really notice its myriad of problems until you start looking for them, because Abrams made such a tight, lighthearted action flick that keeps barreling forward at breakneck speed. At the time, it felt promising because you would think that with four years between Star Trek and its sequel, there would be time to really nail down the story, and Abrams’ direction would remain intact. Oh well.

5.) Star Trek: First Contact

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Image via Paramount Pictures

Star Trek: First Contact is an odd sort of movie. It’s the first time the Next Generation crew is really on their own, and they’re pulling from one of the strongest elements they ever contributed to Star Trek lore, the Borg. It’s a good setup and it also rewards those who saw the Next Generation series while not being so esoteric that it would alienate those who never saw the show.

And yet it’s still not quite Star Trek. It’s not a movie about anything. Say what you will about Generations, Insurrection, and Nemesis, but for all their faults, at least they’re about something (legacy, duty, and destiny, respectively). First Contact is an action-horror film, which is something you wouldn’t necessarily expect a Star Trek movie to be, but director Jonathan Frakes makes it work within the context of a new genre.

It’s just unfortunate that there’s no consideration of anything beyond Picard facing his old demons. Once again, outside of Picard, only Data really gets to shine, but at least they give Worf (Michael Dorn) more to do than Insurrection, which literally makes the character go through puberty because that’s the best they could come up with. The Borg are a compelling villain, and while you may have to cringe a bit with lines like “Assimilate this,” at least First Contact is fun, which is more than you can say than the other TNG films.

4.) Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

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This is where on this list that Star Trek actually starts to feel like Star Trek. One of the great things The Original Series did was to tell narratives that reflected real-world tensions. Out of all of the Star Trek movies, The Undiscovered Country is the only one to mirror real world events. In this case, the script cleverly draws a parallel to the closing of the Cold War with the coming peace treaty between the Federation and the Klingons because the Klingon Empire is about to go bankrupt.

It’s also a story that’s rooted in the films that came before, as Kirk must wrestle with making peace with the people he holds responsible for the death of his son. It’s an issue that hadn’t been dealt with since The Voyage Home, but it adds personal stakes rather than keeping the issue nebulous. It also makes The Undiscovered Country a personal journey for Kirk, where he has to learn the importance of not only forgiveness, but also accepting a new status quo where the Klingons and the Federation can live in peace.

Undiscovered Country also gives almost everyone something to do. Kirk (William Shatner) and Bones (DeForest Kelley) are on trial on Kronos and are part of a prison break while everyone else (minus Sulu, who gets the short shrift in this picture despite finally becoming a captain) is busy playing detective up on the Enterprise. It’s a well-balanced story, and while the film tries too hard to turn Chang (Christopher Plummer) into the next Khan (the climactic battle has Chang shouting like he really wants to get his Shakespeare Quote-a-Day calendar out of his system), it’s still a fun dynamic that actually feels like a Star Trek story at its core.

3.) Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

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There’s shorthand that claims that every even-numbered Star Trek is good and every odd-numbered Star Trek is bad. That’s a claim that should have been thrown out the window at Star Trek III, a film whose greatest flaw is following the classic Wrath of Khan. This is a movie that does nothing wrong, perfectly builds on what came before, and is a true test of the friendship among the Enterprise crew.

It would seem at first glance that a movie dedicated to undoing Spock’s sacrifice would be an ill-conceived idea, but director Leonard Nimoy absolutely makes it work by making this all about how the Enterprise crew works together outside the bounds of Starfleet. It turns them into a crew on the run, and they in turn sacrifice everything to save their fallen crewman. That’s a great story, and one worthy of Trek.

It also feels like Star Trek without feeling like an extended Star Trek episode. While other great Star Trek movies would echo what the series did at its best—whether it be traveling to unique locations, creating parables to real-world conflicts, or recreating the feel of a naval battles—Search for Spock is unique by building off Wrath of Khan, putting the crew of the Enterprise at odds with their duty to Starfleet, and plunging them into uncharted territory. And, Kirk has to make the ultimate sacrifice when he loses his son at the hands of the Klingons. How anyone could see Search for Spock as inferior Trek is beyond me.

2.) Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

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This movie is just pure joy from start to finish. I’m sure it may have been tempting to try and do more of the same: send Kirk and the crew out on an interstellar mission to fight some intergalactic foe with some destructive weapon on the line. Instead, they go back in time to save the whales. It’s a plotline that sounds so silly that it shouldn’t work, and yet it does. This could have been, on a smaller scale, an episode of The Original Series, but it carries that charm and successfully transfers it to the big screen.

Voyage Home almost plays more like a sci-fi comedy (a dispiritingly rare hybrid) and watching the crew of the Enterprise as fish-out-of-water is constantly entertaining. The Original Series gave us the crew as outsiders on a fairly regular basis, and The Voyage Home harkens back to that feeling while still giving the audience the comfort of being more familiar with the world the characters are seeing.

It’s also got a good message! Yes, it’s a bumper sticker message to save the whales, but how many blockbusters give a crap about endangered species? It equates saving the whales with saving the world, and that’s a fine sentiment to have. Additionally, it helps bring the crew together and creates the stakes that could get the crew reinstated after stealing and destroying the Enterprise. It’s both a palette cleanser and a bold direction for the franchise.

1.) Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

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Image via Paramount Pictures

Is it the obvious choice? Yes, but it’s also the right one. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan isn’t just great Star Trek. It’s great filmmaking period. It’s everything someone could want from a summer blockbuster while also staying true to what makes Star Trek unique, especially from the original Enterprise cast. It’s a movie with deep thematic resonance, high emotional stakes, and a rewarding experience for those who had been Star Trek fans for decades.

It was a stroke of genius to make Khan the villain, not because he’s a lifelong nemesis for Kirk (Khan only appears in the episode “Space Seed”), but because he represents the sins of the past. Khan is a bad guy, but he’s not wrong that Kirk basically just abandoned Khan’s people on a planet and never bothered to check up on them afterwards. For a film about a man struggling with getting old, it’s important to take time to check on what Kirk did wrong as a young man, whether it’s stranding Khan on Ceti Alpha V or refusing the learn the lesson of the Kobayashi Maru. Wrath of Khan puts Kirk through a crucible of his past follies and makes him pay for it.

The movie also earns its emotional climax following a rousing space battle that would never happen today because it’s too “slow” (it’s basically a naval battle in space, which is what TOS would do sometimes). “I have been, and always shall be, your friend,” is a gut-wrenching line because you feel the history behind it. It doesn’t betray Spock’s Vulcan-side, nor does it lean too heavily on his human side. It’s a profound, honest moment where we see Kirk, finally faced with a no-win situation, lose his dearest friend. It’s a moment that only Star Trek could pull off, and it elevates Wrath of Khan beyond where most blockbusters have gone before.