If you’re practicing social distancing or are maybe under self-quarantine, you’re no doubt looking for movie series to binge. After all, there’s nothing better to take your mind off the news or uncertainty than disappearing into a great story. TV binges can do that too, but there are only so many episodes of The Office and Shameless to watch on Netflix. If you want a real project, how about a full-on movie marathon?

Franchises have been king for decades, but it’s rare to find a movie franchise to binge with a high average of good-to-great movies. Yes Jaws is a masterpiece, but nobody wants to watch Jaws: The Revenge.

But if you’re stumped on which are the best movie series to binge, we’ve got you covered. We’ve put together a hefty list of movie franchises to binge that will get you the most bang for your buck—the most amount of good/great movies, and the least amount of stinkers. They also vary wildly in tone, so whether you’re in the mood for a rollicking adventure, a thematically rich trilogy, or a full-on gore fest, there’s really something for everyone here.

Editor's Note: This article has been updated with new franchise additions as of January 20, 2022.

RELATED: Why the 'Saw' Franchise Needs to Fix Its Villain Problem

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy – Extended Editions

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Image via New Line Cinema

If you’re really looking for a long marathon, I cannot recommend the Lord of the Rings trilogy extended editions enough. Return of the King is a full 51 minutes longer than the theatrical cut, so yeah, this is a commitment. And while the theatrical cuts of these films may technically be a more concise/better way of telling the story, I find that the extended editions are almost like a “living novel” experience. They’re just so dense, but also really slow down and take their time with the characters—and unlike The Hobbit trilogy, these characters are actually compelling. Watching all three of these in a row is like disappearing into Middle-earth for an entire day. What could be better than that at this particular point in time? – Adam Chitwood

Mission: Impossible

Ethan Hunt climibg the Burk Khalifa in Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol.
Image via Paramount Pictures

Pound for pound, Mission: Impossible is the best franchise running right now. The level of quality on these films is astounding, but it’s the dynamism from film-to-film that really makes them special. The Bond and Bourne movies kind of blur together a bit, but each Mission: Impossible movie is distinct, with filmmakers bringing their own flavor to the spy series. The first film is a sultry Brian De Palma thriller through-and-through; M:I 2 is over-the-top John Woo action (and is the only “bad” movie in the franchise despite certain redeeming qualities); Mission: Impossible 3 is a romantic and deeply personal affair thanks to J.J. Abrams (even if it’s a little similar to Alias); Brad Bird’s Ghost Protocol is nearly cartoonish in the best possible way; Christopher McQuarrie’s Rogue Nation is a suave 1940s throwback and the director's Fallout is an epic, Christopher Nolan-y actioner full of stunning set pieces. And through it all, Tom Cruise just simply never quits being the coolest. Why not catch up before Mission: Impossible 7 's release later this year? – Adam Chitwood

Friday the 13th

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Image via Paramount Pictures

Jason Vorhees is the greatest physical comedian since the silent film era, and you need look no further than his very first appearance in Friday the 13th Part 2 to verify this fact. He wears a goofy burlap sack on his head with a single eyehole, and at one point in the film tries to ambush someone hiding beneath a bed by standing on a chair and ends up crashing through the chair like an absolute rube instead. Then he gets kicked in the balls with an audible “OOF!” It’s wonderful. The infamous slasher series gradually realizes that Jason is way more funny than scary, most noticeably in Friday the 13th Part 6: Jason Lives, a movie in which Jason folds a man in half like a wardrobe bag and crashes a Winnebego on the highway. Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan has an all-time cinema moment involving Jason dropkicking a boombox across Times Square. He then goes to space and fights Freddy Kruger in that order (to clarify, Freddy Kruger is not in space). Even the 2009 remake is pretty enjoyable, turning Jason into a backwoods Solid Snake rigging Crystal Lake with booby traps to protect his weed farm from Jared Padalecki. That’s not a joke. It’s one of the most consistently enjoyable horror series just in terms of iconic slasher movie moments, and the films in which they lean into playing Jason purely for comedy are when it truly shines. – Tom Reimann

Harry Potter

Image of Daniel Radcliff in Harry Potter

A personal favorite of mine, you’re either really into Harry Potter or it’s just not for you. My first go-around with this franchise I hadn’t read the books. I had fun with the movies and enjoyed the change in tone and aesthetic from film-to-film, but my full-on Harry Potter obsession didn’t come until after I had acquainted myself with J.K. Rowling’s masterful book series. These films are so lovingly crafted and true to the spirit of Rowling’s books, but also take inspired swings. They’re some of the best examples of book-to-film adaptations in history: they don’t do a disservice to Harry Potter, but they’re also not afraid to make changes that deepen the characters. This is partly due to the fact that four very different directors helmed this series, each with his own point of view on what this story of good vs. evil, of found family, and of the remarkable power of love meant to them. But also just as a piece of entertainment, the variety of flavor you find from film to film, and the skill with which this one long story plays out in seven different parts, makes it highly watchable in a marathon setting. – Adam Chitwood

Indiana Jones

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Image via Paramount Pictures

Top to bottom, full stop, the Indiana Jones movies are the grandest adventure you can go on without ever leaving your home. Steven Spielberg took all the best aspects of swashbuckling 1930s and 40s serials, added his own supernatural knack for spectacle, and topped it all off with the most charismatic mother effer on the planet, Harrison Ford, as the daring archeologist battling Nazis, death cults, and the wrath of God himself to obtain rare artifacts. The general pulse-pounding nature of these movies will rocket you through, but there’s also more variety between them than immediately meets the eye. Raiders of the Lost Ark has been proven by science* to be the perfect action movie—to paraphrase Indy himself, that truck chase belongs in a museum—where the real treasure is Douglas Slocombe’s cinematography. Temple of Doom gets way darker, literally inventing the PG-13 rating with its bloody, below-ground spookiness. The Last Crusade is basically the franchise’s Avengers-level event film, quadrupling down on every bombastic quirk of the series while doubling the Joneses with the addition of Sean Connery’s Henry Jones Sr. And that’s it! That’s all the Indiana Jones movies!

I’m kidding. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is, rightfully, regarded as the unnecessary weak spot in an otherwise flawless series. But heck, even that movie has the return of Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood, an underratedly great motorcycle chase, and Cate Blanchett wielding a tiny sword. Catch up before Indiana Jones 5 comes out in the near future! - Vinnie Mancuso

(*citation needed.)

The Dark Knight Trilogy

Heath Ledger as the Joker in the streets of Gotham in The Dark Knight
Image via Warner Bros.

Batman Begins brought us a new way of looking at superhero cinema. Tim Burton’s original two Batman films were dark, alright. But they were heavily stylized, fantastical, and otherworldly. Christopher Nolan, coming off his indie breakthrough Memento and his studio entrypoint Insomnia, took the world of the caped crusader and grounded it into something that felt like our actual, visceral, tangible world. Christian Bale growling, Heath Ledger asking about these scars, Tom Hardy’s whole thing -- these have all become so ubiquitous in our culture they border on solely existing as things to be parodied. But returning to the sources, you’ll be reminded of these films’ sheer power, scope, and filmmaking courage. After the moral complications of Begins comes the powerhouse of The Dark Knight, Nolan’s version of Heat rife with gritty photography and one helluva performance from Ledger. And after the grittily narrow focus of Dark Knight comes the bigger, broader, sloppier, and arguably funner The Dark Knight Rises. Hardy is instantly iconic, yes, but my biggest props go to Anne Hathaway, who gives Catwoman a vital sense of humor and fun that powers the rest of the action-packed flick. Plus -- the scene with Michael Caine making a big decision will always make me cry. You either die a hero, or live long enough to forget how good the Dark Knight trilogy is. Make your choice wisely. - Greg Smith

Paranormal Activity

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Image Via Paramount Pictures

Paranormal Activity is one of the best horror film franchises ever created - just make sure you stop watching after the third film. Oren Peli’s 2009 original is an incredible feat of creativity, economical filmmaking and character development. One might think the late-night recording sessions would grow old fast but the pairing of smart scares with the growing attachment to the main characters, Katie and Micah (Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat), not only makes that first film so much more than a spooky shtick, but it also successfully builds a foundation that would help support two phenomenal sequels. When Paranormal Activity 2 arrived in 2010, my burning question was, how could they possibly pull this off again without making it feel like more of the same? Yes, Peli and the growing team of Paranormal filmmakers do add some new visual tricks, but a big reason why Paranormal Activity 2 is just as successful as the first is because it appears character and story came first. Round two put the spotlight on Katie’s sister, Kristi (Sprague Grayden), and then with the third film, the team made a downright genius decision - use what they achieved in the first two films to bolster a third. Paranormal Activity 3 goes back to 1988 and focuses on a young Katie and Kristi. Not only does that choice continue to make the duo extremely well-developed anchors for the trilogy, but it also opens the door wide open to new techniques for the found footage format, and directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman really make the most of that opportunity. The first three films make for a brilliant trilogy before the main series essentially crashes and burns, but if you’re looking for a little bonus viewing after Paranormal Activity 1, 2 and 3, the spin-off film, Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, deserves way more credit that it gets. There's also Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension, Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin, and a Japanese sidequal Paranormal Activity 2: Tokyo Night - Perri Nemiroff

The Pirates of the Caribbean Trilogy

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Image via Buena Vista Pictures

Okay yes, technically there are five Pirates of the Caribbean films. You can watch On Stranger Tides and Dead Men Tell No Tales if you want to, but I’m here to sing the praises of director Gore Verbinski’s delightfully insane original trilogy. The first film, The Curse of the Black Pearl, is one of the best pieces of blockbuster entertainment made in the 21st century. It’s thrilling and funny and adventurous, but also deeply inspired—Johnny Depp’s performance as Jack Sparrow is instantly iconic, and Verbinski clearly knew it the way he tees up Depp to go wild. But the following two sequels Dead Man’s Chest and At World’s End—which Verbinski shot back-to-back in a herculean feat of filmmaking—are good, actually. They take huge swings with an epic, serialized adventure that plays out across the span of two movies, all the while digging deeper into the seedy pirate underworld with a menagerie of colorful characters. Watched in sequence, the first three Pirates of the Caribbean films tell an epically adventurous story of thievery and love in the time of pirates. – Adam Chitwood

The LEGO Movies

THE LEGO MOVIE

Are you in need of a franchise that captures the whimsy of your childhood while also making elevated jokes that speak to your experiences as an adult? Are you a fan of actors like Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, and Will Arnett? Do you just wanna escape to the world of LEGO, where bricks have never looked so dang cool in your entire life? Then you need the LEGO Movie franchise, my friend, and quick.

Beginning with 2014’s The LEGO Movie, the LEGO Movie franchise also includes three feature film installments: 2017’s The LEGO Batman Movie and The LEGO Ninjago Movie as well as 2019[s The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part. All four LEGO Movie chapters take place within the world of anthropomorphic Lego characters. While each movie plays like a typical animated movie aimed squarely at kids (hero encounters villain, recruits a team of friends to help defeat said villain, encounters plenty of hijinks along the way), each LEGO Movie installment is rife with sharp, meta jokes which make every film a joy to watch. Even better, it’s hard to find a role which has been miscast, with literally every actor in every respective cast firing on all cylinders with great voice performances. Honestly, if you don’t feel joy after watching one (or all) of the LEGO Movie movies, then you need to check yourself before you wreck yourself. - Allie Gemmill

Saw

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Image Via Lionsgate

Like many horror franchises worth their weight in blood, a large part of Saw’s appeal comes from the Rube Goldberg-ian ways it slices and dices its characters. But watching all nine movies, from 2004’s Saw to 2021's Spiral, is uniquely fascinating in the way a simple idea straight-up exploded outward like an atom bomb. The first Saw film—directed by James Wan and written by Leigh Whannell, who also stars—deserves its place next to genre’s greatest hits. It’s a tight, tense thrill-ride filled with killer scares that manages to keep the bulk of its action to a single room while still introducing a new horror icon, the Jigsaw Killer (Tobin Bell), a gravel-voiced mastermind who hooks victims up to complex traps to teach them the value of life. Saw 2 took that ingenious nugget and expanded on it, with bigger traps, wilder twists, and much, much more gore. Each ensuing movie did the same, until the simplicity of Saw transformed into its own complex maze of copy-cat killers, surprise flashbacks, twists-within-twists, and death-traps that pushed right past logic and reasoning. (A chain that pulls you toward an entire wall of buzzsaws is a long way from a rusty saw in a plastic bag at the back of a toilet.) Does that mean all the Saw movies are “good”? Absolutely not, I’m not here for false advertising. But I personally chose the Saw franchise as my first quarantine rewatch, and it has been one hell of a good time. - Vinnie Mancuso

Back to the Future

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Image via Universal Pictures

The OG “we’re gonna shoot the sequels back-to-back,” Back to the Future is one of the most iconic franchises of all time, and I think its sequels still don’t get the respect they deserve. Robert Zemeckis’ original film is a masterpiece of sci-fi filmmaking, yes. Zemeckis translates the idea of “what if you went to high school with your parents?” into a hilarious, inventive time travel romp, and that movie still holds up as a stone cold classic. But the sequels are fun too! Back to the Future Part II is not only a wish-fulfillment idealized version of what the future might look like, but also a clever twist on the “butterfly effect” idea, showing how Marty McFly’s (Michael J. Fox) actions snowball to create a hellish future in which Donald Trump Biff Tannen is in power. And while Part III is maybe a bit of a step down in quality, it’s still tremendously fun to watch Marty and Doc fumble around the Wild West while Zemeckis continues to play with storytelling echoes from the first two movies. – Adam Chitwood

The Original RoboCop Trilogy

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Image via Orion Pictures

If you haven’t seen the original RoboCop by now, my word. It is, of course, a classic genre-bending, muckraking, cyberpunk masterpiece brimming with ultraviolence, bleak comedy, and a surprising amount of emotional sensitivity about its titular robot cop whose humanity is hiding somewhere in his circuitry. But Paul Verhoeven’s classic ain’t the only picture worth watching in the original trilogy. RoboCop 2, from director Irvin Kershner (who knows his way around a middle chapter of a trilogy), contains one of the funniest and most inspired ideas in the RoboCop mythology -- while I don’t want to spoil it too much, it involves the rewiring of Mister Cop, and a whole bunch of vulgar kids. It also contains a very prescient narrative involving horrible, cult of personality leaders and my hometown of Detroit literally declaring bankruptcy (something my hometown literally did 23 years later). And while most will tell you RoboCop 3 is not worth your time, I can’t help but have a soft spot. Yes there’s a new man under the robotic cop suit, yes it’s now PG-13, and yes director Fred Dekker perhaps unnecessarily broadens his purview out to a more fantastical post-apocalyptic zone. But boy howdy, do I love the production design, mythologically high stakes, chintzy early ‘90s visual effects, and bonkers-ass performance from Rip Torn on this sucker. Each film feels slightly different from the last, but each film will provide intense thrills, imagination, and sick belly laughs, making the entire RoboCop trilogy worth your time and then some. Your move, creep. - Greg Smith

Star Wars

Harrison Ford as Han Solo aiming a blaster gun in Star Wars

If you have access to an internet connection and a functioning brainstem you may have heard about Star Wars, the sci-fi adventure franchise that has consumed pop culture like nothing else. But what gets lost a lot in the conversation is the fact that Star Wars is great, has always been great, and remains great even when the discourse gets as coarse and rough as all that dang sand. Twelve films separated trilogies, an origin story, a spinoff, and an animated adventure—heck, 15 if you can track down the Holiday Special and two Ewok movies—all revolving around the galactic struggle between a ruthless ruling class and the rebels who defy them. Within that epic framework dreamed up by George Lucas, some of the most enduring icons of the genre were created. The ultimate hero’s journey in Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill). The blueprint for a charming scoundrel in Han Solo (Harrison Ford). The toughest princess in any solar system, Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher). Ewan McGregor’s exasperated, Shakespearean take on Alec Guinness’ Obi-Wan Kenobi. Rey (Daisy Ridley), a nobody who was actually a somebody. Outer space’s #1 Sad Boi Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), killing himself to live up to arguably the greatest movie villain of all time, Darth Vader (James Earl Jones). The list goes on, and the opportunity to spend dozens of hours watching this crew struggle and triumph is a gift as vast as space.

Bonus: Once you’ve cycled through the films a couple (hundred) times, there are 208 episodes total of Clone Wars, Rebels, The Mandalorian, and The Book of Boba Fett to get to. - Vinnie Mancuso

The Vengeance Trilogy

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Image via CJ Entertainment

Is it unfair to include three films that aren’t narratively connected but follow similar themes and have been retroactively linked together as a loose trilogy? Well, if you’re earnestly steamed about it, I suppose you can enact some kind of complicated plan of revenge against me. That sickly, primal, all-too-human impulse of “revenge” is at the center of Park Chan-wook’s “trilogy,” three works that reach nearly operatic heights of melodrama, visually render some extreme imagery in inventive ways, and cut to the core of humanity with relentless watchability. The first film, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, tells the bitter tale of a father obsessed in finding the deaf-mute man who accidentally killed his daughter. The second and most well-known, Oldboy, takes its cue from a manga to tell the labyrinthian tale of a man imprisoned for 15 years, and then released inexplicably to try and find who captured him (avoid the Spike Lee remake at all costs). And the final film, Lady Vengeance, tells what’s likely the most morally ambiguous, complicated tale of a woman wrongfully imprisoned for the crimes of a child-killer, and how she plans on finding the real criminal now that she’s released (make sure you watch the “Fade to Black and White” version, in which Park subtly desaturates the colors to match his characters’ descent into desperation). All three films make for fascinating, self-contained watches, and all three films will make you need a shower after, for both different and similar reasons. - Greg Smith

Scream

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There are many horror franchises which stand the test of time and the Scream franchise absolutely ranks high among them. No matter which of the four Scream movies you choose to watch, each serves up healthy portions of gory scares with enjoyably overt meta-commentary on the horror genre. The franchise begins with 1996’s Scream, which takes the shape of a traditional slasher flick as we follow good girl Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) and her group of friends (played by Rose McGowan, Skeet Ulrich, Jamie Kennedy, and Matthew Lillard) as they try to evade the masked killer known as Ghostface terrorizing their small town. While every installment takes on this basic set-up, with Sidney and her friends or close allies stalked by Ghostface, the true thrill of each movie is watching as different culprits put on the mask and try to make Sidney their prey. Sidney is, of course, a seasoned badass molded in the form of final girls like Halloween’s Laurie Strode and she takes no prisoners. As the world of Scream expands with every successive movie, the in-universe jokes — like the development of the fictional Stab franchise which adapts the horrors Sidney endures into meta-horror movies — make the meta-commentary more apparent and make for a more rewarding viewing experience. - Allie Gemmill

Jurassic Park

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Image via Universal

Considering Jurassic Park is my favorite movie of all-time, this franchise was an obvious pick for me. That 1993 original is the ultimate escape for anyone who love dinosaurs, dreams as big as John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) or just plain old loves an exceptionally well crafted adventure. While none of the Jurassic sequels ever managed to match that first masterpiece, they all have their merits - yes, even Jurassic Park III. There’s something special about watching each installment in the order of release that really let’s you feel the power of the park park or, more specifically, the intensity of the technology and science behind it.

There’s John’s awe-inspiring original vision, the heartbreak of its failure, and then the lingering fear sparked by that disaster that ultimately paves the way to the need to take responsibility for it. Then, jump to the Jurassic World portion of the franchise, and you get human beings doing what human beings do best - repeating the same mistakes all over again. John Hammond’s park officially opens and if that 1993 version was Disneyland, the park Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) is running is Disney World - an absolutely enormous property with a slew of attractions and innovations. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom then borrows from The Lost World story structure with action on the island and on the mainland, and also delivering a story that’s an effective mix of action-heavy terror that also focuses on particular characters taking responsibility for the power both the folks at the park attempted and failed to wield. Jurassic World Dominion is set to release later this year. - Perri Nemiroff

Final Destination

Keegan Connor Tracy with a pipe near her head in Final Destination 2
Image via New Line Cinema

The Final Destination series is very important to me. Watching a bunch of handsome dummies tumble their way through elaborate murder contraptions created by the intangible force of death itself is easily one of my favorite activities. It toes a fine line between horror and comedy, although the movies progressively lean more into the hilarious side as the series goes on. It’s like a game of Mousetrap that improbably cuts someone in half instead of dropping a cage on a plastic mouse. You can find the first four films on Netflix at the time of this writing, but you’ll unfortunately have to rent Final Destination 5. It’s totally worth the price though, because that one features some of the best set pieces in the series, including David Koechner getting cannon-blasted by boiling tar in the first seven minutes. It’s like rewatching The Godfather films and being upset that you have to rent Part II. Just bite the bullet and do it. Final Destination 6 is also slatted for release on HBO Max. – Tom Reimann

The Marvel Cinematic Universe

Avengers unite in Avengers: Infinity War to fight Thanos' army
Avengers unite in Avengers: Infinity War to fight Thanos' army

If you really want to make a project out of a movie marathon, there’s always the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This is serialized TV storytelling on a massive canvas, as Kevin Feige and Co. crafted an overall story arc told across disparate films. Some work better than others (lookin’ at you Thor: The Dark World), and while there are some great individual films in Marvel’s early days, the intertwined storytelling really starts to take off with Captain America: Civil War, which is followed by wonderfully inspired individual entires like Thor: Ragnarok and Black Panther. Watch them all in a row and see how much long-range story planning you can spot. – Adam Chitwood