There is something to the Saw franchise that ensures it will just never die. This is especially true now with the recently released Saw X which brings us back in time once more to a story of maddening traps, bloody torture, and twisting timelines. It also provides a perfect opportunity to revisit and rank all the movies released to date in the series.

And yet, if Saw has always cannibalized itself, it's also made the effort to respect the audience's investment in the mythology, trusting fans to keep up without explaining every reference and continuing to bring back key players in fun and exciting ways, with much more consistency than you can usually expect from a cast in a horror sequel. Whether you like the final product or not, there's no denying that Saw was one of the most vital, brazen entries in the horror genre in ages — one that helped define the genre for a generation.

Trying to rank the Saw films is a bit more difficult than you might imagine. Not just because they're often too similar — the overlapping plots and timelines bleeding into one another in a circuitous, standstill narrative — but because almost all of them are uneven. Some of them have great characters, but terrible traps. Sometimes the characters are boring, but the mythology is clever. Almost every film has something interesting to offer, but almost none of them check all the boxes.

And now without further ado, check out all ten Saw movies ranked below.

10. Spiral: From the Book of Saw

Chris Rock as Zeke Banks pointing a gun in Spiral: From the Book of Saw
Image via Lionsgate.

Director: Darren Lynn Bousman

Writers: Josh Stolberg, Pete Goldfinger

Cast: Chris Rock, Samuel L. Jackson, Max Minghella

Though there are many low points in the Saw franchise, none are as low as the baffling Spiral. The most disconnected from the main story of any of the entries to date, it attempted to tell a story within the world while charting its own new path forward. It failed spectacularly, making it hard to recommend to even the most devoted followers of Saw as it just feels like a diversion rather than a necessary part of the expanding story. This all centers around Zeke Banks, a detective who discovers there may be a new copycat killer on the loose following in the footsteps of Jigsaw. Played by Chris Rock, it is a performance that feels like half of him doing discarded stand-up bits and the other half trying to bring something resembling deeper reflections about modern policing.

The result is a film that, almost like a Jigsaw trap itself, feels like it is pulling itself in multiple directions and ends up being torn completely apart. All of the mostly forgettable traps feel almost entirely disconnected from the main story surrounding Banks as he tries to piece together who is behind the killings and also navigate the corruption within the police force. There is some backstory surrounding him trying to make things better only to be branded a rat by his fellow officers, but all of this is played so clumsily that it feels like the film would have been better off splitting in two so that each part could be given more room to maneuver. Instead, each feels like it is trying to jostle just for a bit of space only for it to end less with a bang and more with a whimper.

The film was so bad that it honestly seemed like it may be the end for Saw writ large rather than giving it new life. While this proved not to be the case, with the most recent entry surpassing this one by leaps and bounds, Spiral remains a fundamentally misguided work from start to finish. The twist, when it eventually comes, just feels tepid in comparison to the other curveballs that the series threw our way. Its sole value is as a case study of how not to create a spin-off of a series. - Chase Hutchinson

9. Saw: The Final Chapter

Saw 3D: The Final Chapter

Director: Kevin Gruetert

Writers: Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan

Cast: Cary Elwes, Tobin Bell, Costas Mandylor, Betsy Russell, Sean Patrick Flannery, Chad Donella, Gina Holden

Game over. Saw 3D, Saw: The Final Chapter, or Saw VII... whatever title you slap on the incredibly unpleasant seventh film, it was bad enough to slam the door shut on the franchise for seven whole years. Despite being by far the most expensive Saw film to produce, Saw 3D looks garish and cheap to the point of distraction. Some of that is due to the unfortunate play toward the 3D trend, which dictated flat and off-putting shot formats geared at flinging viscera toward the camera. But, as a whole, there's a sense of shoddy craftsmanship to the film, from the weird bright pink blood to the thoughtless use of franchise iconography.

On the game side of things, Saw 3D got meta. Bobby Dagen, a fraudulent Jigsaw survivor who built fame and fortune out of his lie, gets thrown into the game for real alongside everyone who kept his dirty little secret. Except for his wife, who literally did nothing wrong and suffers one of the most horrifying deaths in the franchise (which is really saying something). The game is never fun when innocent people get tortured, but Saw 3D often seems designed to make sure you're not having a good time.

If the game is bad, the apprentice mythology is worse. It's all about Detective "throat stab" Hoffman, who's basically the Terminator at this point. Dead set on getting vengeance against Jill for trying to reverse bear trap him at her late husband's behest, Hoffman tears his way through a woefully inept police department using toxic gas and turret guns, making for a Saw film that doesn't feel much like a Saw film at all. Sure it's fun to see Dr. Gordon back at last, but fans had speculated about that reveal for years online, making for a full-on case of too little, too late. James Wan was clever enough to know that imagining the reverse bear trap was infinitely scarier than seeing it happen, and Saw 3D is the goofy kind of movie that constantly caters to the lowest common denominator, not only showing the trap in full effect but wagging the lolling, gory remains at the audience in 3D. - Haleigh Foutch

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8. Jigsaw

People sit on the floor wearing metal helmets chained to something offscreen in 'Jigsaw'.
Image via Lionsgate.

Directors: Michael Spierig and Peter Spierig

Writers: Pete Goldfinger and Josh Stolberg

Cast: Tobin Bell, Callum Keith Rennie, Laura Vandervoort, Matt Passmore, Hannah Emily Anderson, Mandela Van Peebles, Cle Bennett

What a wasted opportunity. Love 'em or hate 'em, the Saw films have always been a box office beast, inspiring audiences to pack butts in the theaters. These films have a devoted contingent of fans worldwide, fans who bought into and kept track of the franchise's serialized, overlapping narrative for seven films. With Jigsaw, Saw returned to theaters for the first time in seven years and the film could have played to that well-invested mythology or have left it behind in favor of something inventive. Instead, Jigsaw does neither.

Jigsaw goes back to the group game format from Saw II and V, putting five shady individuals in an abandoned barn where they have to help each other survive or face dire consequences. The pieces are there — Billy the Puppet, the obsession with the rules, the twisting timelines, and of course, John Kramer makes an appearance -- but they don't add up to much. No matter the flaws in the previous entries, Saw almost always delivered a doozy of an ending, but every twist in Jigsaw is telegraphed a mile away and the result is a pale imitation of a franchise perhaps best left in the trends of the past. - Haleigh Foutch

7. Saw IV

Betsy Russell and Tobin Bell in Saw IV
Image Via Lionsgate Films

Director: Darren Lynn Bousman

Writers: Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan

Cast: Tobin Bell, Costas Mandylor, Scott Patterson, Betsy Russell, Lyriq Bent, Athena Karkanis, Donnie Wahlberg, Justin Louis, Shawnee Smith

Saw IV isn't the nadir of the franchise, but it's certainly not a high point. After killing off Jigsaw in Saw III, new screenwriters Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan, who would see the franchise through Saw 3D, and returning director Darren Lynn Bousman, in his final contribution to the franchise, had to find a way forward without their maniacal mastermind. In true Saw tradition, moving forward meant looking back... and piling on all the twists you can handle.

Saw IV dives deep into the history of John Kramer and the origins of his murderous mission to teach the value of life, overcomplicating his origin story to the point of ridiculousness -- a point that would somehow get even more absurd as subsequent films as they continued to overlap characters back stories at unnecessary, manufactured intersections. At the same time, the game element of Saw IV is particularly egregious -- some of the victims are so evil, they're pretty much just getting their just deserts, and the ones you're supposed to be rooting for aren't that likable either. Bousman was always the best at cringe-inducing grotesquerie and Saw VI's autopsy is perhaps the most stomach-testing moment in the whole franchise, but good gore and a command of carnal instinct don't make a good movie. The central character is a bore, the traps are forgettable, and Bousman generally seems to have very little juice left in the tank on his third round. The saving grace for Saw IV is the clever ending -- a move that redefined the structure of the franchise and allowed Jigsaw to remain a player, even after his death. - Haleigh Foutch

6. Saw III

Lynn and Amanda argue as Jigsaw lays in a hospital bed in Saw III.
Image via Lionsgate.

Director: Darren Lynn Bousman

Writer: Leigh Whannell

Cast: Tobin Bell, Shawnee Smith, Angus Macfayden, Dina Meyer, Bahar Soomekh

James Wan, Leigh Whannell, and Darren Lynn Bousman worked together to concoct the story for Saw III, and the end result is one of the most divisive films in the franchise. For some Saw III is one of the best, if not the best, installment. For me, however, it is too cruel by far and marked the turning point when the franchise became more about clever flashbacks and even cleverer bloodbaths than anything else.

The film also suffers from a challenging lead protagonist who's just not that easy to like. Jeff Denlon (Macfayden), a man grieving and avenging the death of his young son is placed into a deadly maze where he must follow the rules and dispense Jigsaw's version of justice to anyone who did anything wrong on the While that buys the character a good deal of sympathy and likeability points, he wastes them all away, always stalling too long before taking action, taking action reluctantly, and generally letting people suffer some of the most painful deaths possible while barely raising a finger to save them.

Saw III is where the narrative really starts to stack up and, in that regard, the relationship between John and Amanda Young (Shawnee Smith) is probably the most satisfying emotional core of any of these movies — it's just a shame the movie around it isn't worth watching. Too sadistic by far, with some of the most brutally painful traps in franchise history, Saw III is the film that finally earned Saw's reputation as sick and silly gorefest. - Haleigh Foutch

5. Saw V

Peter Strahm, played by actor Scott Patterson, in the a Water Cube Trap featured in Saw V
Image via Lionsgate Films

Director: David Hackl

Writers: Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan

Cast: Tobin Bell, Costas Mandylor, Scott Patterson, Betsy Russell, Meagan Good, Julie Benz, Carlo Rota

Unpopular opinion, but all these years later, Saw V has proven to be one of the most watchable, entertaining films in the franchise. Part of it is the cast, filled with more recognizable actors than usual, who go a long way toward making their characters memorable in Saw's cavalcade of corpses, but this is also one of the few entries where the Jigsaw's game and his web of apprentices are equally engaging.

After Darren Lynn Bousman ran out of things to say in Saw IV, production designer turned director David Hackl stepped in for his one and only entry, and the revamped approach offered a much-needed jolt of energy to the stagnant format. Revisiting the group format introduced in Saw II, a group of Jigsaw's victims entered the game together, and rather than deciding the fate of others (as was the case in Saw III and IV), their fates were in their own hands, determined only by how much they could fight their destructive instincts and work together to survive.

Outside the game, Detective Hoffman and Detective Strahm are locked in a deadly game of cat and mouse. Strahm earns himself a badass hall of fame when he survives an impossible game and comes hot on Hoffman's heels -- the rare officer in the Saw series who's actually worth his salt. The final standoff between the two provides one of the most cynical surprise endings in a franchise built on surprise endings. - Haleigh Foutch

4. Saw X

A man strapped into the eye vacuum trap in 'Saw X.'
Image via Lionsgate

Director: Kevin Greutert

Writers: Pete Goldfinger, Josh Stolberg

Cast: Tobin Bell, Shawnee Smith, Synnøve Macody Lund

Now we arrive at the most recent entry in the horror franchise. Though it is called Saw X, it is actually more of Saw 1.5 as it takes place between the first and second films. Starring Tobin Bell as John Kramer AKA Jigsaw, it is an experience that is almost entirely centered around his character as he tries to find a way to survive what we know is a terminal cancer diagnosis. More than other entries in the past, he is made into a protagonist of sorts and we spend quite a bit of time getting to see what he does outside of all that torturing. He goes to support groups, works on his will, and dreams of his next spectacle of death just as he himself is on the cusp of it. When he is given what seems like a second chance at life via an experimental treatment, he travels to a secluded location outside Mexico City where he goes through what seems to be surgery that he is told has cured him. Of course, all of this turns out to be a scam and Kramer subsequently decides to take down the people that tricked him the only way he knows how.

The film is absolutely one of the funniest in the franchise as we see Kramer basically as a boomer who gets duped by an obvious con because they made a simple website. As the story draws this out to an absurd degree, this never stops being hilarious to see him just overlooking what are so many clear tells that he’s being tricked. When he finally pieces it together, the traps come into play and we see more of Kramer observing this than ever before. Largely out of necessity, the entire thing is rather confined and pretty straightforward. Where the other films jumped around in time in a rather ridiculous fashion, this one proceeds with a more linear narrative to just hone in on the basics of the story. The result is a film that isn’t quite as chaotic as some of its predecessors, but still is rather solid when it counts. Though it may sound damning with faint praise, it is one of the better Saw films and the best in the last decade.

The key to this is having Bell take center stage once more. He gives what may be his performance in all of the films, delivering the silliest of lines with complete sincerity. There is never a moment that doesn’t rely on his fully leaning into the character, bringing all of his murderous tendencies out into the open without ever overplaying the character. You fully buy into every detail as Bell is just so believable after decades of playing this character. More than ever before, it cements Jigsaw as being one of the best horror villains ever. There is little that is flashy about the performance, but that only makes it all the more quietly terrifying as we see him set death in motion like he is merely doing his taxes. That we are given a more complete glimpse of the man himself only makes it all the more magnificent to see him really sink his teeth into each and every single moment we get with him. It is as if Bell has been honing the particulars of Kramer for an entire career for this culminating final bow. If there was one film to send him out with, Saw X is about as good as any to do so. - Chase Hutchinson

3. Saw VI

Tanedra Howard as Simone wearing a metal head contraption and screaming in Saw VI
Image via Lionsgate.

Director: Kevin Gruetert

Writers: Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan

Cast: Tobin Bell, Costas Mandylor, Betsy Russell, Shawnee Smith, Mark Rolston, Athena Karkanis, Peter Outerbridge, Devon Bostick

After editing the first five Saw films, Kevin Grutert made his directorial debut on Saw VI, with Saw V screenwriters Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunston returning to pen the script. The result is one of the more thoughtful and surprising entries in the franchise, with a genuinely surprising ending that, in a refreshing change of pace, didn't hinge on the timeline and retroactive rule changes. Saw VI is by far the most political film in the franchise, extending Jigsaw's morality test to the world of cutthroat corporate insurance and the gatekeepers who use algorithms and bottom lines to determine the value of a life.

Insurance executive William Eaton (Outerbridge) gets thrown into a particularly horrifying round of Jigsaw's games, designed to pervert and punish his calculated approach to deciding who lives and dies -- because now the choices involve people he knows. Saw VI is packed with intense and effective traps -- the opening finds exploitative bank lenders locked in a race to shed a pound of flesh for their sins, and the shotgun carousel is one of the more viscerally emotional set-ups in the franchise -- but the arguably the best trick is making you sympathetic toward Eaton despite his despicable profession and pulling the rug out from under you once you're in his corner.

Saw VI thrives because of its game, but unfortunately, this is also where the franchise starts to lose its footing with the twisted mythology of Jigsaw's apprentices, spending far too much time with the one-note detective Hoffman and the inefficient officers on his trail. Three films out from John Kramer's death, there's only so much you can do with the looping timelines and Jigsaw's post-mortem planning. Even with the petering mythology, Saw VI remains one of the most watchable and entertaining films in the franchise. - Haleigh Foutch

2. Saw II

Still from 'Saw II': Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) grins evilly in his workshop and signature black and red robe
Image via Lionsgate Films.

Director: Darren Lynn Bousman

Writers: Leigh Whannell, Darren Lynn Bousman

Cast: Tobin Bell, Shawnee Smith, Dina Meyer, Donnie Wahlberg, Emmanuelle Vaugier, Frankie G, Erik Knudson, Beverly Mitchell

Saw II has the distinct feeling of a franchise still finding its footing, not yet settled into a formulaic rut. The sequel went bigger and bloodier, trading terrifying teases for explicit gore and upping the stakes from a two-person game to a group descent into hell when eight criminals, including the return of Shawnee Smith's Amanda, wake up in an abandoned house that's been transformed into a giant death trap. Poisoned and on the hunt for the antidotes hidden around the house, Jigsaw's targets turn on each other, often inflicting more damage than the traps themselves.

Darren Lynn Bousman made his franchise debut with Saw II, working from his original script, which was repurposed as a Saw sequel after Leigh Whannell returned to do some rewrites. The sequel offered the clever and genuinely surprising introduction of Jigsaw's apprentices, but with John Kramer still alive and in the game, the mythology building and timeline stacking hadn't yet overpowered the appeal of Saw's core concept. Saw II reinforced the elements of the first film that would become tradition while pushing the franchise in a new direction, and while it's not as vital or innovative as the original, the sequel also has an enormous fingerprint on the legacy of Saw. Plus, that pit of needles trap is an all-timer. - Haleigh Foutch

1. Saw

Cary Elwes laying on the floor in distress, reaching for a phone in 'Saw' (2004)
Image via Lionsgate

Director: James Wan

Writer: Leigh Whannell

Cast: Cary Elwes, Leigh Whannell, Danny Glover, Ken Leung, Monica Potter, Michael Emerson, Dina Meyer

If there's one thing almost everyone can agree on when it comes to the Saw films, it's that James Wan's original is the best. It's also significantly different from the string of blood-soaked "torture porn" sequels it inspired. Made for a scrappy budget, just over a million bucks, Wan and screenwriter Leigh Whannell's feature film debut is incredibly lean compared to the opulent Grand Guignol violence of the sequels. Limited by budget and means, Wan and Whannell constructed a violence-fuelled chamber drama with hints of a neo-noir crime thriller.

While the follow-ups trade in mangled flesh and rivers of blood, Wan is a smart enough filmmaker to make an important distinction -- the film is sadistic to its characters, but not its audience. Jigsaw's torture devices and traps, his so-called games make for terrifying brutality, the acts of violence themselves are largely offscreen, relying on the audience's imagination to fill in the worst. And Saw certainly captured imaginations. The film debuted at Sundance in 2004 and quickly earned hype as an extreme, twisted, and entirely original horror film. Lionsgate ditched their plans to release the film direct-to-video and a box office phenomenon was born. It didn't just spawn its own success, it altered the entire horror genre where the so-called "torture porn" cottage industry sprouted around Saw's success.

Even within the limited scope of the Saw franchise itself, it's incredible how much of Wan's fresh-from-film-school aesthetic and Whannell's narrative chutzpah have remained touchstones for the franchise all these years later. Not just the torture traps, frantic editing, and iconic creepy visuals (lookin' at you Billy), but the fundamental structure; victims of the game on the inside, detectives racing to solve the case on the outside, and a time-skipping, interweaving narrative that tees up to a major third-act surprise. Saw engaged a dark fantasy in the audience — how much blood would you shed to stay alive? That simple hook, Wan's flourish of crude style, and true innovation, Saw earns its spot in horror history. - Haleigh Foutch