Fast cars! PG-13 action violence! Gratuitous booty shots! If you tear up just thinking about these things, you might be a total Fast & Furious fanboy like me. Even though I’ve never been a car person, nor am I all that big on the artistic oeuvre of Vin Diesel, I still keep coming back like the dog in “Jurassic Bark”.
To be part of the Fast & Furious Family (or Fast-Heads as I have just dubbed us) means a lot of dirty looks from the less cultured in the office and, of course, copious discussions on how to rank the now NINE FILM (!!) franchise. Many opinions exist on the matter and, well, you’re here to read mine.
Just a little forewarning: this list is just my opinion. I love all of my vehicular manslaughter-happy children, but when push to comes to shove this is just how I would order them. Also, here there be SPOILERS, so maybe check back later after you complete the greatest movie marathon of your life.
With that out of the way, let’s start at the bottom with…
9. 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)
Sorry, this is just how it has to be. While a movie centering on Paul Walker’s Brian would be a slam dunk in any film past Part 3, this entry is not terribly kind to Walker’s still gestating acting skills. He’s kinda lame, actually, and it’s the improbable coolness of Tyrese Gibson’s Roman Pierce that steers this ship into port. Nothing against Walker, after all he’s flat out phenomenal in 2006’s Running Scared, but his “I’m totally street” gimmick just doesn’t work.
The plot is just as lame, featuring your standard issue agent undercover with a drug cartel story line that’s easily one of the two most generic scripts in the franchise. Still, it’s all good fun, and we get the one film in the series that takes Roman Pierce at least mildly seriously. Dude’s HONGRY, y’all.
8. Fast & Furious (2009)
The return to form for the franchise after a three year hiatus that felt like an absolute eternity, Fast & Furious is only so far down this list because of just how great the more recent entries have been. There’s also the little problem of the CGI tunnels in the climactic chase sequence which, while cool in parts, would immediately be overshadowed by what was to come.
Director Justin Lin returned for this and two more sequels after his debut with Tokyo Drift (your eyes aren’t deceiving you… we just haven’t gotten there yet) and here he continues to be a stylish and exciting action director. If he weren’t belabored with all of the CGI then perhaps this entry would be higher, but as any Dom-Head knows, the fan backlash from this film’s use of digital effects is what led to the massive increase in predominantly practical and real car stunts in Fast Five. In a sense, this is the film that saved the franchise.
We also finally get rid of Paul Walker’s street routine, and here he presents himself as a far more professional federal agent. This uptick in seriousness on his part works like gangbusters, especially as a contrast to Dom and the rest of the crew. The Family is back together and better than ever… at least until the next movie.
7. Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019)
The latest entry is a fun ride, but there are several problems that hobble the overall impact. For starters, Dom’s crew is generally really the heart of the series, and their absence is felt throughout. Hobbs and Shaw are phenomenal supporting characters in the main franchise and bring a sense of scale that a group of street racers turned international thieves turned international spies (?) just can not. Together, while entertaining, their larger-than-life personas swallow up any chance of real humanity we can invest in.
Idris Elba’s Brixton could have been the character who brought that humanity if given the proper backstory and plot, but instead he’s relegated to playing second fiddle to a mysterious SPECTRE-like organization and spouting nonsense about the good of mankind. It’s a boring routine we’ve seen before and better.
Then there’s family. While both title characters are given family-related arcs, neither feels particularly organic. Shaw’s sister, played with gusto by Vanessa Kirby, is a highlight, but not due to her familial attachment. The same goes for Hobbs’ Samoan relations, who don’t do much more than glower in the background and give the occasional fist bump. Samoa is a cool setting, but it just feels like Dwayne Johnson really wanted to film there and it was forced inelegantly into the script.
All of that said, director David Leitch comes up with some fun action sequences that, while heavy on CGI, are just ridiculous enough to work. Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham are fun to watch, even with the disconnect that comes from their over the top characters. While I look forward to where this spin-off series goes from here, there’s no denying that Vin Diesel won this particular fight.
6. The Fate of the Furious (2017)
Charlize Theron?! That’s probably the first of many exclamations made by those watching this outlandish eighth entry in the franchise, which sees Dom go rogue and Shaw’s original sin of killing Han seemingly forgotten (#JusticeForHan). This is also where the franchise goes full action fantasy, with several moments that dip into the superhero genre in the process.
At its core, Fate is everything great about latter day entries cranked up to eleven, with everything from Bond villain lairs to zombie cars testing the audience’s suspension of disbelief. While this menagerie of nonsense is undeniably fun, it does strain credulity enough to feel almost too preposterous.
More frustrating is that F. Gary Gray is just not up to the same gleeful madness of Justin Lin or James Wan, and as such turns in a far more generic product. That’s not to say he does a bad job, just that the vehicular absurdity and soap opera storytelling don’t mesh as well as they used to. Admittedly, the screenplay doesn’t help in that regard, but one can’t help but feel a more attuned director could have brought it all home.
Still, there’s nothing to really dislike here. Stuff blows up, cars are destroyed en mass, and the Hobbs-Shaw prison breakout is one of the most wickedly entertaining scenes in the saga. Charlize Theron’s Cipher represents a new chapter in Fast & Furious lore, and even proves that mysterious organizations with retcon superpowers can work just fine.
And Jason Statham saves a baby! And the whole scene is a hair away from plagiarizing Face/Off! And it’s great!
5. The Fast & The Furious (2001)
It all began with a simple Point Break ripoff. Rob Cohen’s tale of family and DVD players, starring a stiff man-child, a marble-mouthed C-grade Body, and an inexplicable Ted Levine, seemed destined to fail. By all rights, it probably should have been a one-and-done actioner; a relic of a bygone era. Instead it launched one of the greatest franchises of all time.
Most of what makes the O.G. so good is the nostalgia of it all, not only for that strange period between the ’90s and ’00s, but also for the quaint lives of our main cast of characters. It was a simpler, less supernatural time, when a man couldn’t just launch himself off of one side of a bridge to the other using the force of a crashing car in order to save his amnesiac spouse.
Beyond that nostalgia is a flawed but entertaining flick that doesn’t overstay its welcome and knows what we want: cars, chicks, a generous helping of NOS, and more cars, preferably of the illegally speeding variety. While an argument could certainly be made in favor of the more polished films below it on this list, The Fast & The Furious ranks so highly thanks to the warm feeling it sends through our hearts. Also it’s not the second one.
4. Fast & Furious 6 (2013)
The sixth installment had a lot to live up to. After Fast Five absolutely decimated expectations and began a new chapter for the franchise, Justin Lin was tasked once again with handing in an action masterclass. While this sucker has its negatives, including a pretty stock villain (nothing new for the series) and the beginning of the highly questionable Letty amnesia plot, there’s no denying that Lin once again brought his A game.
While we don’t get anything quite as revelatory as the safe chase from Fast Five, there’s still a heaping load of practical car stunts, a tank chase that has to be seen to be disbelieved, and an airplane runway chase that both boggles the mind and, in the end, weighs heavy on the heart.
This is also the first time our heroes get to basically all be secret agents, a massive step up for our gaggle of street racers. From here on out, it’s no longer about pulling off heists and winning races (although we’d still get plenty of these), but about saving the world. The Family are officially superheroes, baby!
In the end, Fast & Furious 6 does the impossible and provides a worthy follow up to the previous entry while also getting us absolutely pumped for the next movie and its familial death match teased with Han’s sad but inevitable end.
3. The Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006)
For a long time, Tokyo Drift was the black sheep of the franchise, and it’s somewhat understandable to see why. It was looked at as the death of a burgeoning action phenomenon, featuring no Paul Walker, basically no Vin Diesel, and a change of setting that screamed “apprehensive spin-off”. Plus, no one believed that Alabaman accent Lucas Black was putting on… even though it’s 100% real!
Luckily, time has been kind to Tokyo Drift. Since the franchise was able to dust itself off and become one of the greatest phenomena of our time, critical reassessments of Justin Lin’s debut in the series have been largely positive. The street racing and drift mechanic have aged very well, mostly thanks to plenty of real life pulse-pounding stunts, and arguably the first use of aesthetically enticing cars in the saga.
Plus, you got Han. Sung Kang’s carb-fueled mentor to Black’s Sean Boswell would go on to show up in three more installments and of course become the centerpiece for the all-too-obvious fan theory regarding Tokyo Drift’s placement in the timeline. Looking back it seems silly, but at the time we Fast-Heads would tell anyone and everyone our wild theories about how it was all coming back to Tokyo Drift and how Han was the key. They thought we were crazy. It just wasn’t that deep. They’d laugh. WELL WHO’S LAUGHING NOW, DAN??!
Er, anyway… Tokyo Drift is a fun ride, unburdened by mythology and utilizing a fresh voice in action cinema to give us a fast-paced roller coaster. It also features Bow Wow and Sonny Chiba in the same movie, which in and of itself feels like a fever dream.
2. Fast Five (2011)
It’s Fast Five. You saw it. Everyone’s seen it. Even my friends who don’t watch the series have seen Fast Five. It was a phenomenon.
OK, fine, you want a little more justification. Well, first off: it’s got Dwayne Johnson in his series debut, arguably in his best role — as antagonist turned ally. He’s mean, he’s funny, he’s mysterious, and he has a very questionable goatee that would unfortunately disappear before the next entry. It’s a story mechanic that the franchise had been basically missing since the original film, and here it’s utilized in a surprising and fresh way.
Beyond the Rock’s massive appeal (and bicep meat), Fast Five was also a return to form after Fast & Furious (not to be confused with The Fast & The Furious, you newb) featured disappointing CGI dominating practical stunt work. The producers and director Justin Lin heard fan complaints and doubled down on the practicality, going so far as to build a massive safe around a stripped down truck in order to properly film the final chase sequence.
There’s also something both fresh and old school about Fast Five, thanks in part to being a transition in the series from street racing robbers to government-backed secret agents. The ludicrous nature of its follow ups hadn’t quite shown up yet, and the adrenaline-fueled simplicity hadn’t been diluted by world building. This is a lean film, basking in incredible stunts (that train heist!) and allowing the story just enough time to carry the fam from one setup to the next.
It’s also basically Ocean’s 11 starring Vin Diesel, and come on… that’s awesome!
1. Furious 7 (2015)
This may be controversial, but Furious 7 is the best film in the Fast & Furious franchise and it’s unlikely to ever be topped. Part of the appeal is, sadly, the tributes it makes to late star Paul Walker, who sadly died mid-production in a car accident while away from filming. It was a tragic loss that was felt by both fans and non, and would have a huge impact on the series. We had lost Brian, and he had to be properly eulogized. It was a massive undertaking, utilizing Walker’s brothers and the most groundbreaking CGI the industry had ever seen. Many naysayers didn’t think it would work, and honestly plenty of die hard fans thought the same.
Luckily, the reshoots and restructuring went down flawlessly, minus one or two moments where you can just barely tell something is off. The fact that James Wan, in his first and only entry in the franchise, was able to pull it off while giving us the epic introduction of Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) is nothing short of mind-blowing. By the time Walker’s real-life 1998 Toyota Supra Turbo drives off into the distance, that theater was mighty dusty and most of us knew that we’d seen the high point of the series.
Of course, the best film in a nine-movie franchise can’t be the best based on emotion alone. We’re also given a nonstop cavalcade of car-based calamity, including a parachuting scene like no other, a massive battle royale in the streets of Los Angeles, and one of the most outlandish car thefts in cinema history. Tony Jaa and Ronda Rousey show up (the former more successfully than the latter), Djimon Hounsou does his gotta-be-in-every-franchise thing, and Kurt Russell is introduced as the divisive but cool Mr. Nobody. Even Lucas Black shows up, appearing just minutes after the final scene in Tokyo Drift, having aged… well look, the CGI budget was understandably used up, OK?
Between Wan’s visual style, the nonstop action easily rivaling Fast Five, and an emotional payoff none of us could have predicted back in 2001, there’s no doubt in my mind that Furious 7 is the pinnacle that all future entries should idolize.
We miss you Paul.
Comment below with your thoughts on our ranking.
