The Franchise With The Most Movies In The IMDb Top 250 List

IMDb has a Top 250 list that is constantly evolving. You can rate every movie that is listed on IMDb from one to 10, and the Top 250 is a collection of the highest-rated films across the entire website. This differs from Rotten Tomatoes, which features both critic and audience scores; IMDb's list is purely based on regular audience ratings. The more people that see and enjoy the film, and the higher they rate it, the higher it ranks on the Top 250.

The lowest-rated movie on the list, "Cool Hand Luke," has a rating of 8.0 while the highest-rated movie, "The Shawshank Redemption," has a 9.3. Back in the good old days when IMDb was more of a community and had message boards, the Top 250 was a hotly-debated topic. There was constant arguments about what deserved to be on the list, what didn't, and what should have the coveted number one spot.

There are many movie franchises out there, but it's difficult to have a franchise sustain its high-quality and watchability, much less have everyone unanimously agree that any sequels, spin-offs, or other additions also deserve a high rating. Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" films might be magical masterpieces, but his "Hobbit" trilogy is a huge mess and Kenji Kamiyama's animated "Lord of the Rings" prequel "War of the Rohirrim" earned a tepid critical response before flopping at the box office. Elsewhere, "Alien" and "Aliens" are both on the IMDb Top 250, although the franchise suffered from the release of Ridley Scott's polarizing, brooding slogs "Prometheus" and "Alien: Covenant." The recent "Alien: Romulus," however, brought some life back into the property financially, even though many critics felt Fede Álvarez's "Alien" sequel relied too much on nostalgia.

So, which franchise has the most entries on the IMDB Top 250? The answer is a collection of superhero movies and comic book adaptations, which is unsurprising given that both have dominated cinema for the past two decades.

Although multiple "Spider-Man" films ("Into the Spider-Verse," "Across the Spider-Verse," "No Way Home") and "Avengers" movies ("Infinity War" and "Endgame") have made it onto IMDb's top 250 at the time of writing, this particular round of Marvel vs. DC goes to the latter. Specifically, DC's "Batman" franchise currently has the most films on the Top 250. Christopher Nolan's exhilarating "The Dark Knight," in particular, is all the way at number three on the Top 250 list. For anyone who was on the IMDb message boards when that movie came out in 2008, you might remember there was even a campaign to make it number one on the Top 250. The thing about user-generated ratings is that they're easy to manipulate. Many IMDb users would give a movie a 10 or a one in an attempt to push it on or off the Top 250.

It seemed nearly impossible to live up to "The Dark Knight," but 2012's "The Dark Knight Rises" was an ambitious finale to Nolan's Batman trilogy, and is now sitting at #73 on the IMDb Top 250. Nolan's 2005 trilogy-starter "Batman Begins" is also on the list at #130, but arguably deserves to rank lower for not having the same action-packed grandiosity as its sequels (that and its antagonist, Ra's al Ghul, is perhaps a less interesting villain than the ones who came after him). As the title suggests, "Batman Begins" focuses more on Bruce Wayne's backstory and builds up slowly to his ascension as the Caped Crusader.

Joining Christopher Nolan's Batman films is Todd Phillips' 2019 film "Joker," which is currently at #85 on the IMDb Top 250. The clear draw of Phillips' grimy, incel-baiting, and unnerving "Joker" movie is Joaquin Phoenix's' performance. After Heath Ledger's iconic, Oscar-winning turn as the Joker in "The Dark Knight," it was hard to imagine someone else stepping into the role. Be that as it may, Phoenix ultimately earned an Oscar himself for crafting a portrait of a desperate, sniveling, and mentally unwell man that is uncomfortable yet fascinating to watch. Phillips' 2024 sequel, "Joker: Folie à Deux," took a bold swing with its musical sequences after that, but this alienated a lot of audience members and the film's actual story was painfully dull.

Other "Batman" film adaptations, like Joel Schumacher's campy cringe "Batman Forever" and "Batman & Robin," Tim Burton's Gothic fantasias "Batman" and "Batman Returns," and Zack Snyder's dour take on the character with "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" are not on the IMDb Top 250. It seems like the more realistic and gritty portrayal of the Batman universe from Nolan and Phillips resonates the most with audiences. Although Matt Reeves' "The Batman" has a similar aesthetic and was a critical and box office hit, it did not manage to break past a 7.9 rating on IMDb. It will be interesting to see what happens to the Batman franchise in the future because Nolan, especially, left a huge mark that is difficult to top.