What’s better than a really great movie? How about three really great movies?
Watch With Us loves a good trilogy. The thrills and adventures of Indiana Jones, the fantasy perfection of The Lord of the Rings, or the slapstick horror charms of The Evil Dead trilogy.
Plus, a trilogy allows for deeper storytelling and the ability to see growth over time between characters, themes and the director’s own filmmaking style.
Today, we’ve compiled our picks for five movie trilogies that are not only timeless, but just about perfect.
‘The Lord of the Rings’ (2001-2003)
Peter Jackson‘s The Lord of the Rings trilogy encompasses all three books from J.R.R Tolkien’s original trilogy of novels: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King. The fantasy saga chronicles the quest of hobbits Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood) and Samwise Gamgee (Sean Astin) to Mordor in order to destroy the evil One Ring of Power in the fires of Mount Doom, as the Ring’s original owner, Sauron, consolidates power to rise and take over Middle-earth. At the same time, their friends are on their own journeys elsewhere, as the elf Legolas (Orlando Bloom), dwarf Gimli (John Rhys-Davies), human Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) and wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) battle against Orcs and other such evil creatures that threaten the world of men.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy is a beloved fantasy trilogy that succeeds both as an entertaining piece of mainstream moviemaking but also a fairly faithful adaptation of source material, an exercise in meticulous and painstaking craft and top-to-bottom acting excellence from the entire cast. The movie was so critically acclaimed that each installment received a number of very deserved Oscar nominations, with Return of the King clinching a Best Picture win and becoming the first fantasy movie to do so. Though Hollywood has tried to recapture the success through a misguided The Hobbit adaptation and a forgettable Amazon Prime series, nothing compares to the magic of the original films.
‘The Evil Dead Trilogy’ (1981-1992)
Campbell starred in the 1981 original version of The Evil Dead as the movie’s hero Ash Williams. New Line/courtesy Everett Collection
In the first Evil Dead movie, a group of college kids travels to a cabin in the woods where they unknowingly set loose a malignant force known as “Deadites” who want nothing more than to make their victims hack each other to death. The first Evil Dead movie was an extremely low-budget hit, and five years later director Sam Raimi decided to essentially do over the first movie as more of an intentional splatstick horror-comedy in a one-man show with Bruce Campbell‘s Ash Williams from the first movie. Campbell’s performance solidified him as a horror icon, and the story of Evil Dead II continues on to far funnier and more absurd heights in the direct sequel and final installment, Army of Darkness, in which Ash accidentally travels back in time and must defeat the Deadites in the medieval age.
The Evil Dead trilogy is probably the most iconic horror trilogy, a perfect blend of chaotic, entertaining horror energy, inventive filmmaking techniques, stomach-churning practical SFX and a genuinely hilarious and inventive sense of humor. The success of the original trilogy spurred an entire franchise that now includes a remake, multiple spinoff movies (with one on its way this year), a TV series and more. The films also prove that Campbell had the star power and charisma to be a Hollywood leading man, and thus the entire film industry should be punished for its damning inability to make him one.
‘The Godfather Trilogy’ (1972-1990)
Al Pacino in The Godfather Part II. Everett
OK, so not every movie in The Godfather trilogy is great — The Godfather Part III is, in fact, infamously uneven. But The Godfather and The Godfather Part II are so incredible (and both took home Best Picture wins at their respective Academy Awards ceremonies) that they more than make up for a weak final installment. The trilogy chronicles the exploits of the Corleone crime family, with the first movie showing Michael Corleone’s (Al Pacino) initially reluctant rise to leadership of his mafia family, taking over from his ruthless father, Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando), while the second film charts the rise of Vito as a young man (played by Robert De Niro) juxtaposed against his son handling business in the present day. The Godfather Part III concludes with Michael attempting to legitimize his criminal enterprise.
Much more than just mindless, violent gangster films, The Godfather films are thoughtful examinations of power, family, morality and the American Dream. They feature iconic, star-making turns from young Pacino and De Niro, both early in their careers, and a legendary late career performance from Brando as Don Corleone — a performance that would go on to be mimicked, parodied and memed into oblivion. The masterful storytelling, nuanced character studies, detailed craftsmanship and confident filmmaking from Francis Ford Coppola cement The Godfather trilogy as an American pop culture touchstone.
‘The Cornetto Trilogy’ (2004-2013)
Nick Frost and Simon Pegg in Hot Fuzz. Rogue Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection
While not a continuous story, the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy consists of three Edgar Wright films connected by its stars, themes, genres, and the brief appearance of a Cornetto ice cream cone in each installment (hence the name). Shaun of the Dead follows Simon Pegg and Nick Frost‘s slacker best friend characters as they are forced to grow up and battle zombies. Hot Fuzz sees the actors in a platonic enemies-to-lovers trope, as two mismatched cops (Pegg the straitlaced, stubborn Nicholas Angel, Frost the carefree goofball Danny Butterman) who come up against an evil cult picking off the citizens of a small rural village. The final film, The World’s End, has Frost and Pegg playing men who have reached middle age and are grappling, in different ways, with getting older, while they face a deadly alien invasion.
The Cornetto trilogy ends up being a funny yet surprisingly poignant exploration of adulthood, male friendship and the burden of responsibility, with a united throughline pertaining to time: the relentless passage of it, the struggle to keep up with it and the necessity of being able to grow alongside it. Through three different stories, three different lives and three different horror movie threats — zombies, cults, aliens — Wright and Pegg (who co-wrote all three films’ scripts together) manage to execute a genuinely affecting and satisfying thematic arc across all three of their movies that only becomes sharper and more emotionally mature alongside their characters.
‘The Before Trilogy’ (1995-2013)
Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke in Before Midnight Sony Pictures Classics
Across the span of nearly two decades, director Richard Linklater examines the romance between Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Céline (Julie Delpy), who first meet in Before Sunrise as young adults while on a train to Paris, Jesse an American student on a European vacation, Céline a French student on her way to visit some relatives. The two strike up a flirtation and end up stopping for a single night together in Vienna, wandering the streets, taking and falling in love, but ultimately going separate ways the next morning. They resolve to meet again someday, and they do in Before Sunset, set nine years after their first encounter during a single afternoon in Paris. Despite being a married father, Jesse decides to miss his flight home to stay with Céline. And finally, Before Midnight follows the couple, now married with twin daughters in middle age, facing the realities of marital conflict and the imperfections of love.
Less about plot than about two actors with irresistible chemistry having stimulating conversations with one another, the Before trilogy is strikingly minimalist, but they are by no means small movies. Each movie explores the changing nature of love across three periods of a couple’s lives in real time, spanning nearly two decades. The naturalistic performances of Hawke and Delpy immerse you in the world and into their characters’ lives and dynamics so beautifully you would think they were really lovers with a twenty-year history. The three movies do an excellent job shifting from idealistic romance to realistic, long-term love that is no less beautiful and intimate in all its many flaws.
