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All 9 'Fast & Furious' Movies Ranked (w/ 'Hobbs & Shaw')!

I live my life a quarter mile at a time.

By Jonathan SimPublished 5 years ago 5 min read
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In the days leading up to my advance screening for Hobbs & Shaw, the newest spin-off of The Fast and the Furious franchise, I watched every single movie in the series so that I could get caught up on the series and the characters.

And today, I am going to be reviewing and ranking every single one of the Fast & Furious movies. So here we go.

9. 'Fast & Furious' (2009) – 6/10 (C)

This was the first movie in the franchise to bring back the entire original cast of the first film, and yet, it was a massive disappointment to me. The story is as bland and generic as you can get, and none of the action sequences are particularly memorable in any way.

Everyone seems to be phoning in their performance, the villain is very forgettable, and a huge emotional punch is told to us through a phone call instead of actually showing it to us. At the end of the day, this is a truly unremarkable film that simply doesn't have any astonishing qualities to make it stick in anyone's minds.

8. '2 Fast 2 Furious' (2003) – 7/10 (C+)

While this movie is the one that brought Tyrese Gibson into the franchise and gave us a watchable buddy cop movie with Walker and Gibson, this movie feels very distant from the rest of the franchise in terms of its tone and style.

The villain is, again, forgettable, and the action sequences don't have a lot of punch to them. They aren't iconic in any way, but I still liked the chemistry between the two leads and how we learned a bit more about the character of Brian O'Conner.

7. 'The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift' (2006) – 7/10 (B-)

Like with 2 Fast 2 Furious, this movie feels very different from the rest as it completely ditches the original cast (including Brian) and focuses on new characters.

Our main character is a high schooler who looks like he's in his 30s and doesn't have the charisma of a piece of wood. However, I thought the villain of this movie was pretty strong, there's fun to be had in the "drift-filled" action scenes, and I liked how this movie introduced Han into the franchise.

6. 'The Fate of the Furious' (2017) – 7/10 (B-)

I found this to be a relatively disappointing sequel because I felt like Furious 7 was a perfect ending to the series, and this movie continues it without the character of Brian.

This movie does have some fun scenes, such as a very rewatchable prison fight and a final action setpiece that's delightfully unrealistic and over-the-top, but this movie's story goes in very dark and dramatic places, and that really took a lot of the fun out of watching this film. The fact that Dom was basically a terrorist/super spy in this movie was a bit too much.

5. 'The Fast and the Furious' (2001) – 8/10 (B)

Despite the story's glaring similarities to a superior Keanu Reeves film called Point Break, this movie offered some fun action scenes and did a good job of introducing us to the world and the characters that the franchise would later use to perfection.

It's a movie with a good story and it lay the foundation for the heart and soul of this franchise: family. The street racing is cool and it's a pretty fun movie despite not ever going in-depth about Brian and his character choices.

4. 'Fast & Furious 6' (2013) – 8/10 (B)

This movie is an incredibly fun ride. It has some shocking revelations and exciting action sequences. There's a scene with a huge tank and people jumping around between cars that's so unrealistic and over-the-top that it makes for delightful popcorn entertainment.

And the final climax of the movie is such a creative and entertaining action-packed finale that it's one of those setpieces that makes me jealous that I didn't come up with it before them. It's got great characters, and it's really good fun.

3. 'Fast Five' (2011) – 8/10 (B+)

Many people have this as their #1 F&F movie, and I can definitely understand why. After the underwhelming fourth installment, this movie was a breath of fresh air, introducing The Rock to the mix and serving as a fantastic franchise transition from street racing to shootouts.

The action scenes are all incredibly exciting and the way the story wraps up is the way all good action movies should wrap up. It's fun, it's delightful, and it brought something new and original to the franchise by introducing a heist element which worked very well with this cast.

2. 'Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw' (2019) – 9/10 (A-)

Not everyone may agree with me on this one, but I found this to be a wonderful spin-off to the franchise that may have been improved by the fact that our two leads are Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham, two badass action heroes with kickass chemistry, together in a film that knocks it out of the park.

The other F&F movies can sometimes feel "crowded" with the amount of good guys we gotta follow, but this movie only has two guys who hate each other and need to work together in a series of nonsensical, over-the-top action setpieces that are directed very well and are mindlessly entertaining.

Drumroll please!

1. 'Furious 7' – 9/10 (A)

Without a doubt, my favorite in the franchise is Furious 7, a movie that needed to write its way around Paul Walker's tragic death during filming and yet still managed to feel cohesive, entertaining, and ended up as an absolute blast.

This movie was essentially three incredible action setpieces stacked on top of each other. These setpieces use our characters perfectly, and give us what might be some of the best action scenes of the franchise, while also giving us an emotional tribute and send-off to Walker that gets me emotional every time I watch it.

It's got setups, payoffs, exhilarating scenes, a badass villain, it ties into Tokyo Drift, and it is my favorite of the Fast & Furious franchise.

And that's my ranking! Let me know what your ranking of the series is on Twitter, I'm @TheJonathanSim. Thank you so much for reading.

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About the Creator

Jonathan Sim

Film critic. Lover of Pixar, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Marvel, DC, Back to the Future, and Lord of the Rings.

For business inquiries: [email protected]

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