Has there ever been a film series that turned into a bigger success story than the Fast and Furious franchise? It’s hard to beat.
What started out as a low-stakes street racing crime film made on a $38 million budget has exploded into a massive, worldwide franchise generating over $5 billion, adding high-caliber stars like Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and Jason Statham to a cast that already included Vin Diesel.
Those moves, along with the insane action and near-impossible stunts, have taken the action series to incredible heights, making it one of the most successful in all of Hollywood history. These summer blockbusters are nitrous-filled escapism for casual viewers, eye candy for the car enthusiast, and pack a moral punch that shouldn’t be overlooked.
Things have moved fast in the Furious franchise, and every movie after the first film in 2001 has gotten even bigger and more ridiculous, to the point where a submarine was part of a crazy action scene in 2017’s The Fate of the Furious. That was a recent addition to a long line of incredible stunts, including moments where a massive safe was dragged along the back of a vehicle during a high-speed chase and when a car was used by the characters to jump from skyscraper-to-skyscraper, hundreds of feet in the sky.
Now, the series is poised to get even bigger: The Rock and Jason Statham starred in the first Fast and Furious spinoff Hobbs & Shaw, which earned strong box office numbers in 2019, and coming up in the future are two more Fast and Furious sequels that will end the major storylines of the franchise.
Here’s a ranking of the eight major films in the main Fast and Furious franchise, from the humble beginnings to the crazy eighth installment. See how they stack up, according to our team:
The Movie: After years of pulling jobs, the crew is back together and working like a well-oiled machine in The Fate of the Furious. While assisting Agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) with a mission, Vin Diesel’s Dom (Dominic Toretto) goes rouge and steals the EMP device that Hobbs and the crew just retrieved. We later learn that Dom is at the mercy of a cyberterrorist named Cipher (Charlize Theron), who has his kid, and the mother of his child hostage. Throughout the movie, Dom is forced to do a series of tasks for Cipher, while his former team attempts to stop him. Dom ultimately breaks free from Cipher when the brother of newly recruited Shaw assist the team my sneaking onto Ciper’s plane and saving his child. Cipher ultimately fails in her attempt to steal a nuclear submarine from a Russian base, but makes an escape.
The Verdict: I get it, we’re beyond the days of simply robbing trucks with DVD players, but how on Earth did the screenwriters manage to ram a nuclear submarine into the plot? Although it’s not clear how much time took place between Furious 7 and this movie, was the audience supposed to be cool with Shaw and Hobbs cracking jokes as if Shaw didn’t literally kick him out the window of a building? (Also, Shaw killed Han. We didn’t forget about that.) I know this movie isn’t meant to be taken super seriously, but at least it made a little sense. In addition to it not being the most cohesive Furious film, it’s the longest movie in the franchise to date, clocking in at 136 minutes.
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Fast & Furious
Release Date: March 12, 2009
The Movie: Five years after the events of the original Fast and Furious movie, Dom and Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) have put together a new crew to help them steal fuel tankers in the Dominican Republic, while Brian O’ Conner (Paul Walker) has become an FBI agent and is tracking down a Mexican Drug Cartel. While Dom and Letty are separated to avoid the police, Letty is ultimately killed, causing Dom to return to the U.S. to investigate. Ultimately, Brian and Dom join forces to find Letty’s killer, while bringing down the drug lord. Despite Dom assisting with the capture of a drug lord, he’s ultimately given 25-years-to-life in prison for his previous crimes. The movie concludes with Brian and Mia (Jordan Brewster) breaking Dom free from a bus full of prisoners heading to jail.
The Verdict: What’s the point of bringing parts of the original cast back together if in the first 30 minutes of the movie you kill one of them. That was a bit disappointing, and so was the plot in general. Fast & Furious was marketed as the true sequel to the original, but didn’t capture lightning in a bottle the way the first one did. Although the first movie was a pseudo heist movie, we only cared about the robberies because it was the crew’s sustenance; running drugs for a random cartel didn’t have that same effect. As far as stunts, there weren’t any memorable ones that jump out. This may be nitpicking, but we all wanted to see a fair rematch between Brian and Dom, but we were robbed of that when Dom decided to cheat to win the race.
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2 Fast 2 Furious
Release Date: June 6, 2003
The Movie: After letting a convicted criminal walk at the end of The Fast and the Furious, Brian is now also on the run, and he flees to Miami where he continues street racing. He’s quickly captured by the FBI, but he’s offered an expunged criminal record in exchange for helping to bring down drug smuggler Carter Verone (Cole Hauser). Brian decides to recruit Roman Pearce (Tyrese Gibson), a former accomplice, to help him infiltrate Verone’s operation. After a series of tests, the pair ultimately earn Verone’s trust, opening the door for them to take down his operation.
The Verdict: This is a downright awful movie. There are several plot details that don’t make sense. For example, why would Brian, who is miles from the Mexican border in California, drive cross-country to Miami in an attempt to hide from the police. Although the buddy-criminal vibe that they were going for with Walker and Gibson did connect felt believable at times, they ultimately couldn’t make up the ground for the absence of the original crew.
For the stunts, the car-to-boat jump doesn’t do it for me, but there are still great car scenes in this movie. The stare-and-drive is a classic. Brian boastfully reversing down the highway full-speed and hurdling a car over a lifted drawbridge was actually damn cool. Lastly, the “ejecto seato cuz” scene has manifested into an abundance of hilarious gifs and memes.
The Movie: After completing the mission and receiving amnesty in Fast & Furious 6, the crew is attempting to continue normal lives until Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), brother of Owen Shaw (Luke Evans) arrives on the scene. Shaw is on a mission to hunt and kill the gang for nearly killing his brother. Dom is offered assistance with capturing Shaw, only if he helps to obtain God’s Eye, which is a high-level tracking program similar to the one in the Dark Knight. Through a series of explosions, car chases, and near misses, both Shaw and the God’s Eye are obtained.
The Verdict: Whenever a franchise starts to go in the past and alter timelines, I’m already one foot out the door (Fast & Furious 6 gets a pass, because Letty shouldn’t have been killed off to begin with). So instead of Han (Sung Kang) being killed by a rival gang in Tokyo Drift, he was actually hunted down by Shaw. I’m not buying it. That aside, one of the action scenes involved jumping a multi-million dollar Lykan HyperSport through multiple buildings in Dubai. Understandably, they have to up the action for every movie, but that was a reach.
Just like most of the other films, it’s being held up by its ensemble cast that manages to tie the craziness together. This movie is also home to the most emotional scene in the franchise when the road splits between the late Paul Walker and Vin Diesel, with “See You Again” by Wiz Khalifa playing in the background. Plus, the montage of his clips from previous movies makes it almost impossible to make it through without dropping a few tears (assuming you watched the six prior movies).
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Fast & Furious 6
Release Date: May 24, 2013
The Movie: This movie kicks off with the crew living comfortably around the world until Agent Hobbs comes calling. He reels Dom and the gang into assisting with the capture of the international criminal Owen Shaw in exchange for his crew’s amnesty. The hook for Dom is that Letty is actually not dead; she lost her memory and is working with Owen Shaw’s crew. The gang chases Letty and Shaw’s crew around the world until they stop them by shooting their getaway airplane out of the sky.
The Verdict: After the events of Fast 5, the plot can no longer be as simple as street racing in the city. The driving force of this movie is the gang’s commitment to bringing in Letty in no matter what, simply because she’s family. Six movies in, and family ties are still driving the franchise, for the most part. Speaking of family, Agent Hobbs made a great addition to the team in this film, pouring in his fair share of killer one-liners and brute force. It’s a bit convenient, but Shaw’s crew members serving as exact evil counterparts to Dom’s gang was a nice mechanic of the film.
Although the actions scenes in this franchise generally revolve around cars, this movie had a handful of sick fights. Letty, Han, and Roman all get to show off their combat skills along with the usual suspects. However, this film did involve Dom jumping from car to car across an elevated highway, and shot a plane out of the sky. In their defense, what else can you really do after destroying an entire city with a safe in the previous movie.
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The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
Release Date: June 16, 2006
The Movie: The franchise completely switched directions and brought in an entirely new cast, and decided to head to Tokyo, Japan. This film follows Sean Boswell (Lucas Black), who’s a troubled boy racer shipped off to Tokyo to live with his father. Boswell is sent to live in the place with arguably the biggest underground car scene in the world. What could go wrong? Naturally, Boswell gets into trouble with the wrong people, and ultimately has to race, or leave Tokyo.
The Verdict: So most people either love or hate this movie for completely abandoning the original story, but it’s earned the third spot on our list for a few reasons. When re-watching this movie it almost feels new, because it’s not burdened by having to remember convoluted plots and characters from other films to keep it moving. Next, from a pure car enthusiast’s perspective, highlighting the infamous drifting culture in Tokyo is always amazing to see.
Although overused in Hollywood, the simple story of a guy chasing and getting a girl kind of always works; it worked between Brian and Mia. Add some really fast cars, some windy roads, and constant screeching tires, and I’m in.
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Fast Five
Release Date: April 29, 2011
The Movie: After breaking Dom out of a prison bus, he, Mia, and O’ Conner are a long way from street racing in L.A., and are now full-blown fugitives running from the law in Brazil. (Insert the Vaseline-covered Hobbs to apply more pressure onto a gang preparing for a heist from the richest man in Brazil.) To complete such an arduous heist, the cast was expanded bringing back old faces like Tej Parker (Ludacris), Rome, Han, and Gisele Bashar (Gal Gadot).
The Verdict: This massive ensemble cast felt like the Avengers of street racing joining forces for the first time to evade Agent Hobbs while sneaking away with a giant safe full of cash. Hobbs was definitely the best adversary among any of the films and applied real stress on the team in a way that none of the other villains could. As for the good guys, watching this team work was extremely entertaining. The bickering between Rome and Tej is almost worth a movie on it’s own, Gisele and Han’s relationship is blooming, and all of that on top of Toretto and O’ Conner doing the masterful orchestrating.
As ridiculous it sounds to have two cop cars literally pull a safe out of a wall and through the streets of Brazil, the action this time around actually had me on the edge of my seat on the first watch. This flick revitalized the franchise and set a ridiculously high bar for action that every movie after tries to top.
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The Fast and the Furious
Release Date: June 18, 2001
The Movie: Undercover cop Brian O’Conner is tasked with cracking an ongoing series of truck heists with the perpetrators believed to be rooted in the Los Angeles street racing community. Naturally, he assimilates into a local car gang run by the notorious Dominic Toretto. As the movie progresses, O’Conner finds himself building bonds with the members of the gang that ultimately trumps his loyalty to his police badge. This movie concludes with O’Conner figuring out Toretto’s gang is responsible for the truck heist, but he lets Toretto flee from the law in a car that he owed Toretto due to a bet from a race earlier in the movie.
The Verdict: Of course the original will always hold a special place in my heart for introducing all of the original characters that the franchise is based on. The core group genuinely felt like a dysfunctional, yet extremely fun family to be around. The budding relationship between Toretto and a two-faced O’Conner is especially fun to watch, especially after seeing how their relationship has grown over the following movies. The film also established the ongoing theme of family ties that carries on to every subsequent movie. The plot is simple and definitely based in a world that feels somewhat real.
As for the cars in the flick, this film was the first time many people were exposed to tuning, and the movie elevated cars like the Toyota Supra into legendary status.
Another selling point for the original were the endless one-liners that live on to this day.
“Ask any racer. Any real racer. It don’t matter if you win by an inch or a mile. Winning’s winning.”
“I live my life a quarter mile at a time.”
“Too soon, Junior.”
“If we have to, overnight parts from Japan.”
Final selling point: The entire final truck heist scene is still heart-pumping to this day, and Letty driving under a speeding tractor trailer will always be one of the coolest moments in the franchise.
