Every Scream Movie Ranked Worst To Best
Exploring the highs and lows of the iconic slasher series.
Created by writer Kevin Williamson and directed by the legendary Wes Craven, 1996's Scream took every character trope and formulaic plot twist of the slasher genre popularised by the likes of Friday the 13th and Halloween, and expertly turned them on their heads.
At once a gripping slasher flick in its own right and a bracing satire, the first Scream was a mega-hit that spawned a madly popular and consistently high quality franchise that has made an artform out of subverting audience expectations whilst delivering grisly kills, exciting mysteries, and plenty of endearing melodrama.
Currently in the midst of a dark and surprisingly effective re-invention, the Scream series has hit countless highs and many lows, but through its six-movie run has never failed to make the lives of Sidney Prescott, Gale Weathers, Dewey Riley and their various Ghostface foes viscerally entertaining -- and impossibly re-watchable.
With that in mind, from the meta mess of Scream 3 to the its recent subversive requels (sequel-reboots, where the rules are different!), here are all 6 Scream movies ranked from worst to best, with with some major spoilers throughout.
6. Scream 3 (2000)
It's worth getting it out the way now: There is no such thing as a bad Scream movie. But if asked to name the weakest of the series, you choose Scream 3.
The only film in the franchise not to be written by Kevin Williamson (until the recent two), Scream 3 takes the action from the unlucky little town of Woodsboro to the hills of Hollywood, where production of a new Stab movie is thrown into disarray by a Ghostface with a love for meta commentary and a personal link to Sidney Prescott.
As ever, the subversion here is excellent, with plenty of jabs being taken at the ideas and tropes of movie trilogies, but the film-within-a-film set-up struggles to meet its loftier goals and more intelligent discussions.
Populated by a host of unremarkable redshirts (save hilarious newcomer Parker Posey), the threequel is anchored by the charming and heroic performances of Neve Campbell, David Arquette and Courtney Cox, as well as its final twist, but in the end it's far too convoluted and heavy-handed to compete with the films surrounding it.