10 Movie Franchises That Actually Ended On A High

The Hunger Games series is the closest thing Young Adult science fiction came to matching YA fantasy's Harry Potter series in terms of global appeal. While they've fallen a bit to the pop cultural wayside since the final film aired, make no mistake, this book and film series was everywhere at the top of its game.

And why wouldn't it be?

The films came out exactly when they needed to. With shows like the then new Game Of Thrones dominating American television like it's going out of style, and the then equally new Crunchyroll about to introduce Attack On Titan to the world, audiences were clamoring for a film series with a similar "anyone can die" approach to storytelling.

It helps that the films themselves were really good dystopian hard sci fi for the time. With fantastic characters, a gripping story that only got crazier as it went on, and a brutality unmatched by its YA peers at the time, people were foaming at the mouth for the final installment.

And while nowhere near as good as the book (Katniss in particular isn't as strong a character because unlike the book, the movies don't give us her inner thoughts), Mockingjay was a fantastically climactic finish to one of the best movie series of the early 2010's.