10 Movie Franchises With No Bad Sequels

4. Indiana Jones

Look, right, I already know folks are going to rolling their eyes at this entry because of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and the Mutt Williams of it all, but I cannot bring myself to call that movie bad. Disappointing? Unquestionably, given how superb the first three Indiana Jones films are. But it's not a diabolical misstep the same way The Rise of Skywalker was for Star Wars or The Predator was for Predator.

CGI gophers be damned, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is not that much of a departure stylistically or narratively from what came before, and I would argue taking a sci-fi bent for a Roswell-era adventure was a fitting choice from Steven Spielberg.

As far as the original trilogy is concerned, I think that Raiders of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom, and The Last Crusade are all about on par with each other, with the latter-most entry winning out for me thanks to the chemistry between Harrison Ford and Sean Connery. Temple tends to take some flack on account of Willie being a shrill love interest, but its dark inflections and location work cement it as a great follow-up to Raiders.

The jury is still out on Dial of Destiny at the time of writing, and while its trailers haven't put an extremely confident foot forward, James Mangold hasn't let me down so far. Here's hoping that Indy's final crack of the whip is worth it.