5 Movie Franchises That Got Better Over Time (And 5 That Got A Whole Lot Worse)

No amount of inferior sequels could ever dislodge Die Hard as perhaps the greatest action movie ever made, but most people are in agreement that John McClane should have been allowed to ride off into the sunset at the conclusion of the original trilogy.

The first sequel may have been a paint-by-numbers follow-up, but it retained enough of the charm and audience goodwill left over from the original to prove a successful second outing for cinema's favorite vest-wearer. Die Hard with a Vengeance managed to put a fresh spin on the formula with the genius idea of pairing McClane with Samuel L. Jackson in a buddy movie, and by the time the credits rolled we had one of the all-time great trilogies on our hands.

However, any brand with earning potential is never truly over, and a dozen years later Live Free or Die Hard arrived. While it isn't a bad action movie by any means, it simply wasn't Die Hard and forgot everything that made McClane an icon in favor of transforming him into a generic action hero that was impervious to pain and bullets and could throw cars at helicopters and take down fighter jets with his bare hands.

The fifth installment was just flat-out terrible, teaming Bruce Willis up with Jai Courtney's charisma-free human embodiment of watching magnolia paint dry on a surface that was already beige to begin with in an effects-heavy and joyless exercise that only served to prove that some franchises are much better left alone.