Every A Nightmare On Elm Street Movie Ranked Worst To Best

2. A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 Dream Warriors Ending
New Line Cinema

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors is such a great film, it can consider itself extremely unfortunate not to have nabbed the top spot on this list.

After the hugely disappointing Freddy's Revenge in 1985, Dream Warriors rolled around two years later to get the burgeoning franchise back on track - complete with Wes Craven contributing to the story and screenplay due to how unhappy he was with what New Line had done with Elm Street 2.

Much like Craven was back involved for this Chuck Russell-helmed threequel, so too was Heather Langenkamp as the original movie's main protagonist, Nancy Thompson. Here, Nancy is a therapist at Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital, where she helps the "last of the Elm Street kids" in their battle with Freddy Krueger.

One of the all-time great horror sequels, Dream Warriors - complete with the badass title song from Dokken - served as a nice passing of the torch, with Nancy eventually bowing out to allow Kristen, Kincaid and Joey to lead the franchise forward. Well, until the early events of the aforementioned Elm Street 4, of course.

Dream Warriors had to be a success if the franchise was to recover from Freddy's Dead, and this threequel was absolutely magnificent in how it was genuinely terrifying, had likely the best kills of the entire series, and had a slew of characters who you were fully invested in.

Also, once again, Dokken...

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main day job, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks/Saints, Jamie Hayter, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is co-host of the Fearless in Devotion podcast, which won the Club Podcast of the Year gong at the 2024 FSA Awards.