Most movie franchises put their best foot forward. The first installment is usually the best and is the only reason its lackluster sequels and spin-offs ever see the light of day. That isn’t always the case. Sometimes the original movie is flawed but has some great characters that are better served in their own films. Sometimes the stars aline perfectly, and the spin-off movie is able to capitalize on the promise of the original.
For clarity, a “spin-off” is defined here as a movie whose characters started in another movie and is not a direct sequel to that original movie.
10 Bumblebee
The Transformers franchise hasn’t exactly been showered in accolades. Despite swapping characters in and out, the movies have never ascended beyond the original film’s 58% on Rotten Tomatoes. That is until it spun off Bumblebee into his own movie.
This smaller-scale spin-off breathes life into a franchise thought to be beyond the point of redemption. Director Travis Knight and star Hailee Steinfeld prove that Transformers can still be fun and emotionally affecting, and John Cena takes a rare villainous turn to excellent effect.
9 The Lion King 1 1/2
While The Lion King has many devoted fans, there’s no denying that its clear standouts are Timon and Pumba. They’re fan favorites for a reason and are a clear cut above the rest of the movie’s otherwise familiar narrative. It may be a cliche to deride it as just “Hamlet with animals,” but that doesn’t make that criticism incorrect.
The Lion King 1 1/2, on the other hand, is excellent. The aforementioned dynamic duo makes for far more compelling protagonists than Simba, and their journey is a much more entertaining ride than the original movie’s.
8 Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
Sacha Baron Cohen made a name for himself with Da Ali G Show, where his bizarre characters and bits created some unique comedy at the expense of his unsuspecting guests. That show was successful enough to spin off into three different movies, the best of which is Borat.
The Oscar-nominated film gives Cohen’s standout reporter character much more freedom and scope to induce the awkward situations he revels in and was enormously embraced by fans like no other part of the franchise before it to the tune of $262 million at the box office on an $18 million dollar budget.
7 Hobbes & Shaw
The Fast and Furious franchise has jumped the shark several times over. What began as a street racing melodrama has morphed into one of the biggest globe-trotting action-adventure series ever with each film coming up with increasingly bizarre things to do with cars. Hobbes & Shaw takes that evolution to its logical conclusion.
Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham are a perfectly matched odd couple and transform the series into the goofy spy romp that it was apparently always destined to become. It’s the funniest and most bizarre film in the series and makes it work by also being the most self-aware.
6 Birds of Prey
Most DC fans don’t consider Suicide Squad to be a particularly good movie. It’s 27% score is a franchise low point, but one of the few things everyone seemed to agree it got right was Margot Robbie’s performance as Harley Quinn. That public approval led to her spinning off into her own little corner of the DC Universe with Birds of Prey.
This more Harley focused story gives her and her new “teammates” plenty of room to be fun and unique where Suicide Squad stifled its oddball cast. Plus, in addition to its five talented leading ladies, it also features a scenery-chewing Ewan McGregor, something that would make any movie better.
5 Deadpool
Many have repressed X-Men Origins: Wolverine from their memory. Unfortunately, not only did it happen, but it was also the big-screen debut of the merc with a mouth. One of the franchise’s worst movies to date also managed to muzzle and utterly waste one of its source material’s best characters.
Luckily, Ryan Reynolds never gave up on reviving Wade Wilson, and fans were treated to a faithful Deadpool adaptation that is certainly better than Origins and outpaces every other main series X-Men movie as well.
4 The Naked Gun: From The Files of Police Squad!
Most people don’t remember the old Police Squad! show, which makes sense as it was canceled after only six episodes.
Thankfully though, the premise lived on and was turned into an entire movie trilogy that’s every bit as clever and laugh-out-loud funny as its predecessors, Airplane! and Top Secret! It’s also home to some of the iconic Leslie Nielsen’s best work and features NFL star O.J. Simpson in a major role before he became famous for… other reasons.
3 Logan
The X-Men franchise has some winners, but none rise to the height of Logan. The Wolverine trilogy was off to a shaky start with the critically panned Origins and the mostly-well-received The Wolverine, but Logan puts all the pieces together and is connsidered the best movie to feature Hugh Jackman’s iconic character.
As Logan takes on one last job, audiences are treated to everything they’ve ever wanted from one of these movies from the brutal violence and complex characterization to a central role for X-23 and a true berserker Logan sequence. Logan is so good it makes every other bad X-Men movie worth it.
2 Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
While not the most traditional entry on this list, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse‘s dimension-hopping plotline pins at as a spin-off of every other live-action Spider-Man movie. It even nearly featured a cameo from Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, and Tom Hollands Spider-Men in a post-credits cameo that was nixed for being “too soon.”
Still, that cameo is very much still on the table for the coming Spider-Verse sequel, and the Oscar-winning movie goes out of its way to make other connections to the movies such as its dig at the dancing Peter Parker scene from Spider-Man 3.
1 Creed
Rocky is a classic, even the objectively bad Rocky movies are classics, but Creed is so much better. It’s a tall order to spin-off from a beloved franchise, especially one outside the superhero genre, but Creed is more than up to the task.
It not only features the series most compelling performance (from Michael B. Jordan) and its best work behind the camera (from Ryan Coogler), but it also gives Sylvester Stallone his best role since the original.
