Back to the Future is often listed as one of the best sci-fi trilogies of all time, a three-movie series that has great releases in all three movies. The first movie in that franchise sees a teenager named Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) sent back in time to the moment when his parents met. Thanks to the mistakes he makes, he has to find a way to ensure they get back together, or he will cease to exist. The sequels take him to the future and then into the far past.
There are many lists with it listed among the best trilogies of all time, regardless of genre. There is competition from fantasy films (The Lord of the Rings), the action genre (Indiana Jones), and Western movies (the Dollars trilogy), and when it comes to sci-fi movies, there are some that are objectively better in many ways. While all three Back to the Future movies are solid, the second and third don’t quite reach the brilliance of the first, leaving the door open to competition.
There are very few trilogies that are masterful from start to finish. The Godfather proves that even a trilogy with two genuine masterpieces can drop hard with a lackluster finale. However, when a trilogy is able to carry the quality through all three films, even when one of them struggles, like in Back to the Future, it creates a special experience. These five movies are all better sci-fi trilogies than Back to the Future, and all stand the test of time.
Alien (1979–1992)
Sigourney Weaver as Ripley in Alien
The original Alien trilogy is very similar to Back to the Future. The first movie is a masterpiece, with Alien taking the idea of a haunted house atmosphere but transferring it into space. This means the victims have nowhere to run when the killing starts, and the only chance for survival is outlasting the alien Xenomorph. However, while Back to the Future has one great movie and two really good movies, the Alien trilogy has two masterpieces and a misunderstood third film.
James Cameron’s sequel is, in many ways, even better than the first movie. Instead of a dark horror story, Aliens is an explosive action movie with gun fights, explosions, and the Colonial Marines launching an attack on the Xenomorphs. The third movie is interesting, although a letdown after the first two. Despite this, the struggles of David Fincher’s Alien 3 don’t lower the brilliance of this trilogy, and it has moments that match anything from Back to the Future.
Captain America (2011–2016)
Steve Rogers might have one of the best overall character arcs of anyone in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. His road from a skinny kid who just wants to help defend his nation and beat up Nazis to the man who helps save the world at all costs was masterfully done. While his story also played out in the Avengers movies, it was his solo movies that set up his triumphant moments in Avengers: Endgame. It all starts in a World War II historical epic where he fights the Nazis and sacrifices himself to stop the Red Skull.
The first movie was brilliant, but the second was the masterpiece, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier might be the best MCU movie of them all. That film shows the United States infiltrated by Hydra, and Cap has to fight his own government to save his country. The third movie was Civil War, and it proves how great the Captain America trilogy was because it was an Avengers movie sold on Cap’s name. No MCU trilogy comes close to Steve Rogers’ journey, from start to finish.
Planet Of The Apes (2011–2017)
From a 1963 Pierre Boulle Novel to a 300-Years-After Sequel · Eight Questions How Well Do You Know Planet of the Apes? “Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!”
🗽Classic1968 · Heston
🐎Sequels1970-73 · McDowall
🦍Burton2001 · Wahlberg
🦍Caesar2011-17 · Serkis
👑Kingdom2024 · Wes Ball
01
The 1968 original ends with one of the most-quoted final shots in science-fiction cinema: astronaut George Taylor (Charlton Heston) gallops along an unfamiliar beach with Nova, rounds a bluff, falls to his knees and screams “You maniacs! You blew it up!” What national landmark, half-buried in the sand, has he just recognised — revealing the simian world is in fact post-apocalyptic Earth?
✓ Correct! The Statue of Liberty — the closing 90 seconds of Franklin J. Schaffner’s 1968 film, scored to Jerry Goldsmith’s percussive cue, with Taylor pounding the sand. The shot was added by Rod Serling, who took the first crack at Pierre Boulle’s novel and replaced the book’s ending (Taylor returns to a sky-Paris that has fallen to apes) with this single-image twist set on the “Forbidden Zone” coastline. The matte painting was built by Emil Kosa Jr. and combined with a buried prop on Westward Beach in Malibu. The reveal that the planet was Earth all along is widely cited as the first true cinematic “rug-pull” ending and inspired everything from Soylent Green to The Sixth Sense. Heston only signed on after Boulle’s novel was reframed, and the screaming-on-the-beach take was the very first one printed.
✗ Wrong. The answer is the Statue of Liberty — half-buried in the sand at the close of Schaffner’s 1968 film, revealing the simian planet is in fact post-apocalyptic Earth. Rod Serling rewrote Boulle’s novel ending (a sky-Paris fallen to apes) and gave us the single-image twist that has been homaged from Soylent Green to The Sixth Sense. The matte was painted by Emil Kosa Jr. and shot on Westward Beach, Malibu.
02
The franchise originates from a 1963 French satirical novel titled “La Planète des singes” — a swift, allegorical tale of journalist Ulysse Mérou marooned on the simian world Soror. The author, who had also written the 1952 novel that became David Lean’s 1957 epic The Bridge on the River Kwai, won an Oscar for that film’s screenplay despite barely speaking English. Name him.
✓ Correct! Pierre Boulle (1912–1994), a French engineer-turned-novelist who’d spent the war as a colonial agent for the Free French in Indochina before being captured and held as a prisoner of forced labour — experiences that fed both Le Pont de la rivière Kwaï (1952) and La Planète des singes (1963). Boulle famously credited two screenwriters (Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson) for Kwai’s script even though they were both blacklisted by HUAC and could not be named on screen; Boulle himself spoke almost no English. He won the 1958 Adapted Screenplay Oscar for a screenplay he did not write; the Academy retrospectively re-attributed the award to Foreman and Wilson in 1984. Boulle’s Planet of the Apes novel ends on Earth too — but with Paris fallen to apes, a far darker beat than Schaffner’s Statue-of-Liberty reveal.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Pierre Boulle (1912–1994). The same Free French POW-novelist who wrote The Bridge on the River Kwai (1952) wrote La Planète des singes (1963). He notoriously “won” the 1958 Adapted Screenplay Oscar for Kwai despite barely speaking English — the script was secretly by the blacklisted Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson, who were retro-credited in 1984. Boulle’s novel ends on a Paris fallen to apes; Rod Serling rewrote the ending into the iconic Statue of Liberty reveal.
03
One British-American actor — the original chimpanzee archaeologist Cornelius in 1968’s Planet of the Apes — went on to anchor four of the five original films (1968, 1971, 1972, 1973) under the make-up, and played Cornelius’s son Caesar from Conquest onward. He even returned as Galen in the short-lived 1974 TV series. Name him.
✓ Correct! Roddy McDowall — the franchise’s connective tissue across the original cycle. He played Cornelius in Planet of the Apes (1968) and Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971); Cornelius’s son Caesar in Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) and Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973); and the chimp Galen in the 1974 CBS TV series. (He missed only Beneath the Planet of the Apes in 1970, owing to a directing conflict on his film Tam-Lin.) John Chambers’s prosthetic ape make-up — which won a Special Achievement Oscar in 1969 — took roughly five hours to apply on McDowall and made eating during shoot days nearly impossible; he survived on milkshakes. The traps are all era-correct: Maurice Evans is the orangutan Dr. Zaius; Kim Hunter is Zira; Ricardo Montalbán is Armando in Conquest and Battle.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Roddy McDowall — Cornelius in films 1 and 3, Caesar in films 4 and 5, and Galen in the 1974 CBS series. (He missed only Beneath in 1970, due to a directing conflict.) John Chambers’s ape make-up took five hours to apply and reduced him to milkshakes between takes. Maurice Evans is Dr. Zaius; Kim Hunter is Zira; Ricardo Montalbán is the circus-owner Armando in films 4 and 5 — all real franchise players but the distractor here.
04
Heston’s most-quoted line in the 1968 film — “Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!” — is the first sustained English speech the apes hear from Taylor, who had been mute (from a throat wound) for most of the film up to that point. In what specific dramatic context does he finally yell it?
✓ Correct! It is shouted while a gorilla handler hauls Taylor down a corridor after his first escape attempt is foiled — the precise moment the speaking-human secret breaks. Heston had been mute for most of the first hour (a throat wound silenced him on arrival), so the line is the dramatic hinge that reveals to the apes — and to Zira and Cornelius in particular — that this captured creature can speak. The line was so iconic by the 1980s that Charlton Heston himself parodied it on The Simpsons “A Fish Called Selma” episode (1996), in the Stop the Planet of the Apes! On Ice! musical performed by Troy McClure. The other options reference real scenes in the 1968 film — courtroom, beach finale, mutant caves — but the line is delivered after the foiled first escape.
✗ Wrong. The answer is during a corridor drag by gorilla handlers, just after Taylor’s first escape attempt fails — the speaking-human secret breaks at exactly that beat. He’d been mute (throat wound) for most of the prior hour, so the line is the film’s dramatic hinge. The line was famously parodied by Heston himself on The Simpsons (Stop the Planet of the Apes! On Ice!, 1996). The other options are real scenes — courtroom, beach, Forbidden Zone caves — but the line lands in the corridor.
05
Tim Burton’s 2001 “re-imagining” (deliberately not a sequel or a straight remake) was Fox’s first attempt to revive the franchise after 28 years. It made $362m on a $100m budget, divided critics, and is most often remembered for its bewildering twist ending in which the hero returns to Earth and finds the Lincoln Memorial replaced by a statue of General Thade. Who starred as astronaut Leo Davidson?
✓ Correct! Mark Wahlberg, fresh off The Perfect Storm (2000), as USAF Captain Leo Davidson. Burton’s film was a stylistic departure from the 1968 chamber piece — ape society is a feudal-medieval, hyper-active society with Tim Roth as the snarling chimp General Thade and Helena Bonham Carter as the human-rights activist Ari. Make-up was Rick Baker (six Oscars by 2001), who designed wholly new prosthetics that allowed actors to move on all fours. Burton’s ending — Davidson returning to Earth to find the Lincoln Memorial replaced by Thade — was widely panned as nonsensical and was never explained even in tie-in material. There was no sequel; the franchise sat dormant until Rise of the Planet of the Apes in 2011. Brendan Fraser was an early candidate but passed.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Mark Wahlberg, in Tim Burton’s 2001 reimagining as USAF Captain Leo Davidson. Tim Roth played General Thade, Helena Bonham Carter played Ari, Rick Baker did the prosthetics. The film’s twist (Davidson returns to find the Lincoln Memorial replaced by Thade) is widely cited as one of the more incoherent franchise endings — never explained, never sequelised. The franchise sat dormant for a decade until 2011’s Rise. Brendan Fraser was an early candidate but passed.
06
The 2011-2017 Caesar trilogy — Rise (Rupert Wyatt), Dawn (Matt Reeves) and War (Matt Reeves) — abandoned prosthetic make-up entirely in favour of Weta Digital’s on-location performance-capture. The same actor played the lead chimpanzee Caesar in all three films and was widely argued to deserve an Oscar nomination by his War (2017) turn, in which Caesar speaks more dialogue than any other character. Name him.
✓ Correct! Andy Serkis — already canonical for performance-capture from Gollum in The Lord of the Rings (2001-03), Kong in Peter Jackson’s King Kong (2005) and Caesar across Rise (2011), Dawn (2014) and War (2017). Weta’s breakthrough on the Caesar trilogy was full on-location performance-capture — redwood forests, rivers, snow — rather than the soundstage mocap of the LOTR era. Serkis’s campaign for Oscar recognition of mocap performance, championed by Reeves and Wyatt, became a recurring talking point of the 2010s award seasons; the Academy never nominated him in the category and the rules were eventually clarified to confirm that mocap performances are acting eligible. Toby Kebbell did mocap Koba in Dawn and War; Terry Notary did Rocket and is Reeves’s key ape-movement coach; Doug Jones does prosthetics work (The Shape of Water, Hellboy), not mocap-ape work.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Andy Serkis — already the canonical performance-capture actor from Gollum (LOTR, 2001-03) and Kong (2005), then Caesar in Rise (2011), Dawn (2014) and War (2017). Weta’s on-location performance-capture across all three is widely cited as the genre’s technical high-water mark. Toby Kebbell did Koba; Terry Notary did Rocket; Doug Jones works in prosthetics (Shape of Water, Hellboy), not the Caesar trilogy.
07
War for the Planet of the Apes (2017), Matt Reeves’s trilogy capstone, leans heavily into Apocalypse Now-style militarised iconography — including a shaven-headed, monologuing human antagonist known only as “the Colonel,” who has the simian-flu-immune humans build a wall at an old border weapons depot. Which actor — in his most Brando-esque role since the early 1990s — plays the Colonel?
✓ Correct! Woody Harrelson as “the Colonel” (the character is named McCullough only in supplementary material). Reeves and co-writer Mark Bomback shot Harrelson’s monologue scenes against a near-bare wall in deliberate homage to Marlon Brando’s Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now (1979) — the script even references the “horror” speech directly. Harrelson shaved his head for the role; the Colonel’s arc reveals he murdered his own infected son once the simian flu’s second-strain ALZ-113 began stripping humans of speech. The film made $490m worldwide on a $150m budget and Michael Giacchino’s score is widely considered the trilogy’s peak. The traps are all real franchise figures: Gary Oldman is Dreyfus in Dawn (2014); Jason Clarke is Malcolm in Dawn; Stephen Lang did not appear (a deliberate red herring).
✗ Wrong. The answer is Woody Harrelson — shaved head, Apocalypse Now-style Kurtz homage, base built at an old weapons depot. The Colonel’s ALZ-113 secret (the simian flu’s second strain now mutes humans, including his own son) is the film’s key reveal. Gary Oldman is Dreyfus and Jason Clarke is Malcolm — both in Dawn (2014), not War. Stephen Lang is a deliberate distractor — not in the franchise.
08
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes opened on 10 May 2024 — the first new entry since War (2017), set approximately 300 years after Caesar’s death, with a new young chimp protagonist named Noa (Owen Teague) discovering a corrupted bonobo kingdom that has built itself around the worship of a misremembered “Caesar.” The film opens the planned new trilogy and was a $397m hit on a $160m budget. Name its director.
✓ Correct! Wes Ball, the Maze Runner trilogy director (2014-18), who pitched a soft reboot set centuries after Caesar — not a fourth Caesar film. The premise: Caesar’s teachings (“ape together strong”) have been distorted across three centuries into a cult by the bonobo king Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand), who enslaves other clans while searching for a pre-collapse human vault. Noa (Owen Teague), a young eagle-keeper chimp, becomes the franchise’s first protagonist born into the post-Caesar world. Freya Allan plays the “feral” human Mae, whose secret cognition the film’s back third reveals. Ball signed on for at least two more films. Reeves was offered a return but had moved to The Batman; Wyatt directed only Rise (2011); Gareth Edwards is a deliberate sci-fi-credentialled distractor (Rogue One, The Creator).
✗ Wrong. The answer is Wes Ball (the Maze Runner trilogy), who took the franchise 300 years past Caesar with a new chimp protagonist Noa (Owen Teague), antagonist bonobo king Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand) and the secretly-cognitive human Mae (Freya Allan). Released 10 May 2024, $397m on a $160m budget, opening a new trilogy. Reeves had moved to The Batman; Wyatt directed only Rise (2011); Edwards is a deliberate sci-fi distractor.
Sacred Scrolls · Final Scorecard Your Simian Standing
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/ 8
Lawgiver-grade ape historian — or still mute on the beach?
The Planet of the Apes was one of the most famous old-school sci-fi franchises when it was released, and that original movie had one of the best twist endings of any genre movie in history. However, shockingly, a reboot that arrived in 2011 was better than every previous film in the franchise, and the new Planet of the Apes trilogy ended up as a perfect story, from start to finish. Rupert Wyatt directed Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and he shows how the revolution starts.
Matt Reeves took over with the second movie, and both Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and War for the Planet of the Apes ended up delivering a one-two punch that took the entire trilogy to new heights. The three movies combined to make $1.6 billion at the box office, and the Rotten Tomatoes scores are all high, sitting at 82%, 91%, and 94%. They also each picked up an Oscar nomination and never dropped in quality from the first to the third.
The Dark Knight Trilogy (2005–2012)
Heath Ledger as the Joker holding a playing card in The Dark KnightImage via MovieStillsDB
When Christopher Nolan directed Batman Begins, it ended up as the best origin story for the Caped Crusader, but then something magical happened with the second movie. The Dark Knight came out the same year as Iron Man kick-started the MCU, and the two movies did different things. Iron Man proved that comic book movies could be fun, and The Dark Knight proved that comic book movies could be legitimate cinema. This was as much a crime drama as it was a superhero movie.
The third movie, The Dark Knight Rises, was a letdown after the first two, but it was still a solid superhero movie, and Nolan still created a compelling and fun story. By the end, Nolan has created a complete story, from Batman’s origin to his retirement after beating Bane and Talia al Ghul, and it was one of the best self-contained superhero stories in the genre.
Star Wars (1977–1983)
Luke Skywalker smiling while piloting an X-Wing in Star Wars A New Hope
The best sci-fi movie trilogy of all time was never Back to the Future. When Star Wars came out in 1977, it changed everything about space sci-fi films, and it created a subgenre that all other space operas have struggled to attempt to match. From that first movie, about a young farm boy who learns he is a Jedi Knight and then helps the Rebellion stop the evil Empire’s plan, to the final movie where the Rebellion defeats and brings down the Empire, it is a masterpiece.
The Empire Strikes Back is one of the best movie sequels ever made, regardless of genre, and the dark levels it goes to were shocking at the time. Return of the Jedi has some minor problems, but it remains a fan favorite for many of the reasons some critics dismiss it, with the Ewoks as the most polarizing addition to the franchise. Despite that, this is a perfect trilogy, and the struggles the franchise had to create another one show how lightning is almost impossible to strike twice for sci-fi movies like these.
