Movie fans pay plenty of attention to movie sequels, debating and comparing them to the original movies. But all too often, we lose movie prequels in the conversation - especially when it comes to picking the best prequel film or films.Thanks to franchises like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Planet of the Apes, X-Men and Mad Max making prequels, prequels have become a prevalent part of movie culture. There's even the rare prequel that ultimately outshines all the rest of the entries in a series.
Making good prequel films usually includes paying homage to the original or first film, while also setting up and delivering a fresh story that enhances the original films. And, hey -- if it works, you could end up with a whole prequel trilogy!
One of the most highly anticipated prequel movies of the year is the animated film Transformers One. It releases on September 20, and you can buy tickets right now.
Transformers One is the franchise's first theatrical animated release since 1986, and depicts the origin story and early relationship of Optimus Prime and Megatron. The ensemble voice cast includes Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry, Scarlett Johansson, Keegan-Michael Key, Steve Buscemi, Laurence Fishburne and Jon Hamm. The story is designed to evolve over three films, showing the progression of the characters into their depictions in the live-action Transformers films.
While we wait to see if the latest Transformers installment will be considered one of the top prequel films of all time, we polled nearly 2,000 Fandango movie fans to compile this list of the Best Prequels so far. With iconic titles like The Godfather Part II and iconic franchises like Star Wars being represented, it has a little something for everyone.
Too Long, Didn't Read Summary:
· Prequel films aren't always a main topic of conversation among movie fans, but they are just as important as sequels -- and sometimes even more important
· Making a good prequel -- think Revenge of the Sith or X-Men: First Class -- involves paying homage to the original while also finding a way to stand out as new films.
· With franchises like Planet of the Apes, Star Wars, Indiana Jones and more, this list of movie prequels was voted on by fans and covers all the bases.
15. Bumblebee (2018)
90% on the Tomatometer
75% on the Popcornmeter
Serving as a prequel of sorts Michael Bay's Transformers films, Bumblebee takes place in 1987. Optimus Prime has sent the titular Autobot to protect Earth following the fall of Cybertron. After he's attacked by a Decepticon, Bumblebee is discovered and repaired by 18-year-old Charlie, played by Hailee Steinfeld. The pair must protect the world against the Decepticons and a secret agency, led by John Cena’s Agent Burns. The movie also features Dylan O'Brien as the voice of Bumblebee, Angela Bassett as the voice of Shatter and Justin Theroux as the voice of Dropkick.
This sixth installment in the live-action Transformers film series was directed by Travis Knight, his first live-action movie after previously directing the animated hit Kubo and the Two Strings (2016). This prequel film was the first in the Transformers series not to be directed by Michael Bay, who served as a producer instead. Bumblebee was considered a box office success but became the lowest-grossing film in the franchise, despite being the only entry with a Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
14. Wonka (2023)
82% on the Tomatometer
91% on the Popcornmeter
This musical fantasy film from Warner Bros. serves as a prequel to the 1971 classic Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and features Wonka’s early days as an eccentric chocolatier. It stars Timothee Chalamet, who was director Paul King's only choice after seeing Chalamet’s high school singing and dancing performances on YouTube. Chalamet is joined by a supporting cast that includes Olivia Colman, Keegan-Michael Key and Hugh Grant, with the latter playing an Oompa-Loompa.
Wonka includes original songs by Neil Hannon, front man of the chamber pop group The Divine Comedy. The original score comes from Joby Talbot, best known for the Sing movies.
13. Cruella (2021)
75% on the Tomatometer
97% on the Popcornmeter
This live-action prequel to the animated Disney classic 101 Dalmatians (1961) is set in the punk rock movement of 1970s London. It follows the rebellious early days of an aspiring fashion designer, played by Emma Stone, and how she becomes the notorious fashion designer known as Cruella de Vil – minus the cigarette smoking, which Disney had banned from films in 2007. Emma Thompson co-stars as the Baroness, a main antagonist to Cruella and ultimately a big part of her transformation into a villain.
Cruella performed well with critics and was a huge hit with audiences who were anything but cruel, as they loved the outfits, the soundtrack and the Emmas – Stone and Thompson. The movie would go on to win an Academy Award for Best Costume Design, naturally.
12. Monsters University (2013)
80% on the Tomatometer
81% on the Popcornmeter
Coming 12 years after Monsters, Inc. (2001), this prequel movie from Disney and Pixar goes back to the college days for its main characters James P. "Sulley" Sullivan and Mike Wazowski, played John Goodman and Billy Crystal start off as rivals at Monsters University and slowly become friends.
Development for this one dates as far back as 2005, with at least one failed attempt at production before it finally got off the ground under the direction of Dan Scanlon, in his feature debut. Randy Newman composed the music for Monsters University, his seventh project for Pixar. The movie went on to be a big hit with critics and fans, earning over $740 million worldwide.
11. Kong: Skull Island
75% on the Tomatometer
70% on the Popcornmeter
The second film in the Monsterverse and the 11th film in the King Kong franchise, Kong: Skull Island takes place in 1973. The movie follows a team of scientists and Vietnam War soldiers who travel to the uncharted Skull Island. There, they meet the gigantic ape Kong, the last of his species.
The film’s loaded cast includes Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, John Goodman, Brie Larson, Corey Hawkins, Shea Whigham and John C. Reilly, among others. After doing well at the box office, it was followed by the sequel Godzilla vs. Kong (2021), the Netflix animated TV series Skull Island (2023) and the film Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024)
10. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016)
74% on the Tomatometer
79% on the Popcornmeter
This film is a spinoff of and a prequel to the Harry Potter film series, and the ninth overall installment in the Wizarding World franchise. It centers around magizoologist Newt Scamander, played by Eddie Redmayne, whose magical beasts are accidentally let loose in 1926 New York. Author J.K. Rowling made her screenwriting debut with this entry, inspired by her 2001 "textbook" of the same name.
The movie grossed $814 million worldwide, won an Academy Award for Best Costume Design – the first Wizarding World film to win an Oscar – and kicked off what became a series of successful films.
9. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1967)
97% on the Tomatometer
97% on the Popcornmeter
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is the third film in a trio known as the “Man With No Name” or “Dollars” trilogy, and is what many consider to be the definitive spaghetti western. It's technically a prequel to 1964’s A Fistful Of Dollars and 1965’s For A Few Dollars More, with all three movies starring Clint Eastwood and directed by Sergio Leone. The story revolves around three gunslingers competing to find a buried fortune of Confederate gold amid the chaotic violence of the American civil war. And while Eastwood received top billing and was catapulted into stardom after the film’s release, it’s Eli Wallach who technically has the most screen time.
Leone put his signature stamp on the movie with elements like close-up cinematography mixed with long shots, stylized gunfights and a lack of dialogue for the first ten-and-a-half minutes. The movie's budget of $1.6 million was considered very extravagant in 1966, and the fillmmakers took advantage of it with a variety of spectacles like using 1,500 Spanish soldiers as extras, and blowing up a bridge – twice.
8. Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)
82% on the Tomatometer
77% on the Popcornmeter
The seventh installment in the Planet of the Apes film series is part reboot, part prequel. Rise of the Planet of the Apes was directed by Rupert Wyatt and stars James Franco, Freida Pinto, John Lithgow, Brian Cox and Andy Serkis. It tells the story of Caesar (Serkis), a chimpanzee who assembles a simian army and fights for justice after being genetically enhanced with human-like intelligence by a chemist (Franco).
With a strong box office showing and love from both critics and fans, the series has continued with the movies Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014), War for the Planet of the Apes (2017) and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024).
7. Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith (2005)
79% on the Tomatometer
66% on the Popcornmeter
Also known as Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, the final installment in the Star Wars prequel trilogy is set three years after the onset of the clone wars – established in the previous film Attack of the Clones (2002) – with Anakin Skywalker well on his way to turning to the dark side after being manipulated by Palpatine. The film culminated in an epic final battle between Ewan McGregor's Obi-Wan and Hayden Christansen’s Anakin, which is just one of the many reasons this threequel shines so bright. Another factor that makes this arguably the favorite installment in the prequel trilogy that it was the first Star Wars film to receive a PG-13 rating, mostly due to the visuals Anakin's final moments, which vividly portray his transformation into becoming the Darth Vader we know from the original films.
Star Wars: Episode III was the most successful movie of the prequel trilogy and broke several box office records during its opening week, ultimately pulling in over $868 million to become the highest grossing film in the U.S. in 2005.
6. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)
64% on the Tomatometer
83% on the Popcornmeter
The first installment in director Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit film trilogy acts as a prequel for his Lord of the Rings film trilogy. An Unexpected Journey is primarily based on J. R. R. Tolkien’s 1937 novel The Hobbit, with parts of it adapted from the appendices to Tolkien's 1955 novel The Return of the King. The adventure follows Martin Freeman’s Bilbo Baggins, who is swept into an epic quest to reclaim Erebor. He's helped by Gandalf the Grey, played by Ian McKellen, and 13 Dwarves led by the legendary warrior Thorin Oakenshield, played by Richard Armitage.
An Unexpected Journey was filmed at 48 frames per second, as opposed to the traditional 24 frames, which helped make this 3-D film appear more clear and lifelike. The result was a film with a box office gross over $1 billion, and three Academy Award nominations for Best Production Design, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, and Best Visual Effects.
5. X-Men: First Class (2011)
86% on the Tomatometer
87% on the Popcornmeter
X-Men: First Class was originally intended to be a franchise reboot that contradicted the events of X-Men: Origins: Wolverine (2009), but was later retconned into a movie prequel to X-Men (2000). First Class stars James McAvoy as a young Charles Xavier and Michael Fassbender as a young Erik Lensherr/Magneto, alonside Rose Byrne, Jennifer Lawrence, January Jones, Oliver Platt and Kevin Bacon. The movie serves as an origin story of sorts for Professor X and Magneto, who were once good friends before becoming enemies. It’s set mostly during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and took inspiration from the James Bond films of the period.
X-Men: First Class was directed by Matthew Vaughn of Kick-Ass (2010) fame, and also features Hugh Jackman reprising his role as Wolverine in an uncredited cameo, in which he drops the film’s only swear word.
4. The Godfather Part II (1974)
96% on the Tomatometer
97% on the Popcornmeter
This epic crime drama from Paramount Pictures was produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, and is technically both a sequel and a prequel to The Godfather (1972). Not only does it pick up with the 1958 story of Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), the new Don of the Corleone family, but it also looks at the early journey of Vito Corleone (Robert De Niro).
The Godfather Part II is still considered highly influential in the gangster genre and beyond. It was nominated for 11 Academy Awards and won six, including Best Director for Coppola and Best Supporting Actor for De Niro, and it became the first sequel or prequel ever to win Best Picture.
3. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
84% on the Tomatometer
87% on the Popcornmeter
In the fourth prequel film to the original, set a week before Star Wars: A New Hope begins, follows a group of rebels who come together during the galactic civil war to steal the plans to the Death Star, the Galactic Empire’s ultimate weapon. The main ensemble cast includes Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Ben Mendelsohn, Donnie Yen, Mads Mikkelsen, Alan Tudyk, Riz Ahmed, Jiang Wen and Forest Whitaker, and it was directed by Gareth Edwards, an experienced visual effects artist who had previously directed the Godzilla reboot in 2014.
Helping this one stand out as a favorite prequel among Star Wars fans is how Edwards and company went rogue – pun intended – by including old deleted footage of some of the X-Wing pilots from the Death Star attack in the original film, paying homage to the original trilogy and endearing themselves to fans and critics. Rogue One went on to gross over $1 billion dollars worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing live action film of the year.
2. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
77% on the Tomatometer
82% on the Popcornmeter
The second film in the indiana Jones franchise is set a year or so before the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). Harrison Ford returned as Indiana Jones, who this time teams up with a nightclub singer played by Kate Cupshaw – who would go on to marry the film’s director Steven Spielberg – to recover a precious gem and rescue several kidnapped boys with the help of 12-year-old Short Round, played by future Oscar winner Ke Huy Quan.
Executive producer George Lucas, who is also credited with Temple of Doom's story, teamed up with writers Willard Hoik and Gloria Katz from American Graffiti (1973), rather than his Lost Ark collaborator Lawrence Kasdan. The result was harsh reviews from critics, at least initially, who thought it was too dark and violent. But the critical opinion has improved over the years, citing the movie's imagination and intensity.
1. Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
80% on the Tomatometer
75% on the Popcornmeter
Captain America: The First Avenger may be the fifth installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe by release date, but it’s the first in the timeline, starting out in 1941 when America was in the thick of World War II. Chris Evans stars as the titular character, aka Steve Rogers, who is just looking to do his part. But he gets rejected from America's Armed Forces and is instead accepted into an experimental program that turns him into a supersoldier dubbed Captain America. And with a name like that, it’s only fitting that he would go on to lead the fight against the Nazi-backed Hydra organization.
To help capture 1940’s America, director Joe Johnston was chosen because of his previous work on the period films The Rocketeer (1991) and October Sky (1999). And it all worked: The film was a commercial and critical success, with two sequels and setting up plenty more appearances from Cap to follow.
