best star trek movies imdb

Star Trek movies, ranked worst to best

Journey into the strange new worlds of the Star Trek movies, ranked worst to best. Live long and get some popcorn.

We're leaving the Neutral zone and taking a stand with our list of the best Star Trek movies.

Star Trek is going through a bit of a retro renaissance at the moment, thanks to a successful first season of Strange New Worlds, which takes place before Kirk ever took over as Captain of the Enterprise. It’s put many a Trek fan in the mood for more classic Trek action. You could cherry-pick the adventures of Kirk and Co. by watching the best Star Trek: The Original Series episodes or if you’re feeling more cinematic, pull from this list of Star Trek movies ranked worst to best. 

Some viewers will be tempted to skip to the top of the list — we get it, your time is valuable, so why bother with the losers? — but there’s something worth experiencing about each and every entry on this list. Even the misses have something interesting to say about Trek in general or the Enterprise crew specifically. This list includes all the Trek films, not just those of the original crew, so you can explore the Kelvin timeline as well as the Next Generation. And if you want to see how all the timelines fit together, check out our guide to watching the Star Trek movies in order too.

Here, then, is the definitive ranking of the best Star Trek movies. Don’t bother arguing with us: We know we’re right. If you’re still in the mood for intergalactic cinema, check out our list of the best space movies or see how the Alien movies ranked . 

13. Star Trek Into Darkness

• Release date: May 16, 2013
• Cast: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana

How this film managed to make Khan a boring antagonist is a mystery that will baffle scholars for years to come. No shade to Benedict Cumberbatch, but he doesn’t have the charisma necessary to persuade viewers to overlook the plot holes and bizarre character choices that make Into Darkness unwatchable. The sacrifice that is so poignant in Wrath of Khan falls flat because the relationship between Kirk and Spock – roles reversed for the climactic moment – barely reaches the level of roommates, let alone dear friends. And don’t get me started on Carol Marcus in her underwear. 

12. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

• Release date: June 9, 1989
• Cast: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley

Final Frontier ’s core idea is actually pretty good: Spock’s half-brother hijacks the Enterprise so he can fly it into the middle of the Milky Way and meet God. Unfortunately, a writers’ strike grounded the script before it got off the ground. What remains is a muddled mess that still may have been watchable were it not for William Shatner. He’d been promised a turn in the director’s chair and this was what he did with it. If you’ve ever wondered if the stories about Shatner’s unbearable ego were true, look no further.  

11. Star Trek: Insurrection

• Release date: December 11, 1998
• Cast: Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner

Even hardcore Star Trek fans forget what Insurrection is about. Not because it’s confusing, but because it’s the cinematic equivalent of a filler episode. Starfleet decides to relocate a small (but immortal? Ok) population so that the Federation can claim their planet’s unique natural resource for itself. Feeling betrayed by Starfleet’s apparent disregard for the Prime Directive, Picard gets very, very annoyed. Nothing about this movie is particularly good or bad. It’s all just kind of there . Watching Insurrection will neither ruin your day nor make it any better, so do as you will with it. 

10. Star Trek: Nemesis

• Release date: December 13, 2002

Before he was Bane, Venom, or Mad Max, Tom Hardy was Picard’s clone, Shinzon. He kills the Romulan senate, lures Picard and crew to Romulus under the pretense of peace negotiations, and oh, yeah, he has an android that looks just like Data. The plot is a hot mess of mistaken identity, telepathy, and revenge that never has stakes – or characters – worth caring about. Even the movie’s most emotional moment, when Data sacrifices himself to save Picard, is immediately undercut with a “Just kidding! I downloaded my brain into the android who looks just like me!” Troi and Riker got married, though, so that’s nice. 

9. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

• Release date: June 1, 1984

On the plus side, it has Christopher Lloyd as a Klingon. On the minus side... is everything else. After his sacrifice saves the Enterprise from certain destruction, Spock’s casket is shot into space, eventually settling on the Genesis planet. Thus begins a “how do we get Spock’s consciousness back into his newly reborn body” reverse-heist film that is crammed full with awkward moments. Spock going through puberty? Yikes. Klingons murdering Kirk’s son? Oof. Also, the entire film looks bizarrely cheap. You could generously call it an homage to Trek ’s humble beginnings, but it’s very strange after the lush visuals of Khan . At no point is a viewer not acutely aware that this movie had to happen to get Spock back on the Enterprise, and it almost isn’t worth it.   

8. Star Trek: Generations

• Release date: November 18, 1994
• Cast: Patrick Stewart, William Shatner, Malcolm McDowell

Generations was intended to pass the torch from the cast of The Original Series to that of The Next Generation , with Kirk and Picard teaming up to defeat not-quite-a-villain-he’s-just-sad-really Malcolm McDowell. The shoehorning of Kirk, Scotty, and Chekov into a film set a century after they were zipping around the universe is less than elegant, more than gratuitous. Generations spends so much time waving goodbye to the old crew that it never really gets going as a film, but it did its best with an impossible task. 

7. Star Trek Beyond

• Release date: July 22, 2016
• Cast: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban

I’d put this here just for the line about the “beats and shouting,” if I’m honest. Featuring an unrecognizable Idris Elba as its villain, Krall, Beyond isn’t overly concerned with nuance. It’s fast and loud, the very definition of style over substance. Does the scene set to the Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage” make any sense? Not a lick, nope, but damn, does it look cool. This is the Trek film you watch when you want to sit back, turn your brain off, and enjoy a lot of colorful, exciting fight and/or chase scenes. Now that I think about it, “beats and shouting” is a pretty apt description of Star Trek Beyond . 

6. Star Trek: The Motion Picture

• Release date: December 7, 1979

The ponderous pacing and pure 70s-ness of the costumes makes The Motion Picture a slog, but at least it’s a spectacular slog. The plot is pure Trek : An energy cloud housing a living machine is headed for Earth, destroying everything in its wake. The Enterprise is the only ship within intercept range of the cloud, because how else is Kirk going to have an excuse to take over command? The Motion Picture shows its age more than most of the other films of the franchise, but was a perfect vehicle to move the Enterprise and her crew from the small screen to the theater. It has interpersonal conflict, heroics, hubris, and a brilliant reveal about V’ger’s true nature.

5. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

• Release date: November 26, 1986

Aka “The One With the Whales”, Voyage Home leans heavily on humor to great effect. It eases off the sci fi, instead going for a classic fish-out-of-water scenario. An alien probe is trying to communicate with Earth, but the only creature that could respond, the humpback whale, is long since extinct. The crew of the Enterprise travel back to 1980’s San Francisco to snatch a mating pair of humpback whales and return them to the future, preventing the unanswered probe from destroying the planet. The ecological message wasn’t exactly subtle, but Voyage isn’t preachy. Chekov asking anyone if they know where the “nuclear wessels” are, Scotty cooing “Hello, computer” into a mouse, Kirk yelling “Double dumbass on you!” to an angry driver – it’s all immensely charming and genuinely funny.

4. Star Trek

• Release date: May 8, 2009
• Cast: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Simon Pegg

Is it a great Trek film? Maybe. Is it fun to see Kirk and Spock’s origins stories? Absolutely. Watching baby Spock beat the snot out of someone at school is highly gratifying, as is seeing the father whose shadow Kirk can never quite escape. The story does a good enough job twisting the timeline so that the reboot won’t be hamstrung by everything that came before it, and Leonard Nimoy is a delight in his final turn as Spock. Star Trek embodies the spirit of unfettered adventure exhibited by The Original Series while simultaneously making the crew into more than just set dressing there to push buttons and open hailing frequencies. And “Hi, Christopher, I’m Nero” is straight up one of the greatest line reads in all of Star Trek . 

3. Star Trek: First Contact

• Release date: November 22, 1996

Jonathan Frakes (aka Commander Riker) directed this absolute treasure of a movie, and his deep love of Trek comes through in every scene. This is a Trek movie for Trek fans, with nods to TV series Deep Space Nine and Voyager in what is essentially the conclusion to Picard’s arc in the legendary The Next Generation episode “Best of Both Worlds.” The Enterprise follows the Borg back in time to prevent them from disrupting First Contact, the event that introduced Earth to the universe. Picard must face the Borg queen (silkily played by Alice Krige) even as Data is tempted by her promise of humanity. The Earth-based subplot about getting First Contact back on track explores a different aspect of humanity, namely how people step up when they’re called to lead. 

2. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

• Release date: December 6, 1991

Some of the entries on this list are little more than over-inflated episodes, but this... this is a movie. Not a film, thank you very much, a get-more-popcorn-and-shut-the-heck-up-until-the-credits-roll movie . The Klingons desperately need the Federation’s help after their moon explodes, and Kirk – whose son was murdered by Klingons just a few films ago – has to serve as liaison. That’s the set up for a murder mystery that will see Kirk and McCoy imprisoned and Spock turning the Enterprise upside down to find the true culprit. Christopher Plummer is having an absolute blast as a Shakespeare-quoting Klingon who has no interest in peace. Fun fact: This is one of two Trek films directed by Nicholas Meyer. The other one is... 

1. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

• Release date: June 4, 1982

First, and most importantly, yes, that is Ricardo Montalban’s real chest. Secondly, if you’re only going to watch a single Trek film, this is the one. Picking up the threads of The Original Series episode “Space Seed”, Khan is a retelling of Moby Dick as the genetically superior Khan chases his white whale, Admiral James T. Kirk. Montalban and Shatner are at the top of their games, effortlessly owning every scene they’re in, yet providing the perfect counter for each other. Director Nicholas Meyer, who also wrote Khan , shows exquisite patience in the film’s climactic showdown, drawing out the tension as Kirk and Khan hunt each other in the Mutara Nebula. The other Trek films are great space romps, but Khan feels deeply, deeply personal as you watch these great men spit and claw at each other with unfathomable rage. 

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Susan Arendt is a freelance writer, editor, and consultant living in Burleson, TX. She's a huge sci-fi TV and movie buff, and will talk your Vulcan ears off about Star Trek. You can find more of her work at Wired, IGN, Polygon, or look for her on Twitter: @SusanArendt. Be prepared to see too many pictures of her dogs.

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Every Star Trek Movie Ranked

One of the most beloved and influential science-fiction franchises of our time, the Star Trek universe continues to captivate audiences and expand into new worlds – from the Original Series, to the Next Generation, to the J.J. Abrams -led reboots, to the plethora of live-action and animated Enterprise outings on the small screen in recent years.

To mark the 40th anniversary of the all-time classic and many a Trekkie’s favourite, Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan , we’re boldly going where many have gone before, and wrangling the 13 big-screen Star Trek adventures into a definitive order of quality. Here’s Empire’s list of the best Star Trek movies, ranked from worst to best:

13. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

After two films directed by Nimoy, Shatner stepped up for Star Trek V , but it was a troubled production, beset by rewrites, re-shoots and industrial action. The results are, let's say, uneven: a collision of separate stories that don't really mesh, with some jarring tonal shifts. On one level this is a classic Roddenberry concept about exploring the universe and investigating its creation, but that sits alongside Klingon-Romulan-Human politicking and moments of comedy: Kirk and Bones ribbing Spock round a campfire, or Scotty knocking himself unconscious because he doesn't know his way around the new Enterprise. An impressive Dune -like desert sequence gives way to a knock-off Mos Eisley bar scene. Spock suddenly has a renegade brother we've never heard of before. And yet, while the separate parts might not add up to a cohesive whole, there's enough going on that some of it works. Fundamentally, this is a film where Captain Kirk meets God and is unimpressed . That might just be the ultimate Kirk moment, and getting there is worth a couple of hours of janky runaround.

12. Star Trek: Nemesis

A fairly catastrophic failure both critically and commercially, Nemesis did what no Trek film had done before: killed the franchise stone dead for almost a decade. It's still fun to hang out with the Next Generation crew, but that cozy familiarity aside, this is a disappointing experience. It's visually murky, bogs itself down with a leaden plot about Romulan intrigue, has its limelight hogged by Brent Spiner, and suffers from one of the weakest villains in the series: Tom Hardy 's Reman rebel leader Shinzon. This was one of Hardy's earliest roles, and it probably isn't his fault, but he's less than stellar in it and looks borderline ridiculous, sporting a prosthetic nose. His introduction is set up as a huge reveal moment - "Oh my God, it's Picard !" – except he looks nothing like Picard, and the only visual clue that he's Picard's clone is that he's bald. The action periodically delivers and Data's sacrifice – while not a patch on Spock's – gives it a little heart, but as the Next Gen crew's last hurrah, this one saw Picard and the gang go out with a whimper, not a bang.

11. Star Trek Into Darkness

The continuing mission of the rebooted Enterprise has all the pleasure of the 2009 film in its interplay between the principals, and some great San Francisco spectacle. But Into Darkness ' great weakness is its villain: in this instance, Benedict Cumberbatch inheriting the role of Khan from Ricardo Montalban. The problem is exactly the same one that Spectre had with Blofeld: Khan only means something to the audience. He doesn't mean anything to the characters on screen. This Enterprise hasn't even met him in Space Seed. So, the films whole agenda – it's a remixed Star Trek II with another Khan, hold on to your hats! – doesn't work. This Khan is just another bad guy doing generic bad guy stuff. His being Khan is ultimately neither here nor there. "I'm not Harrison, I'm Khan." – are you? Who's that then? If you need a Zoom call with your future self to explain the stakes, you've got more problems than you realise.

10. Star Trek: The Motion Picture

The frequent goofiness of the Original Series sometimes obscured the fact that it was often dealing in strong sci-fi concepts and attempting serious philosophical musing. There was even a high-falutin' pretension to some of the episode titles, like season 3's 'For The World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky'. So, while in a post- Star Wars world, a straight-up space adventure might have seemed the no-brainer way to approach a Star Trek movie, you can see how Gene Roddenberry would have been more attracted to trying to do Kubrick's 2001 . Years in development, and at one point conceived as a new TV series before flipping back to film again, Robert Wise's film has been dubbed the Slow-Motion Picture by wags, and there's no denying its ponderousness. But where it achieves what it's aiming for is in the sequences designed to inspire absolute awe in the viewer – the early reveal of the new Enterprise in space dock, or Spock's solo float through the unbelievably vast V-Ger ship. It isn't to everyone's taste, it arguably doesn't make the best use of its cast, there's not much action and the new uniforms look awful. But there's a tone and ambition to The Motion Picture that's unique in Trek.

9. Star Trek: Generations

The long-heralded meeting of the generations kind of delivers on its promise, but instead of being great, it's only… fine. Part of the problem with Generations is its set-up, which shunts Kirk off into the time-defying Nexus. The plot device that gets him across the generations leaves all his own crew behind, meaning that the Original Series cast get cameos at best. Nimoy isn't in it at all. So, it's essentially a Next Generation movie with Shatner in it – less Enterprise meets Enterprise, more Picard meets Kirk. There are some Klingon shenanigans (hello TNG stalwarts Lursa and B'Etor), a wry Malcom McDowell is a solid principal villain, and the Enterprise is destroyed (again). But it never feels like the event it should, and Kirk's death, which ought to have been momentous, is badly fumbled; compare it to Spock's death in Wrath Of Khan and it's simply a shrug. Shatner was miffed enough that he brought Kirk back from the dead in a series of novels.

8. Star Trek: Insurrection

Of all the Star Trek films, Insurrection feels the most like a standard episode of the TV series (in this case, the Next Generation). The budget is obviously bigger, the screen wider, the effects more impressive, but strip those elements away and the story would barely have played any differently on the small screen. It's much lighter in tone than its immediate predecessor, First Contact , and therefore feels less consequential. But still enjoyable for all that. Largely a character piece focused on Data – as the Next Gen films increasingly were – it involves the Enterprise crew accidentally breaking Star Fleet's sacred Prime Directive of non-interference while on an observation mission on the peaceful backwoods planet Ba'Ku. The consequences draw the attention of the Son'A: Clive Barker-ish mummified aliens who keep themselves alive with frequent transplant surgery and are led by an unrecognisable F. Murray Abraham . The stakes are on the low side, but the set-pieces deliver. And you get to see Riker and Troi in the bath, if that's your thing.

7. Star Trek III: The Search For Spock

Star Trek III can't help but feel smaller and less urgent than the extraordinary Wrath of Khan , and while clearly we want Spock back, this does feel like an entire film in the service of undoing Star Trek II 's most unforgettable moment. It's less flat-out and simply less fun than its predecessor, and that seems to be a deliberate choice: while not at Motion Picture levels of heaviness, it still seems to be aiming for more weight again. Leonard Nimoy directs – the first of many Trek cast members to make the transition to the other side of the camera – and he's clearly great at getting performances, but less sure-footed with pacing and action. And there's a lot of spoken exposition. The villains, too, don't seem as threatening, just a brigade of ornery Klingons, led, rather oddly, by comic actor Christopher Lloyd. You can argue that he wasn't Doc Brown yet, but he was the Reverend Jim. Even the destruction of the Enterprise doesn't quite have the impact that's intended (although maybe that's a function of our having seen it destroyed again so many times in the years since). Still, it's never less than enjoyable, particularly in the Bones Behaving Oddly strand that largely drives the story. This is amiable, watchable Trek , and sometimes that's enough.

6. Star Trek Beyond

After the misfire of Into Darkness , the clear mission here was simple: forget fan-pleasing that pleases no one, and deliver a straight ahead brand new Star Trek adventure with the characters we know and love, untethered from any weight of continuity or dour intertextual engagement with past glories. Beyond is a breath of fresh air and, creatively, a huge success, benefitting from the gonzo energy of multiple Fast & Furious movie director Justin Lin . Simon Pegg 's Scotty emerges as perhaps the film's MVP (odd that, considering he co-wrote it), and is given an amusing double-act with newcomer alien scavenger Sofia Boutella ("Beats and shouting!"). And Idris Elba is a solid villain, although you might wish the new series would play a different bad guy card than 'grudge against Starfleet'. Still, it's all such a blast that it's hard to mind too much, especially during the air-punching callback to the 2009 film's use of the Beastie Boys' 'Sabotage'.

5. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

Aka 'the one with the whales'. A family-friendly, fish-out-of-water comedy adventure, almost entirely set on (at the time) present-day Earth, intent on delivering an environmental message and with no real villain to speak of. An Enterprise crew who don't even have an Enterprise… Star Trek IV shouldn't work, but somehow it's one of the best, and certainly most beloved, films of the series. Maybe that's about its accessibility: it's Trek enough for fans, but un-Trekky enough to tempt the unconvinced. The comedy is great (particularly thanks to the revived Spock, whose befuddled weirdness goes barely remarked in 20th century San Francisco); the extended cast all get decent stuff to do (think Chekov's side-mission to find a 'nuclear wessel'); and Shatner gets a love interest that doesn't play as creepy. The whole film is like a warm hug. Is it Star Trek ? It seems from this evidence that Star Trek is whatever Star Trek says it is.

4. Star Trek (2009)

Star Trek 's big comeback was a reboot and an origin story, re-casting the Original Series crew and telling the story of their first mission aboard the Enterprise, not long out of Star Fleet Academy. The surprise is the extent to which it's also Star Trek 11 : smartly setting up a branching timeline that allows it to remain canonical even as it contradicts the Trek that's gone before. It has its gagh and eats it too. Leonard Nimoy cameos as the Spock we already know, and the new cast ( Chris Pine , Zachary Quinto , Karl Urban , Zoe Saldana , Simon Pegg) do a great job at making their iconic roles feel both familiar and fresh. It's an energetic, colourful, pacy film, revelling in joyful nostalgia and a deep love for these characters. It's just a pity that, with the focus on building the team, Eric Bana 's villain ends up a bit sidelined. Even while he's destroying planets, he's somehow no Khan.

3. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

The near-disaster of Star Trek V almost killed the franchise, so VI was returned to the safe hands of Nicholas Meyer, who'd previously snatched The Wrath Of Khan from the jaws of The Motion Picture . It doesn't quite hit Khan levels of excellence, but it does give the series its best villain since Montalban, in Christopher Plummer 's raging, Shakespeare-quoting Klingon general: a monomaniacal Ahab whose white whale is Kirk. Epic in scale, taking place across multiple ships and planets, the film's main plot hook is nevertheless a more intimate murder mystery, so there's room for character moments and effective storytelling. The obvious advancing age of the principals is explicitly acknowledged (adorably, the climax of the film genuinely rests on whether a portly old man can run up some stairs). And the wider context of peace negotiations between the Federation and the Klingon Empire serves to bridge the gap between The Original Series and the just-starting Next Generation , making this arguably a more effective handover than Generations. While some of the principal cast would return for guest appearances, either in subsequent films or on the small-screen Next Generation and Deep Space Nine , The Undiscovered Country feels valedictory, the last true hurrah of the original Enterprise crew.

2. Star Trek: First Contact

With the Borg the stand-out villains of The Next Generation – they even assimilated Picard in a fantastic end-of-season cliffhanger – their progression to a big-screen face-off was almost inevitable. The results in First Contact make it one of Trek 's nailed-on classics. The implacable Borg's Giger-ish design and body-horror vibe don't necessarily quite gel with the Star Trek ethos, but the film balances those elements with some wide-eyed Roddenberry-ish wonder in a plot about humankind reaching for the stars: specifically the first Warp flight. Some have questioned the introduction of the Borg Queen – they were a terrifying hive mind but now they've got a leader? – but logic aside, she's an undeniably great character, played with insidious relish by the otherworldly Alice Krige. The scenes where she's tempting Data are hugely compelling, circling around one of those big sci-fi ideas that Trek loves and addresses so well: an android choosing to be human.

1. Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan

The film that ensured Star Trek 's future. A major regrouping and rethinking following The Motion Picture , it's thrilling, breathlessly action-packed, and emotionally hefty. The Motion Picture really only had a mystery, but The Wrath of Khan gives the Enterprise crew a truly credible – even frightening – adversary in Ricardo Montalban's aggrieved superhuman, and there's no greater illustration of how genuinely high the stakes of this film are than one of the main cast having to die: the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few. It's a straight-up, knock-down brawl across the galaxy, weaving in lore from deep Star Trek cuts but never alienating a non-expert audience (it's a sequel to a season 1 episode, but you don't really need to have seen 'Space Seed' to get immediately on board). There are new crew members - notably Kirstie Alley's Vulcan Saavik - but The Wrath of Khan proves that the legacy players are far from done, even as the film sweetly acknowledges their lengthening teeth (and faltering eyesight). And there is, of course, that Shatner moment ("KHAAAAAAAAN!"), reminding us that, while there are other space adventure franchises, there are some things that are just uniquely, gloriously Trek . Of all the films we have encountered in our Star Trek travels, this was the most… human.

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The best and worst Star Trek movies, ranked

How does the new Star Trek Beyond movie rank within the 12 prior films? Let us count (down) the ways.

With every new Star Trek movie, there’s a chance for greatness or awfulness. We’ll either be beamed up by the series-long spirit of rousing intergalactic adventure and warm crew camaraderie, or we’ll be gutted by dramatic gestures that felt exhausted decades ago. (Sometimes this happens within the same film.) Still, sci-fi movies wouldn’t be the same without Star Trek , and the 13 installments to date have supplied their share of action over the years. Here’s our definitive ranking—a list that includes summer blockbuster   The Wrath of Khan and  Star Trek Beyond , one of the best new movies to see—based on years of faithful Trekking.

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Best and worst Star Trek movies

13.  Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)

• Science fiction

More like Star Trek: Nadir . Future Mad Max Tom Hardy bores us as a power-mad dictator. A overall sluggishness signaled creative exhaustion. Were it not for rebooter J.J. Abrams, this would have been the tombstone.

12.  Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)

Fatigue sets in as Patrick Stewart’s Picard goes rogue in defense of an alien planet (and also gets it on with one of its inhabitants). The plot was about beneficial radiation, a hint of how confused this script was.

11.  Star Trek Generations (1994)

Despite a fresh crew, the Next Generation team never got the big-screen vehicle it deserved, despite boasting strong writing on the TV show. Kirk is killed by Malcolm McDowell’s baddie, an undignified end.

10.  Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

• Action and adventure

After 2009’s thrilling reboot, audiences couldn’t help but be let down by this merely okay sequel (sort of like the franchise’s Quantum of Solace ). Coyness about Benedict Cumberbatch’s Khan was a major waste of time.

9.  Star Trek: The Final Frontier (1989)

Tellingly, William Shatner directed the most swooningly egotistical chapter in the franchise. It’s about an encounter with a self-proclaimed alien “God,” and includes plenty of manly showdowns with Klingons.

8.  Star Trek: First Contact (1996)

Reinventing the wheel with new ship designs, better special effects and more robust action, First Contact felt like a respectable sci-fi film—a modest goal in light of what this fan base expects (and deserves).

7.  Star Trek Beyond (2016)

The fun returns, as does a strong vibe of the ’60-era TV series. The latest Trek boasts strong special effects via the alien swarm, and much unexpected pathos with every onscreen shot of the late Anton Yelchin.

6.  Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

It certainly starts off well, with Jerry Goldsmith’s soaring main theme virtually serving as the main character . But for a first chapter, this sure takes its time; audiences emerged from screenings light-years older.

5.  Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)

Excuse me, have you by any chance seen Spock around here? Pointy ears, implacable expression, given to mock profundity? If you run into him, tell him we’re looking for him. Thanks.

4.  Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country (1991)

A fine send-off to the original cast, this sixth film rebounded strongly from The Final Frontier’ s dullness, thanks to returning Wrath of Khan writer-director Nicholas Meyer and an abundance of Nixonian geopolitics.

3.  Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

It’s still the funniest of the series, and that goes a long way given these films’ usual solemnity. Kirk, Spock and crew travel back in time to (then) present-day Earth to save the whales.

2.  Star Trek (2009)

Captain Kirk and company get an action-packed reboot in J.J. Abrams’s paean to space travel and lens flares. A fresh cast led by brash, rascally Chris Pine breathed vigor into the old character chemistries.

1.  Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

Of course it’s in our top spot, for its killer villain (Ricardo Montalban) and nuanced development. This is the one in which Spock “dies,” but it also has one of the most moving final lines of any SF film: “I feel young.”

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For Star Trek Day, we decided to have a look at how all of the Star Trek films and TV shows across the entire universe rank together. Interestingly, the most recent entry in the franchise came out on top. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds  — led by Anson Mount as Captain Christopher Pike,  Rebecca Romijn as Number One, and Ethan Peck as Science Officer Spock — boasts two Certified Fresh seasons at 99% and 97% on the Tomatometer. Not too bad for the youngster of a franchise whose history goes back 57 years to its inception with the original Star Trek series created by Gene Roddenberry.

Related: • Star Trek TV Series Ranked by Tomatometer • All Star Trek Movies Ranked by Tomatometer

It’s worth noting that while SNW has a 98% average Tomatometer on 84 reviews across two seasons, the 2009 reboot film Star Trek in the No. 2 position is Certified Fresh on 356 reviews. Some might argue that the film’s volume of reviews makes it the top title, but if we want to start nitpicking on the franchise level, the series also represents 57 hours of programming compared to the film’s 2 hours and 7 minutes. Perhaps the audience score can settle the debate: a 78% average for the series versus 91% for the film. And should No. 3, The Animated Series , even be counted with its relatively meager 18 reviews?

And no “probably” about it, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is officially — by Tomatometer standards anyway — the worst of the franchise.

What do you think? Tell us which is your favorite Star Trek  movie or series  in the comments. 

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2022) 98%

Star Trek (2009) 94%

Star Trek: The Animated Series (1973) 94%

Star Trek: Prodigy (2021) 94%

Star Trek: First Contact (1996) 93%

Star Trek: Lower Decks (2020) 92%

Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) 92%

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993) 91%

Star Trek: Picard (2020) 89%

Star Trek Beyond (2016) 86%

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) 87%

Star Trek: Discovery (2017) 85%

Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) 84%

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991) 83%

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) 82%

Star Trek (1966) 80%

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) 78%

Star Trek: Voyager (1995) 76%

Star Trek: Enterprise (2001) 56%

Star Trek: Insurrection (1998) 55%

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) 53%

Star Trek Generations (1994) 48%

Star Trek: Nemesis (2002) 38%

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) 21%

Star Trek movies and series can be viewed by subscription on Paramount+ , and purchased on demand on Vudu , Prime Video , Apple TV , and elsewhere.

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All 13 ‘Star Trek’ Movies Ranked From Worst To Best

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'Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan,' 'Star Trek: Generations,' 'Star Trek: First Contact' and 'Star Trek'

Today marks the 30th anniversary of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country . The Nicolas Meyer-directed political mystery thriller was intended to both rejuvenate the franchise after the underwhelming Star Trek V: The Final Frontier and give the original cast an honorable send-off before what everyone (correctly) assumed would be new movies starring the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation . Since then, we got four Next Generation -specific movies from 1994 to 2002, and then the Bad Robot-produced “reboot” trilogy in 2009, 2013 and 2016.

This past September marked the 55th anniversary of the first televised episode of Star Trek . That means it’s been five years since we all argued that Paramount should have held off on releasing Star Trek Beyond until September 2016 (instead of late-July 2016) to capitalize on that anniversary. It’s been five years since the last theatrical Star Trek movie and five years of false starts and bluffs concerning a theoretical Star Trek 4 (or Star Trek 14 if you count them as one continuity). Anyway, to mark the occasion, I’ll eventually use the usual science, math and dark magic to rank the movies (again, because I’ve never done so before).

As always, these rankings will not be your rankings because what fun would that be?

1998 Brent Spiner, Donna Murphy, Patrick Stewart Star In The New Movie "Star Trek: Insurrection." (Photo By Getty Images)

Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)

Budget: $70 million

Domestic Box Office: $70.2 million

Worldwide Box Office: $117.8 million

Inflation-Adjusted Domestic Box Office: $135.3 million

The core dilemma of this glorified two-part Next Generation episode is an intriguing one, essentially “prime directive” versus “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” However, the circumstances of the specific plot, 600 members of a small community essentially hording science that could eradicate illness and premature death for everyone, don’t work as a parable for colonialism. The film holds up Picard’s righteous absolutism as unquestionably heroic, even while a measured compromise would be ideal. Beyond that, there’s a kind of lackadaisical attitude and what feels like the cast getting a wish list (Geordi gets to see with his own eyes, Riker and Troi get horny again, Picard gets a love interest, etc.). Insurrection plays like late-2000’s Adam Sandler where everyone gets to vacation on the studio’s dime.

Star Trek Nemesis

Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)

Budget: $60 million

Domestic Box Office: $43.25 million

Worldwide Box Office: $67.3 million

Inflation-Adjusted Domestic Box Office: $67.9 million

Stuart Baird’s late 2002 release was a Star Trek movie for folks who think Star Trek isn’t cool. Alas, the generically action-packed and occasionally patronizing (Troi gets “mind-raped” just so Riker can righteously kill Ron Perlman’s secondary bad guy) Nemesis turned off Trekkers and didn’t work for general audiences who were saving their money for The Two Towers opening just five days later. That it’s not the “worst” Star Trek movie is mostly because it wears its $60 million budget on its sleeve and it’s never boring. The nature-versus-nurture stuff (concerning a young clone of Picard played by a very skinny Tom Hardy) is intriguing, but it’s oft-charted territory for this franchise, and the film pulls a “Disney death” with Data. All in all, the Next Generation crew deserved a much grander farewell.

American actors Merritt Butrick and Robin Curtis on the set of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, directed by Leonard Nimoy. (Photo by Paramount Pictures/Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images)

Star Trek III: The Search For Spock (1984)

Budget: $18 million

Domestic Box Office: $76.4 million

Worldwide Box Office: $87 million

Inflation-Adjusted Domestic Box Office: $208.5 million

It’s not boring and it’s not “bad,” but the entire film exists just to walk back the shocking finale of its immediate predecessor. Oh, and it also walks back one of the more interesting developments of The Wrath of Khan , arbitrarily killing off Kirk’s just-discovered son and negating that bit of character development. That said, the first third has a certain creepy mind-horror vibe, but once Kirk and friends steal the Enterprise and head off to the (dying) Genesis-created planet to fetch Spock’s body it becomes a two-fisted action flick, closer to the whole Stagecoach in space pitch that was probably intended. Christopher Lloyd makes a fine Klingon baddie, and the production values are beyond reproach, but The Search For Spock is one of the more generic Star Trek adventures.

Star Trek (2009)

Budget: $140 million

Domestic Box Office: $257.7 million

Worldwide Box Office: $386.8 million

Inflation-Adjusted Domestic Box Office: $314.8 million

There’s a lot to appreciate in this unapologetic “ Star Trek as Star Wars ” time-rewriting reboot, and it’s no secret as to why it became a monster domestic smash in summer 2009. J.J. Abrams directs the hell out of this movie, the camera almost never stops, and the new cast is instantly iconic despite playing characters previously defined by an established cast. Alas, the film never slows down, while the whole “things must play out as we know they must” mentality turns this Star Trek origin story into a kind of manifest destiny propaganda. Cheer as Chris Pine’s unqualified, hotheaded cowboy Kirk usurps the command in a glorified coup from Zachary Quinto’s experienced, cautious egghead Spock just because the franchise as we know it demands it. Intentional or not, this admittedly rip-snorting and crowd-pleasing action-adventure played like a skewed endorsement of the 2000 presidential election.

Canadian actor William Shatner and American Leonard Nimoy on the set of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (Photo by Paramount Pictures/Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images)

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)

Budget: $30 million

Domestic Box Office: $52.2 million

Worldwide Box Office: $70.2 million

Inflation-Adjusted Domestic Box Office: $119.9 million

I’m not pretend that William Shatner’s infamous box office bomb is “good, actually.” But, especially after almost 35 years of “Kirk stops a bad guy and saves the Earth” plots, there’s a lot to admire in this unapologetic head trip of a sequel. This intimate odyssey, with Kirk, Spock and McCoy kidnapped by Spock’s half-brother who wants to pilot a starship to essentially meet God, revels in the interior pain and personal pathos of its three leading men. The ensuing conflict, a rebel Klingon ship attempting to take out Kirk for glory notwithstanding, is more about a battle for the souls of our Star Trek heroes, one that counteracts the myth of Kirk as a glorified he-man cowboy. Final Frontier is not good (unfinished effects don’t help), but it’s an interesting bad movie.

Star Trek Beyond

Star Trek Beyond (2016)

Budget: $185 million

Domestic Box Office: $158.8 million

Worldwide Box Office: $335.6 million

Inflation-Adjusted Domestic Box Office: $168.2 million

The first half-hour of Justin Lin’s Star Trek Beyond are so damn good, so concerned with the shared humanity of our newly established cast (including Kirk burning out as he turns the same age his father died at), that it’s heartbreaking when the action takes over and the picture goes on autopilot. The Enterprise goes down in flames, and the crew is split up in a forest planet, but only the begrudging friendship between Spock and McCoy registers. Still, the action is beyond reproach, and the final 20 minutes snap back into gear as the core bad guy (a mostly disguised-in-makeup Idris Elba) shows his humanity and Kirk realizes the error of his thinking. The warm-hearted epilogue works as what could be a fond farewell to this newer iteration of the original crew.

DECEMBER 7: Actors George Takei, James Doohan, Grace Lee Whitney, Nichelle Nichols, Stephen Collins, DeForest Kelley, Majel Barrett, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Persis Khambatta, Walter Koenig pose for a portrait during the filming of the movie "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" which was released December 27, 1979 in the United States. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

Budget: $35 million

Domestic Box Office: $82.2 million

Worldwide Box Office: $139 million

Inflation-Adjusted Domestic Box Office: $300.2 million

Robert Wise’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture remains an oddity. Its existence, 10.5 years after the show ended, was clearly inspired by the success of George Lucas’ Star Wars and Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind , yet its narrative and visual template is obviously fashioned more from Stanley Kubrick’s slow-burn mind-melter 2001: A Space Odyssey . The film was among the most expensive ever, and you can see that in every widescreen moment of this long (especially if you watch the superior 143-minute director’s cut) sci-fi epic. My fondness for it lies with its heady and grandiose ambition, in terms of raw cinema and in terms of big sci-fi ideas before the film franchise became (mostly) about killing the bad guy and saving the day. It puts the Trek in Star Trek .

Star Trek Into Darkness

Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

Budget: $190 million

Domestic Box Office: $228.7 million

Worldwide Box Office: $467.4 million

Inflation-Adjusted Domestic Box Office: $257.7 million

No, it’s not the worst Star Trek movie ever made and it’s actually pretty great for most of its runtime. J.J. Abrams’ second Star Trek delivers Benedict Cumberbatch as a new-universe Khan and overdoses on nostalgia in the final reel, but the film still does the work to make the climactic events make sense to the characters as they exist in this story. Kirk keeps his ego in check, or at least he uses it mostly to help others this time out, and he refreshingly realizes the grief-driven error of his “vengeance > due process” thinking well before the finale. Big, pulpy and generally exciting, the film works as both an obvious post-9/11 “drones and militarized governments are bad” parable and a “why old exploratory Trek is better than new blockbuster Trek ” metaphor.

Canadian actor William Shatner with actor and director Leonard Nimoy on the set of his movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. (Photo by Paramount Pictures/Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images)

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

Budget: $24 million

Domestic Box Office: $109.7 million

Worldwide Box Office: $133 million

Inflation-Adjusted Domestic Box Office: $267.7 million

Maybe director Leonard Nimoy and friends agreed with my above-noted thoughts on Star Trek III , because they did a 180 next time out.

Leonard Nimoy’s deliciously goofy fish-out-of-water comedy, a 180-degree turn from Nimoy’s Search For Spock , blends the tropes of movie- Star Trek (the Earth is in peril and only the Enterprise can save the day) and Gene Roddenberry’s aspirational notions (the world can only be saved by a creative and non-violent scientific solution). The crew goes back in time to 1987 San Francisco to literally save the whales, and the result is a quirky, funny and just plain delightful. It also works as a “20 years of Star Trek ” memorium. It was sold (and embraced) as a Star Trek movie for novices, but the action-lite and violence-free adventure only works because it’s such fun seeing these specific actors (especially co-stars James Doohan, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nicols and George Takei) playing these specific characters in this ridiculous situation.

'Star Trek: Generations'

Star Trek: Generations (1994)

Budget: $38 million

Domestic Box Office: $75.7 million

Worldwide Box Office: $20 million

Inflation-Adjusted Domestic Box Office: $169.3 million

David Carson’s frankly underrated effort is a successful blend of “stop the bad guy” (Malcom McDowell’s going to blow up a planet!)  and “explore existential sci-fi/fantasy concepts” (Could you willingly escape a Nexus whereby you lived out the best moments of your life?). The prologue is a terrifying and tragic event whereby Captain Kirk dies saving lives (rather than having to live with taking them), and that he “comes back” in the Nexus doing battle alongside Captain Jean-Luc Picard before dying again doesn’t negate the impact of the initial in-universe demise. The rest of the film is a warmly humanist adventure with the Next Generation crew dealing with the fallout of said Nexus and working as a grand adventure for die-hard fans and merely periodic viewers. It’s my favorite “odd-numbered Trek .”

Mexican actor Ricardo Montalban on the set of Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, directed by Nicholas Meyer. (Photo by Paramount Pictures/Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images)

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

Budget: $12 million

Domestic Box Office: $78.9 million

Worldwide Box Office: $95.8 million

Inflation-Adjusted Domestic Box Office: $245.9 million

Nicholas Meyer’s metaphorical U-boat actioner, using old sets from The Motion Picture and coming it at 1/3 the cost, set the template (in terms of tone, production design, costumes and action-centric plots) for the cinematic franchise. I do find irony in many of the folks decrying the blockbuster-ization of the Bad Robot reboots holding up this clear “action spectacular” course correction from The Motion Picture as the definitive Star Trek . That said, this is still a spectacularly entertaining grudge match, with Ricardo Montalbán reprising from a first-season episode and turning Khan into the most iconic pre- Die Hard action movie villain this side of Darth Vader or Goldfinger. The Moby Dick parables aren’t subtle, but they make a surprisingly small-scale and intimate outer-space chess match feel like the biggest adventure ever told.

1996 Patrick Stewart stars in the new movie "Star Trek: First Contact".

Star Trek: First Contact (1996)

Budget: $46 million

Domestic Box Office: $92 million

Worldwide Box Office: $150 million

Inflation-Adjusted Domestic Box Office: $190.5 million

Jonathan Frakes’ kick-ass actioner opened 25 years ago when the Star Trek brand was at its peak mainstream popularity . Picard gets his own Ahab-like quest to destroy the Borg at all costs. That gives way to terrific action scenes and “acting with a capital A” moments for Stewart (and co-star Alfre Woodard) while Data (Brent Spiner) finds himself captured by the Borg Queen (Alice Krige). Meanwhile, much of the cast is on Earth in the days before first contact, trying to convince a now-skeptical pioneer (James Cromwell) to take his recorded place in history. This plot offers both comic relief and plenty of time on concepts more aspirational than vengeance and the ends not justifying the means. First Contact is probably the biggest Star Trek movie that still feels like a Star Trek movie.   

FILM 'STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY' (Photo by Ronald Siemoneit/Sygma/Sygma via Getty Images)

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)

Budget: $27 million

Domestic Box Office: $74.9 million

Worldwide Box Office: $96.9 million

Inflation-Adjusted Domestic Box Office: $163.1 million

The Undiscovered Country ended the original franchise arguing that victory lay not in total destruction of a given side but in a brokered peace and mutually-assured survival. It offered the seemingly easy-to-digest (and all-too-logical) notion that the biggest obstacles to peace weren’t one side or another but elements in both sides benefiting from continual conflict no matter the collateral cost. It ended the initial adventures of Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the crew on the idea that Kirk’s most heroic act wasn’t discovering uncharted worlds or stopping an evil plot but forgiving those whose “kind” had murdered his own son and shaking hands with the enemy. The undiscovered country is technically (so says Shakespeare) death, but this optimistic adventure posits that it’s merely genuine, authentic peace and between worlds and the salvation it would bring.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country remains my favorite Star Trek film. It’s a jolting of-the-moment political drama, using the war between Klingons and humans as a metaphor for the end of the Cold War and the consequences of institutional racism without relying on a yellow highlighter. Heck, it was the first of many big blockbusters ( GoldenEye and Mission: Impossible come to mind) dealing with the legacy of career “action heroes” when the lifelong enemy turned overnight into a reluctant ally. This Nicolas Meyer-directed installment is also a crackling closed-room murder mystery with several dynamite action sequences (including the initial homicides, shockingly bloody for a PG movie, and the climactic showdown against Christopher Plummer’s cloaked Bird of Prey). And the epilogue, including Kirk’s final course heading, still brings a tear to my eye.

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10 Best ‘Star Trek’ Movies and TV Shows of the Franchise (So Far)

By Clayton Davis

Clayton Davis

Senior Awards Editor

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Captain James T. Kirk, better known around these parts as William Shatner, turns 90 years old on March 22. The actor, director, producer and writer has had a seven decade careers, with a community of devoted fans that revere not just his place as a figure in the universe but the entire canon of “Star Trek” and its various entities in film and television.

We’ve seen multiple starship captains and leaders over the decades, including Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh), three Pikes (Jeffrey Hunter, Bruce Greenwood and Anson Mount), Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula), Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks), a rebooted James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) and the ultimate badass Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew), arguably the best of them all.

The entire franchise has spawned seven spin-off television series, 13 feature films and two animated series. The original series ran from 1966 to 1969 on NBC and was canceled just after three seasons. After which, we moved to an animated series (1973-1974), “Star Trek: The Next Generation” (1987-1994), “Deep Space Nine” (1993-1999), “Voyager” (1995-2001). “Enterprise” (2001-2005), and the three still ongoing “Discovery” (2017), “Picard” (2020) and “Lower Decks” (2020).

In the film sector, the original series delivered six films — “The Motion Picture” (1979), “The Wrath of Khan” (1982), “The Search for Spock” (1984), “The Voyage Home” (1986), “The Final Frontier” (1989) and “The Undiscovered Country” (1991). “The Next Generation” provided four – “Generations” (1994), “First Contact” (1996), “Insurrection” (1998) and “Nemesis” (2002) while “The Kelvin Timeline” or rebooted version has given three “Star Trek” (2009), “Star Trek Into Darkness” (2013) and “Star Trek Beyond” (2016), with all three having the highest box-office grosses of any film in the whole franchise. The 2009 film is also the only one to win an Academy Award for best makeup (Barney Burman, Mindy Hall and Joel Harlow), along with “The Voyage Home,” garnering the most nominations at four.

There are still more in development under Paramount Plus and on the studio side. “Star Trek: Prodigy,” an animated series co-written and created by Dan Hageman and Kevin Hageman that focuses on a group of teenagers who get onto an abandoned starship, is set to drop later in 2021. From creators Akiva Goldsman, Alex Kurtzman and Jenny Lumet, “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” is a spin-off of “Discovery” and a prequel to the original series, following Captain Christopher Pike (Ansel Mount) and the crew of the USS Enterprise. Rebecca Romijn and Ethan Peck will also reprise their roles as Number One and Spock. Still yet to be confirmed, there is reportedly a Khan Noonien Singh limited series on the table, which explores the storyline from “The Wrath of Khan,” tentatively titled “Ceti Alpha V.”

Live long and prosper, Mr. Shatner.

Check out the full ranked list.

Star Trek: First Contact (1996)

Released : November 22, 1996 Written by : Brannon Braga, Ronald D. Moore (screenplay by and story by) and Rick Berman (story by)

Cast : Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden. Marina Sirtis, Alfre Woodard, James Cromwell, Alice Krige

Defining moments : “Jean-Luc blow up the damn ship” and Data saying “resistance is futile.”

“The Next Generation” struggled the most when translating from television to the big screen. Of the four features, “First Contact” was the most enjoyable, assembling interesting set pieces and a few memorable one-liners. Deservingly picking up an Oscar nomination for best makeup for Michael Westmore, Scott Wheeler and Jake Garber (losing to “The Nutty Professor”), it’s Jonathan Frakes’ (First Officer William T. Riker) first outing as a feature director. What makes the film a success is it abandons the notion that all roads have to involve James T. Kirk, which is one of the main reasons “Generations” really missteps.

Deep Space Nine (1993-1999)

Series run : January 1993 to June 1999 Created by : Rick Berman and Michael Piller

Cast : Avery Brooks, René Auberjonois, Terry Farrell, Cirroc Lofton, Colm Meaney, Armin Shimerman, Alexander Siddig, Nana Visitor, Michael Dorn, Nicole de Boer

Defining moments : Resistance with the Maquis, The Dominion War and The Mirror Universe

Commanding Officer and later Captain Benjamin Sisko (Brooks) was the best part of a series that wasn’t as consistently entertaining as its predecessors. Brooks is a grieving widower whose wife is killed by the Borg, an we follow him, along with his son Jake (Loft), and the rest of a fun crew that includes the Changeling Odo (Auberjonois), Medical Officer Julian Bashir (Siddig), Science Officer Jadzia Dax (Farrell), Operations Officer Miles O’Brien (Meaney) and a cult favorite Quark (Shimerman). The last two seasons of “The Next Generation” are set in the same years as the first two of “Deep Space Nine,” which then lines up with “Voyager” for the last five seasons.

Discovery (2019)

Series run : Premiered September 2017 (still running) Created by : Bryan Fuller and Alex Kurtzman

Cast : Sonequa Martin-Green, Doug Jones, Shazad Latif, Anthony Rapp, Mary Wiseman, Jason Isaacs, Wilson Cruz, Anson Mount, David Ajala, Rachael Ancheril

Defining moments : The betrayal of Lieutenant Commander Michael Burnham

This series is still finding its footing and has lots to proud of thus far. It’s the first of the franchise to focus on a First Officer rather than the Captain, taking place about ten years before the original series. In the universe, we typically see someone going against orders for the “greater good.” Still, this series has taken that premise and expanded it with Commander Michael Burnham (Green), leading a mutiny against Captain Phillipa Georgiou (Yeoh) and starting a war against the Klingons, leading to the death of her captain. That alone creates a new type of storytelling for the franchise to explore and could help pull in more viewers of Paramount Plus’ show. It won a Primetime Emmy Award last year for outstanding prosthetic makeup for a series, limited series, movie or special, the first for the show thus far.

The Undiscovered Country (1991)

Released : December 6, 1991 Written by : Nicholas Meyer, Denny Martin Flinn (screenplay by), Leonard Nimoy, Lawrence Konner, Mark Rosenthal (story by)

Cast : William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei, Kim Cattrall, David Warner, Christopher Plummer

Defining moments : The final sign-off (“If I were Human, I believe my response would be, go to hell…if I were you human.”)

The original series saga’s final installment in feature-length form is enjoyable, showcasing a possible peace between the Klingon Empire and the Federation until a secret agenda is revealed that puts all our favorite heroes at risk. It also marks the final group appearance of the major cast members of the original series, with the late Christopher Plummer as the one-eyed Klingon General Chang, who is having the time of his life. We also have a cameo appearance by Christian Slater, whose mother, Mary Jo Slater, was the film’s casting director. The film was ultimately nominated for two Oscars (best sound effects editing and makeup) and, at the time, was the highest opener for the franchise. Before “Avengers: Endgame,” a reminder that the moving closing credit signature sequence was delivered in “The Undiscovered Country.”

Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994)

Series run : September 1987 to May 1994 Created by : Gene Roddenberry

Cast : Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton. Denise Crosby, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis, Brent Spiner, Wil Wheaton

Defining moments : Tasha Yar’s death in episode “Skin of Evil”

The evolution of “Star Trek” was helped immensely by “The Next Generation,” which delivers the classically trained Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard, with one of the entire franchise’s best crews. Sleeker, with more interesting characters (admittedly not as well explored as they could have been), the show also encompasses one of the most notable deaths of any of the television outings with Tasha Yar (played by Denise Crosby). In the 23rd episode of the first season, we’ve already grown a connection to the Enterprise-D crew. With a behind-the-scenes request by Crosby to be removed from her contract, the act gave us one of the most emotional episodes of the franchise. Also…the creature Armus is TERRIFYING.

The Search for Spock (1984)

Released : June 1, 1984 Written by : Harve Bennett

Cast : William Shatner, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, George Takei, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, Merritt Butrick, Christopher Lloyd

Defining moments : Spock’s “death.”

Let the great debate begin. Before #FilmTwitter quarreled about the merits of “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” (spoiler alert: it’s the second-best of the entire franchise), there was a discussion on the qualities of the third installment of the Kirk saga. It was a huge sequel weekend in June 1984, as it opened against the second weekend of “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” and the fourth week of “The Natural,” emerging victorious. It also marks the directorial debut of Leonard Nimoy, who was the first cast member ever to helm one of its films.  The visual effects are really where the movie comes alive, showcasing beautiful sequences developed by Industrial Light & Magic. What the film does is give heft and agency to the friendship between Kirk and Spock, and although the death of Kirk’s son is done haphazardly, the action sequences are pulse-pounding.

Voyager (1995-2001)

Series run : January 1995 to May 2001 Created by : Rick Berman, Michael Piller, Jeri Taylor

Cast : Kate Mulgrew, Robert Beltran, Roxann Dawson, Jennifer Lien, Robert Duncan McNeill, Ethan Phillips, Robert Picardo, Tim Russ, Garrett Wang, Jeri Ryan

Defining moments : “Same to you old friend” from “Year of Hell” episode with Janeway and Tuvok

Nostalgia and purists will say that the original “Star Trek” is the best because without that, we don’t have anything else that follows. While correct, in terms of quality, acting, and sheer audacity of the canon, “Voyager,” is behind-the-scenes, the best of them all. Kate Mulgrew’s Captain Janeway is vivacious, and she’s undoubtedly one of the best actresses to grace our screens (as also seen in Netflix’s “Orange Is the New Black”) and Tuvok (played brilliantly by Tim Russ) is simply amazing. Also, “Seven of Nine” was my everything in my childhood, leading into my teenage years.

Star Trek: The Original Series (1966-1969)

Series run : September 1966 to June 1969 Created by : Gene Roddenberry

Cast : William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley

Defining moments : “The Doomsday Machine”

You have to respect the origins of a franchise, and we should properly genuflect before the series that started it all. The entire cast goes for it, with little budget and strange scene constructions, but it has more highs than it does lows, featuring numerous memorable moments. Many will say that the defining episodes of the series fall somewhere between “City on the Edge Forever” (with the death of Edith Keeler) or the Kirk and Spock battle in “Amok Time” (thanks to “The Cable Guy” with Jim Carrey), but “The Doomsday Machine” has the most tension and an outstanding turn from guest star William Windom as Commodore Matt Decker.

The Wrath of Khan (1982)

Released : June 4, 1982 Written by : Jack B. Sowards (screenplay and story by) Harve Bennett (story by)

Cast : William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Walter Koenig, George Takei, Nichelle Nichols, Bibi Besch, Merritt Butrick, Paul Winfield, Kirstie Alley, Ricardo Montalbán

Defining moments : Spock’s “death”

If “Skin of Evil” defines the emotions on television, then “The Wrath of Khan” represents the silver screen for the franchise property. Our favorite Vulcan’s self-sacrifice, paired with Kirk’s eulogizing friend, is a tough one to stomach. It obviously is undone with the next entries of the cinematic universe, but it holds up immensely as a moving tribute to a beloved character. Sadly, no major awards love came for the film, which in many circles stands as the best in the franchise. Add the bombastic score of James Horner, and you receive amazing results.

Star Trek (2009)

Released : May 8, 2009 Written by : Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman

Cast : John Cho, Ben Cross, Bruce Greenwood, Simon Pegg, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Winona Ryder, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Anton Yelchin, Eric Bana, Leonard Nimoy, Chris Hemsworth

Defining moments : The final battle (“Fire everything!”)

Let’s get this out of the way nice and early.

Star Trek” (2009) received four Oscar nominations – for sound mixing, sound editing, visual effects, and makeup, which it won – it’s the one film of the franchise that should have been nominated for best picture, especially in the first year of a guaranteed 10 films for the Academy’s top category. I would also put it on a ballot for adapted screenplay and film editing. You don’t get an action-packed film like this rebooted entry that focuses beautifully on the beloved characters’ origin stories, giving them alternate timelines that don’t feel forced and still capture the spirit of what makes the franchise so great. SAG Awards should have also jotted it down for best cast ensemble. While the sequels have never recaptured that early magic, J.J. Abrams has proven he knows how to set up a story arc properly (sticking the landing is still up for debate). I only hope as Paramount Plus progresses forward in the universe, they take plays from the Kevin Feige playbook and give themselves a long roadmap that will pay off to something truly extraordinary.

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All The Star Trek Movies, Ranked

This is my definitive list.

There are so many Star Trek movies to enjoy -- 13, to be exact, and soon we’ll have 14 when Michelle Yeoh’s Section 31 movie is available for those with a Paramount+ subscription -- but which among them are the best of the best? That’s what I’m tasked with deciding here today, and I can certainly say there are some I like more than others. 

Opinion, by its nature, is subjective. I’m not sure I’ve seen any Star Trek fan with an identical top list of movies online, but I will say I enjoy most every Trek series I’ve watched. Therefore I wouldn’t expect this lineup to be too controversial, but I’ve been surprised before. Let’s dive in, and boldly go and make a definitive ruling on where each Star Trek series belongs. 

13. Star Trek: Generations (1994)

It’s a shame that Star Trek: Generations is near-universally panned as the worst of the Star Trek movies. Seeing Patrick Stewart ’s Jean-Luc Picard and William Shatner ’s James T. Kirk team up should unquestionably be the greatest thing that ever happened to the franchise. Unfortunately, the movie wasn’t quite all that, and what should’ve been a great introduction to The Next Generation crew making the transition from television to movies is a sloppy movie that delivered one of the most controversial moments in the sci-fi series’ history.

The movie killed off Captain Kirk by having him fall from a collapsing catwalk. I get that death comes for anyone in unexpected ways but in a scripted movie? They could’ve done better even if William Shatner had his reasons for how it was done. Still, the unique time travel elements and story has given this movie its fair share of fans over the years, so I’d say it’s still worth a watch. It wouldn’t be my first, second, or even 12th choice though, hence its rating on the list. 

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12. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)

William Shatner has undoubtedly played a big part in Star Trek ’s early success. While his acting work as Captain Kirk will live on for decades, the same can’t be said for his directing. That may sound harsh to say, but when Shatner himself admitted directing Star Trek V: The Final Frontier was a mistake , it’s kind of hard not to agree with him.   

I don’t think it’s unfair to say Star Trek V: The FInal Frontier is the worst of the TOS movies, especially after the streak of movies that came before it. With that said, had it not been for this movie, we wouldn’t have gotten the subplot in Strange New Worlds with Spock running into his half-brother Sybok’s lover Angel , who I do hope we’ll see at a later date. 

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11. Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)

Star Trek: Nemesis was, in many ways, a failure. The movie did not perform at the box office like previous movies and ultimately encouraged Paramount to go in another direction with its franchise. Critics panned the movie, and even the cast of The Next Generation was not a fan of the final project. In fact, it was why actress Marina Sirtis was grateful for Star Trek: Picard Season 3 years later, as she felt the cast was robbed of a proper send-off.  

The Next Generation crew dealing with a clone of Picard in control of the Reman people, played by a young Tom Hardy , sounds awesome. In execution, the whole thing fell flat. Even the memorable parts have aged poorly. Data, for example, was resurrected in Picard , killed, and then resurrected again. In fairness, Star Trek fans were glad to see him back in the mix again, but if they’re thrilled about a retcon to something established in Star Trek: Nemesis , it may speak to their overall enjoyment of the movie as a whole. 

Watch Star Trek: Nemesis On Max

10. Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

A lot of the older generation would rank Star Trek: The Motion Picture a lot higher than I have, and I think it's a matter of experience. Those who lived through the cancellation of the original series, only to see it return to the big screen after success in syndication? It was a huge coup for a new fandom, and the beginning of great things to come. 

I’m of the mind that Star Trek: The Motion Picture has gotten a bad rap as it aged, and suffered from being the first movie in the franchise ever made. There’s no way for younger generations to understand just how awesome it was to see the Enterprise from front to back. I still can appreciate it, but even the brutality of the transporter accident can’t stop me from glancing at the time on my phone while watching.  

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9. Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

If there was a list of sins a Star Trek movie could commit to gain the ire of the fandom, Star Trek Into Darkness created perhaps the biggest. Trying to recreate a storyline involving Khan, the most notable villain of TOS , was going to set a high bar. 

Of course, these are the feelings of someone who is a true blue Star Trek fan. The mass audience reception to Star Trek Into Darkness was pretty good, and people were all about Benedict Cumberbatch as a villain. Even so, it wasn’t worthy of comparison to Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan , which is hard to ignore. 

Watch Star Trek Into Darkness On Paramount+

8. Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)

Star Trek: Insurrection had the impossible task of following up First Contact , which proved to be a huge challenge. Additionally, Paramount was interested in switching up the tone to something lighter than the previous movie, so the challenge to deliver to producers and audiences was high. 

Insurrection feels like a long episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. That's not a terrible thing, but when it comes to movies, the bar should be a bit higher than what audiences can already view on television. Frankly, Insurrection doesn't prove to be more entertaining than the best of TNG . 

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7. Star Trek III: The Search For Spock (1984)

Similar to Star Trek: Insurrection , The Search For Spock had the insurmountable challenge of following up the greatest movie to date. Perhaps even worse, the third TOS movie had to reverse the heart-wrenching death of Spock in a way that didn't upset audiences. 

I think it's fair to say the latter goal was a success, but is rescuing Spock's spirit from Bones' mind as thrilling as a face-off with Khan? It is not, but it's still a decent movie, and one worthy of its middling status in this ranking. 

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6. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)

In hindsight, maybe Nicholas Meyer should've helmed all the Star Trek TOS movies. One can't help but wonder what these movies might've looked like had he kept runnings things post Wrath Of Khan . 

The Undiscovered Country , I think is a look at what could have been, and it's pretty damn promising. Of course, having big stars like Kim Cattrall and Christopher Plummer only bolster the enjoyment of a movie that feels like a return to form for the classic Enterprise crew, right before sending them off into the sunset. 

Watch Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country On Max

5. Star Trek Beyond (2016)

Star Trek Beyond is the newest film in the franchise, as Hollywood struggles to try and make a fourth installment in the Kelvin timeline. Fortunately, if there's never another one, the third movie is a delightful send-off to the Kelvin crew and all they accomplished, after Star Trek Into Darkness left a sour taste in my mouth, Beyond is the perfect palette cleanser. 

If there is any part of Star Trek Beyond that isn’t enjoyable, it’s that the entire crew doesn’t spend a ton of time together. Instead, they’re sectioned off with their own respective storylines, which worked well for the actors and their increased fame. Unfortunately, it feels like if they had found time to do more scenes with the entire ensemble, this might’ve been the best movie of the Kelvin timeline. 

Watch Star Trek Beyond On Paramount+

4. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

The whale one? Yes, the whale one. It's always fun when a Star Trek project travels back to our present timeline, if only to remind us how strange our world would be to them, and how strange they'd be to us. 

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is funny, wholesome, and a good time all at once. It's not the best TOS film, but it's pretty high up there in comparison to everything else that was released. 

Watch Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home On Max

3. Star Trek (2009)

J.J. Abrams ’ 2009 re-imagining of Star Trek isn’t just a great movie, it could be the most significant film in the history of the franchise. The Next Generation crew’s set of movies didn’t perform quite as well as the TOS movies, and Enterprise was the last Trek series in five years leading up to this film. Had this re-imagining of Star Trek in another timeline flopped, the franchise might’ve died. 

Fortunately, that didn’t happen, and the more action-driven narratives of the movie bled into the new generation of Star Trek shows. While there are critics of the modern style of storytelling and increased action, the fact that there are plenty of upcoming Trek shows in the pipeline and people still clamoring for a fourth installment of the Kelvin movies. 

Watch Star Trek On Paramount+

2. Star Trek: First Contact (1996)

Star Trek: The Next Generation didn’t have as much success critically or financially as the TOS movies, but it still managed to make one of the best movies the franchise has ever delivered. First Contact is required viewing for any Star Trek fan, especially those who wish to see the origin of how the story of mankind’s massive leap into space exploration came to be. 

The success of the movie solidified Jonathan Frakes status as a reputed director, and he’s gone on to play a big part in directing episodes of Star Trek ’s new era. This is a movie that I would say is so good, it appeals to even the non- Star Trek fans despite being heavily entrenched in the lore of The Next Generation . For that reason, it’s ranked among the very best. 

Watch Star Trek: First Contact On Max

1. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

I spent far too many years having not seen Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan , but after seeing it for the first time , I can see the hype. I don’t think there’s any real dispute this is the best film in the franchise, as much as I love First Contact . Seeing James T. Kirk in the Captain’s chair in a battle of wits against a former villain from the series is not only captivating, it’s “fascinating,” as Spock would say.

Speaking of Spock, it's his noble sacrifice that lays out the entire theme of the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few. A dark ending, to be sure, though of course, we all know Spock didn't stay dead! This, plus the fantastic showdown between Kirk and Khan make this the definitive best Star Trek movie, hands down. 

Watch Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan On Max

Currently, the Star Trek movies are available to stream either over on Max or Paramount+. It’s really convenient for anyone who wants to make their own ranking list of the movies, though I’d like to think no one can do it better than I just did. 

Mick Joest is a Content Producer for CinemaBlend with his hand in an eclectic mix of television goodness. Star Trek is his main jam, but he also regularly reports on happenings in the world of Star Trek, WWE, Doctor Who, 90 Day Fiancé, Quantum Leap, and Big Brother. He graduated from the University of Southern Indiana with a degree in Journalism and a minor in Radio and Television. He's great at hosting panels and appearing on podcasts if given the chance as well.

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Every Star Trek movie, ranked

Boldly go on a ranking of all 13  Star Trek  films.

Credit: CBS via Getty Images

In 1979, Star Trek warped from television to the big screen. The franchise expanded faster than V'Ger. On December 6th, one of the franchise's best movies (and one of our favorites), Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country , celebrates its 30th anniversary.   

The films began with the original cast from Star Trek: The Original Series . After six films, the movies transitioned to feature the cast from Star Trek: The Next Generation , and then in 2009, a new timeline of films branched off with recast legacy characters and much bigger budgets. What will the next Trek movie be, and which crew will it feature? Who knows, but it’s only a matter of time before some Trek project boldly goes to the cinema once more. 

In the meantime, we’re going to rank all of the existing 13 films in the canon. It’s more of a celebration than anything else; most of these movies we love. We don’t dislike any of them. Which one are we going to throw on at any given moment? It depends on the day, it depends on the hour, it depends on which crew we want to journey with. 

Full impulse and prepare for warp, because only Nixon could go to China. Here’s our ranking of the 13 Star Trek feature films. 

13. Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

J.J. Abrams' last Star Trek movie as director, Into Darkness , is his worst film. His much-loved “Mystery Box” approach, which only really works as a marketing tool, fails him on a story level when we learn who the villain really is (as if we didn't know already). It's a movie where the head of Starfleet is totally fine violating Federation principles and risking war with the Klingons to cover up his secret plans with an all-out military strike (which, as cover-ups go, not very discrete), but, if you’re Jim Kirk and you're caught lying, then he must uphold the very rules he's taking seven photon torpedoes to. If you like movies where heroes lie to save their own ass and put their crews’ in a wringer, or stories that lurch from one set piece to another with inconsistent characterizations and little emotional resonance, or that remix bits from Wrath of Khan without earning it, then appreciating why it is the best, then Into Darkness is for you.

12. S tar Trek: Nemesis (2002)

Traditionally, even-numbered Trek  films are high points for the franchise. The tenth installment, and the fourth film featuring the Next Generation  cast, broke that tradition.

Nemesis is a dull, rough draft of a movie that feels and operates like big-budget fan-fic, one that is surprisingly tone-deaf in regards to how to portray these characters — especially, and frustratingly, Picard in the first half. An overabundance on Romulan political intrigue gets in the way of enjoying or appreciating what few moments in the story are truly worthy of our attention, as Tom Hardy's Shinzon (a young and bald clone of Picard) challenges his (wait for it) nemesis in a big CG space battle where Shinzon's massive planet-killing ship and Picard's Enterprise collide. The movie bombed, killing future missions from this crew. It would take Paramount seven years to recover with J.J. Abrams' reboot.

11. Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)

Saddle up, lock and load! The second Trek movie directed by Jonathan Frakes is, rightfully, the movie that gave us the "Riker Manuever." Turns out that it has nothing to do with the way Riker sits in chairs. 

Picard and the Enterprise crew get swept up in a rather uneventful conflict between the nasty Son'a and the ever-peaceful Ba'ku. The latter alien race inhabit a lovely planet that keeps you young and has various other magical powers. Starfleet wants to work with the Son'a to harness the planet's abilities, thanks to another wicked Admiral, and he's dealing dirty with the lead Son'a... played by none other than Oscar-winner F. Murray Abraham. Picard won't stand for it, so he launches the titular insurrection and goes after Space Salieri to save the Ba'ku. 

Insurrection  plays like an extended episode of TNG ; no more, no less. Donna Murphy plays a love interest to Picard, and though we are big fans of hers, giving more screentime to, say, Beverly Crusher, would have been a better choice for this story. After the glory of Star Trek: First Contact , the stakes felt a little small but we still enjoy it. 

10. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)

"What does God need with a starship?" Good question.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier got clobbered in the Summer of '89 by the likes of Batman and Indiana Jones; William Shatner's directorial debut's low, low budget and really bad special effects just couldn't compete with the other blockbusters. Neither could Final Frontier 's messy and largely passive story that tries too hard to capture the lighting-in-a-bottle mix of comedy and sci-fi that turned Voyage Home into a hit. Despite being one of the lowest grossing Trek s ever, this misfire does feature a few strong moments, especially when God-searching Sybok confronts his half-brother, Spock, and McCoy with their secret pains. (And we don't mind the funny campfire scene with Spock and "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" either.)

9. Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

The one with V'Ger.

The first big-screen Trek movie is definitely an acquired taste. Legendary director Robert Wise made a great science fiction movie, but it doesn't always feel like Star Trek . The pace is slow, but the ideas and themes the movie explores during its slog of a runtime are incredible. You just have to get past the blaring alarms, the nonsensical murdering transporters, and the cabana boy beach uniforms. 

William Shatner brings a lot of hubris to this new Kirk, and Kirk makes some bad decisions because of it. Leonard Nimoy is the highlight of the movie (shocker), giving us a Spock that wants to purge himself of emotions. That changes when he discovers the V'Ger entity. The mysterious being that is moving toward Earth is cold and unfeeling, and Spock realizes that he doesn't want to be like that. V'Ger's true identity, once revealed, is a great payoff. 

Still, most of the movie features one ship trying to stop a giant cloud. Patience will be rewarded here, and the rewards include some of the weirdest and most beautiful images in any Trek movie. Jerry Goldsmith's score is likely the movie's greatest asset, as none of it (especially Kirk and Scotty's famously long shuttle approach to the Enterprise) would work without it.

8. Star Trek: Generations (1994)

The one with Malcolm McDowell.

After Picard and company sailed off at the end of their television finale, they flew right into this 1994 film from David Carson. It was the first big-screen showing for the TNG crew, and it brought some old favorites back as well. Captain Kirk, Chekhov, and Scotty start off by christening the Enterprise-B back in their era, and, in record time, the ship gets caught up in an anomaly called the Nexus. Kirk is lost and presumed dead. Cut to the TNG era, and a dimly-lit Enterprise-D encounters the Nexus' number one fan, the sinister Dr. Soran (McDowell). He wants to get back to the Nexus, having survived the encounter that Kirk didn't aboard the B. The Nexus is pure joy, and it is only there that Soran feels he can escape the pain of having lost his family to the Borg years ago. 

Captains Kirk and Picard finally meet to stop Soran and save the galaxy, but the end result is rather "meh." A great (if too long) crash sequence involving the Enterprise-D and vivid cinematography are among the film's few high points, unless you have always wanted the greatest captains ever to meet-cute over (we sh** you not) chopping firewood and making eggs. And Kirk's death lacks the emotional impact that both the iconic hero and his fans deserve.

7. Star Trek Beyond (2016)

The best odd-numbered film since Star Trek III: The Search for Spock , Star Trek Beyond is waaaay better than its predecessor, Star Trek Into Darkness (Phew.) It celebrates what makes Trek  so great, its themes and characters, while honoring the franchise's 50th anniversary with a very entertaining mix of humor, heart, and spectacle. We'd rank it higher if not for the problematic execution of villain Krall (a surprisingly ineffectual Idris Elba), whose motivations (while solid  on paper) are denied the necessary screentime to truly connect. But director Justin Lin (of Fast & Furious  fame) mostly overcomes that, as well as certain tonal and narrative bumps, thanks to making the first of these nuTreks to feel like a $200 million episode of The Original Series . Beyond leaves us feeling that which STID failed to do: Wanting more.

6. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)

Leonard Nimoy returns as Spock with his feature film directorial debut that bridges the events of  Star Trek II  with  Star Trek IV  with an earnest and assured, if not visually dynamic, approach. The story packs a considerable emotional punch, as well as some of the series most iconic moments — the death of Enterprise, Kirk's heartsick reaction ("Klingon bastards!") to the murder of his son, David — as the Enterprise's crew puts their careers and lives on the line to save both a resurrected Spock and a compromised McCoy. The latter is suffering from the effects of a super Vulcan mind meld; Spock used it to transfer his essence and consciousness into McCoy like one would backup files to the Cloud. 

The Search for Spock  competently explores the toll of Kirk's efforts to prove to Spock that sometimes the needs of the one outweigh those of the many, even if it means stealing the Enterprise in a stirring sequence. While Trek III  isn't the most ambitious or exciting  Trek  movie, it is one of the most heartfelt adventures in the series. A necessary throat clearing of sorts before the franchise can reach its then-highest point. 

5. Star Trek: First Contact (1996)

While Star Trek: First Contact is the second film featuring Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) and the rest of the Star Trek: The Next Generation crew, it is the first full solo outing for the TNG cast. The hit sequel, which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary, also proved to be better than TNG ’s maiden big-screen voyage, 1994’s uneven Star Trek: Generations . Free from the studio-imposed story mandates that Generations had, writers Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga delivered an action-packed and emotionally compelling adventure that pit Picard against his most lethal enemy: The Borg, a race of cybernetic beings hellbent on going back in time to assimilate Earth at a vulnerable point in its history. Making the stakes that much higher was how Picard’s past trauma with the Borg threatened to get in the way of saving humanity’s future, as his experience being assimilated into their collective boiled over into revenge. 

In between explosive space battles and tension-filled set pieces featuring a Borgified new Enterprise, first-time feature director (and Next Gen actor) Jonathan Frakes gave fans a Star Trek movie unlike any other; a riveting, action-horror sci-fi blockbuster that was only the second Trek film at the time to ever achieve crossover audience appeal outside the core fanbase. (The first was 1986’s time-traveling, “save-the-whales” romp Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home ). 

4. Star Trek (2009) 

It’s telling that J.J. Abrams has remade Star Wars twice and that his actual Star Wars movie is the second-best one.

2009’s Star Trek  is still a nearly unparalleled dazzler, a canny prequel and inspired reboot that feels wholly fresh and original, with a nifty plot (involving time travel and alternate timelines) that wisely (albeit in a complicated way) doesn’t negate the films that came before it. Abrams brilliantly cast the movie, introducing a host of fresh faces playing iconic roles that, by the time the film was released, had become more punchline than anything else. ( Star Trek: Nemesis was an inglorious end to the Enterprise’s big-screen adventures, critically lambasted and commercially ignored.)

Breathlessly told, Star Trek  has some of the biggest and most inventive set pieces (the opening attack sequence, particularly when the sound drains away during a key moment to leave room for only Michael Giacchino’s soaring score, is enough to bring tears to your eyes), as well as  memorable new characters (Eric Bana’s Nero is a wry and scary baddie). After the promise of Mission: Impossible III , Abrams showed himself to be an honest-to-goodness filmmaker, able to improbably invigorating moribund franchises with vitality, humor and boundless energy. It feels like we have watched Star Trek a thousand times and it also feels like we could watch it a thousand more.

3. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

The one with the whales.

It's not just the funniest Star Trek movie, it's one of the funniest movies ever. Large credit goes to director Leonard Nimoy and the movie's late producer and co-writer, Harve Bennett. 

A weird probe (its origins never explained) comes to 23rd-century Earth looking for whales. Humpback whales, specifically. But, since they are extinct, Kirk and his crew aboard a stolen Klingon vessel must slingshot around the sun to travel back in time to 20th-century San Francisco and save two whales just in time to warp back to the future and save the day. 

It's such a cockamamie plan, sure, but part of the fun is seeing the characters both acknowledge it is a stretch and then commit fully to it. There are no consequences to messing with time, the crew just romps around San Francisco and does what they want. They alter history (hello, transparent aluminum!) and invade Naval vessels. But along the way, the movie takes some big comedic swings with the hilarious "fish out of water" story Spock and Kirk find themselves in as they don't need photon torpedos to save the day. Just their wits. The film is full of sweet, funny, and surprisingly poignant moments and still remains, 35 years later, a classic comedy and essential  Trek  film.

2. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)

It’s fitting that one of the filmmakers responsible for putting Trek ’s big-screen franchise back on track would return to wrap up the voyages of the The Original Series cast. Wrath of Khan writer-director Nicholas Meyer’s second Star Trek feature, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is, at times, arguably more confidently executed and rich with character beats than his former (and well-regarded) entry. The movie embraces the characters’ twilight years as a plot point by putting the aging crew of the past-her-prime Enterprise in the middle of a conspiracy that threatens to light the fuse on continued conflict between the Federation and the Klingons.

The Cold War parallels here between the then-fall of the Berlin Wall and our sci-fi heroes and their nemesis lend Trek VI  an urgency and intrigue on par with ‘60s political thrillers, with Meyer’s propulsive whodunit of a script (cowritten by the late Denny Martin Flynn) affording the franchise to boldly go explore new genres like the murder mystery and POW, Great Escape -esque war dramas. (There’s also some great courtroom drama flourishes as well, on top of an exceptional Run Silent, Run Deep -inspired space battle between the Enterprise and a Klingon bird-of-prey that can fire while cloaked.)

From Kirk sporting grey hair, to the characters expounding upon their relevancy and usefulness as they are all that stand between us and the brink of full-scale war, Star Trek VI is a taut, clever picture that always puts story and character first and never fails to deliver on the emotional resonance of either.

1. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

Following the events of "Space Seed" in The Original Series , Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalban) comes to get revenge on Admiral...  Admiral ... James T. Kirk in the rousing intimate epic that is Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan . A cat and mouse game of dueling starships ensues, with Kirk commanding an Enterprise full of trainees. A dangerous science project called "Genesis" is in the mix, too, and Khan wants it to help him conquer the galaxy. Kirk wins in the end, bit loses his best friend in the process.

The most thematically and emotionally rich film in the series,  Khan  is still the benchmark to which all subsequent Treks aspire to match or exceed. Not only is it the best big-screen mission ever for the Enterprise, it's also one of the best science fiction films of all time.

This movie set a new bar for Trek greatness. We don't think we're being hyperbolic when we say that it is damn near perfect. We'll watch it "'round the moons of Nibia, and 'round the Antares maelstrom, and 'round perdition's flames before we give it up."

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• Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan
• Star Trek Into Darkness

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From Khan to Beyond: All the Star Trek movies, ranked from worst to best

Star Trek is inarguably television’s greatest space adventure, captivating audiences with exciting, inspiring, and thoughtful stories since 1966. However, like most culturally significant pop culture franchises, Trek also has a long history on the big screen, supplementing its over 800 television episodes with 13 feature films. These large-scale adventures are often the gateways through which new fans find their way into the Star Trek universe , attracting mass audiences on a scale rarely enjoyed by their counterparts on TV.

13. Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)

12. star trek v: the final frontier (1989), 11. star trek into darkness (2013), 10. star trek: insurrection (1998), 9. star trek iii: the search for spock (1984), 8. star trek: the motion picture (1979), 7. star trek: generations (1994), 6. star trek beyond (2016), 5. star trek iv: the voyage home (1986), 4. star trek: first contact (1996), 3. star trek (2009), 2. star trek vi: the undiscovered country (1991), honorable mention: galaxy quest (1999), 1. star trek ii: the wrath of khan (1982).

However, as one might expect from a long-running film series that has had multiple casts and behind-the-scenes shake-ups, the Star Trek movies vary wildly in quality. The conventional wisdom amongst fans is that even-numbered Trek movies are much better than odd-numbered ones, an adage that still holds up if you slot in the loving parody Galaxy Quest as the unofficial tenth installment, which, of course, we do.

“A Generation’s Final Journey Begins,” boasted the theatrical poster for Star Trek: Nemesis , the fourth feature film to include the cast of the hit series Star Trek: The Next Generation . It’s also where their final journey ended, at least on the big screen. Nemesis failed to satisfy critics, casual filmgoers, or Trek devotees, opening at No. 2 at the US box office behind J.Lo vehicle Maid in Manhattan and plummeting the following weekend thanks to the debut of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers .

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Helmed by an allegedly indifferent director in Stuart Baird and edited to within an inch of its life by producer Rick Berman, Nemesis is a dreary, lifeless slog with none of Trek’s usual heart. There are a few highlights, such as the young Tom Hardy’s performance as Captain Picard’s villainous clone and the light-hearted fun of Riker and Troi’s wedding, but for the most part, Nemesis is just a bummer. It’s no wonder why, decades later, the streaming series Star Trek: Picard would spend its first season trying to rehabilitate it, and its third season outright replacing it as a farewell to the cast of The Next Generation .

During the original run of Star Trek in the 1960s, lead actors William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy had a “favored nations clause” incorporated into their contracts, stating that each actor was entitled to any raise in pay or perks received by the other. This clause remained intact during the franchise’s big screen revival in the late ‘70s and ‘80s, so when Nimoy won the job of directing the third and fourth Star Trek films, Paramount couldn’t refuse Shatner the same privilege. The result was a troubled production and a critical disaster, and if not for Star Trek: The Next Generation finding its footing on television that very same year, it could well have damaged the franchise beyond repair.

The blame doesn’t all fall on Shatner’s shoulders; The Final Frontier faced a number of obstacles, such as a writer’s strike and an unqualified special effects team . Its story is ambitious, sending the Enterprise crew on a mission to the center of the galaxy to meet a being who claims to be God Himself, and there are some truly charming moments of camaraderie between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. For the most part, however, The Final Frontier is a mess, teetering precariously between “so bad it’s good” and just plain bad.

2009’s Star Trek reimagined the brainy space procedural as a shiny, fast-paced action adventure, grabbing mainstream attention on an unprecedented scale. The Next Generation and its spin-offs were well-regarded, but now, suddenly, Star Trek was … cool? Consequently, its sequel was granted a colossal $190 million production budget and preceded by a great deal of hype.

Upon its release, Star Trek Into Darkness couldn’t quite live up to either. It fell short of its predecessor at the box office and flummoxed fans and critics with a contrived, overblown story that retreads the beloved Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan while also stealthily promoting the 9/11 truther movement . It’s a thematically muddled “dark middle chapter” to a trilogy that, thanks to co-writer Roberto Orci’s subsequent departure from the franchise , was jettisoned in favor of Justin Lin’s Star Trek Beyond . And, honestly, we’re better off without it.

Do you ever hear a cinephile refer to a real film that, as far as they’re concerned, “doesn’t exist?” We’re not talking about movies that are loathed and willfully forgotten, like Norbit or The Last Airbender , we mean films that were so promptly forgotten that they provoke no feeling whatsoever even from those who saw them, like Transcendence or The Huntsman: Winter’s War . If not for its place in one of pop culture’s most recognizable franchises, Star Trek: Insurrection would surely fall into this category.

The third film starring the Next Generation cast feels like a very expensive two-part episode of the television series, but not a particularly good one. Its dilemma, which sees Picard fighting to keep Starfleet from exploiting a cosmic fountain of youth, is theoretically compelling but poorly thought out. Most of the highlighted character moments come in the form of funneled-in comic relief, and its attempt to recast this gang of affable middle-aged nerds as rebellious action heroes simply doesn’t work. Like all Star Trek products, it has its loyal defenders, but were it not for its place in the franchise’s canon, we doubt anyone would give it a second thought.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was an instant classic that dug more deeply into the original show’s beloved characters than ever before, expanded the canvas of their lives, and delivered a powerful, emotional ending. So, it’s stunning that its immediate follow-up, The Search for Spock , willfully undermines it at nearly every turn. The Wrath of Khan ’s iconic, tear-jerking death scene is undone; the feeling of hope and rejuvenation implied by its ending is evaporated in the sequel’s very first scene; its three new characters are killed off, recast, and totally absent, respectively.

Despite this, The Search for Spock isn’t actually retrograde, in fact, it’s a surprising lateral move for the characters, who have always been driven by their duty to Starfleet, to put their lives and careers on the line for an unsanctioned mission to rescue their lost friend from a forbidden planet. The concept is exciting and there are warm and wonderful moments of character throughout, but the execution by TV-minded writer/producer Harve Bennett and first-time feature director Leonard Nimoy feels a bit small and underwhelming.

If The Search for Spock is an ambitious story with an underwhelming production, then The Motion Picture is the reverse case. Academy Award-winning director Robert Wise took a screenplay adapted from what was meant to be the pilot to a new Star Trek TV series and, with the aid of an astronomical budget, tried to make it into his own 2001: A Space Odyssey .

The result is a film in which characters silently gawk at the crazy light show they’re seeing out the Enterprise’s viewscreen for minutes at a time. Plot isn’t everything, but when a movie is 132 minutes long but only really has enough story for 90, that laser light show had better be damned compelling. And, heck, it is pretty spectacular, especially if you have the privilege of seeing it on the big screen, but the runtime is so bloated that its character beats, including one of Leonard Nimoy’s best performances as Spock, get totally lost. Even in its more polished “Director’s Edition” form, The Motion Picture is Star Trek at its slowest and most sterile. However, if you’re in the mood for something trippy and meditative, it’s still worth a watch.

Whereas the classic Star Trek gained an obsessive fanbase in the decade following its cancelation, Star Trek: The Next Generation was a legitimate phenomenon in its own time, outshining the original series in terms of both commercial and critical success. With the original cast growing more expensive and less profitable on the big screen, it was practically a given that the Next Gen crew, led by Patrick Stewart, would eventually take their place in the Star Trek film series. Star Trek: Generations , whose production overlapped with that of TNG ’s series finale, sees Kirk passing the torch to Picard in a crossover adventure that fans had been imagining for seven years.

Since there was probably no way for the film to meet the audience’s expectations for a Kirk/Picard team-up story, writers Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga attempted to subvert them all together and deliver a more personal story about death, loss, and legacy. Audiences found the long-awaited crossover underwhelming at the time but taken on its own merits and judged more as a Next Generation episode than as a blockbuster event, Star Trek: Generations is actually one of the more interesting films in the franchise, and the only one that allows star Patrick Stewart to exercise the full extent of his acting range.

When the first teaser trailer for Star Trek Beyond premiered online, die-hard Trekkies went into full panic mode. “It’s bad enough that Paramount hired the Fast & Furious  guy to make Star Trek ,” the nerds cried, “but now they’ve got Captain Kirk riding a dirt bike? Star Trek is ruined forever!” It surely was not, in fact, we’d argue that Justin Lin’s Star Trek Beyond does a better job capturing the sense of fun, friendship, and wonder of the original Star Trek than any other feature film, save for the next entry on our list. At the same time, it also steps out of the shadow of the franchise’s dense mythology after J.J. Abrams’ two nostalgia-driven adventures.

With no legacy cast or famous villains in their way, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldaña, and company finally get to have their own Star Trek , one in which all of their iterations on the Enterprise family feel like fully formed adults without sacrificing the youthful vigor that attracted new fans to the rebooted Trek films in the first place. It’s delightful, both as its own film and as an accidental bookend to the Kelvinverse Trilogy.

Star Trek is often serious business, an arena for complex characters to confront difficult ethical dilemmas that help audiences to confront the adversity and inequity they encounter in real life. But, it’s important to remember that Star Trek can also be very silly and that many of its most memorable moments are born from its dalliances in farce. The Voyage Home is a wry fish-out-of-water comedy in which the crew of the Enterprise (who, following The Search for Spock , are now fugitives from Starfleet) travels back in time to 1980s San Francisco in order to kidnap a pair of humpback whales in the hope that one of them might be able to talk a powerful space probe in the 2280s out of destroying the Earth.

The story has blockbuster-level stakes, but they all but disappear for a solid hour of the film in favor of a charming light adventure that prioritizes Trek’s memorable cast over flashy effects or high drama. Thanks to a clever script and terrific comedic chemistry between William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy (who also directs) and guest star Catherine Hicks, The Voyage Home is a total crowd-pleaser and was even the franchise’s biggest box office hit before the 2009 relaunch.

1996 could be considered the apex of Star Trek ’s cultural relevance. The franchise was celebrating its 30th anniversary, both Deep Space Nine and Voyager were on television every week, and there was an absolute deluge of books, PC games, and other merchandise available. The cherry on top was Star Trek: First Contact , the second film to feature the cast of The Next Generation and the only one to catch fire with general audiences.

A dark action-thriller that has as much in common with Aliens as it does with The Wrath of Khan , First Contact pits Captain Picard and the crew of the new Enterprise against their most famous enemy from their television hay day: the Borg. At the same time, First Contact serves as a sort of origin story for Star Trek itself, as its time travel plot takes our characters to an event in our future that is pivotal to their history. It’s a terrific “gateway Trek,” an approachable popcorn flick that explains the franchise’s values and aspirations for a better future within the context of a relatively dark and creepy action movie.

Though rejected by Trek traditionalists for its mile-a-minute pace and cranked-to-eleven characterizations of young Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the classic Enterprise crew, J.J. Abrams’ 2009 Star Trek reboot was a massive popular success that breathed new life into a franchise that had completely run out of gas by the early 2000s. Not everyone may be a fan of just how far it pushed Trek into the realm of “big dumb action blockbuster,” but the truth is that, after 18 continuous years under the same creative management, Trek desperately needed a refresh.

Abrams and writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (the latter of whom remains at the helm of the franchise to this day) radically changed the visual aesthetic and the tempo of Star Trek from classical to classic rock, and in so doing restored an element that had long been lacking in the film series: Joy. Emotionally intense and startlingly sincere, Star Trek more than earns its place near the top of our list of Trek ’s best theatrical outings.

Being an episodic drama from the 1960s that got canceled during its third season, the original Star Trek never really got a “series finale.” As was commonplace in television at the time, when Star Trek ended, it just stopped. Thanks to its revival on the big screen, Trek got a new lease on life, a grand legacy, and — 25 years after it first appeared on television —a proper ending. The Undiscovered Country reunites the entire classic cast one last time, along with writer-director Nicholas Meyer, the man behind the No. 1 entry on our list, to tell the tale of the final voyage of Kirk’s Enterprise, one that provides closure to the crew’s growth over the course of the five preceding films.

In proper Trek tradition, it’s also an incisive political allegory about the end of the Cold War (one of The Original Series ’ most common subjects) and the difficulty of putting aside old prejudices and embracing change. The Undiscovered Country doesn’t paint our Starfleet heroes in the most flattering light, which provoked the ire of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, but that’s the entire point: to see characters who we’ve grown up with confront their own learned hatreds so that those who come after them can live in a better world.

While not technically not a Star Trek movie, Galaxy Quest is a loving parody that captures the essence of classic Trek as well as any film in the canon. The story of a band of washed-up actors who are abducted by aliens who believe them to be the gallant space travelers they played on TV, Galaxy Quest skewers sci-fi fandom and tropes while also telling a heartfelt story about friendship, compassion, and imagination. I

t’s no wonder that this film has been adopted by Trekkies as an unofficial yet essential part of the Star Trek movie canon. Should you choose to include it, slot it right here on our rankings, beneath…

The phrase “ad astra, per aspera” meaning “to the stars through hardships,” has been adopted by many a starry-eyed enterprise (including Starfleet itself), but it also applies perfectly to the production of Star Trek II . Produced with a third of its predecessor’s budget by an inexperienced director who had only twelve days to rewrite its script , The Wrath of Khan could very well have been a disaster. Instead, it’s almost universally considered to be the best Star Trek film and one of the most enduring science fiction films of all time.

Functioning as a sequel to the classic episode Space Seed , Khan pits William Shatner against a worthy, equally hammy foil in Ricardo Montalbán, and their tête-à-tête is pure movie magic. The submarine-style battle at the film’s climax is one of the franchise’s strongest action sequences, but it’s Admiral Kirk’s inner journey that gives The Wrath of Khan its soul, as he confronts the cost of a life spent cheating death and hopping galaxies. Star Trek is not always literature, but The Wrath of Khan is a genuine work of art, a treat not just for Trekkies or genre fans, but for all lovers of cinema.  

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Every Star Trek series is someone’s favorite (Star Trek: The Animated Series stans, we see you), but when it comes to the 18-year Golden Age of Trek between 1987 and 2005, the prequel series Enterprise is easily the least beloved. Airing on UPN for an abbreviated four-season run, Enterprise was meant to shake things up after three consecutive series set in the late 24th century. Imagined as a sort of origin story for Star Trek in the style of The Right Stuff, creators Rick Berman and Brannon Braga wanted to capture the danger and excitement of United Earth’s early interstellar space program, even planning to spend the entire first season on Earth preparing for the launch of Starfleet’s very first Starship Enterprise. The network, however, had other ideas, insisting that Berman and Braga not meddle with the consistently successful Star Trek formula. Thus, despite taking place two centuries earlier, Enterprise became, essentially, “more Voyager,” which in turn had been “more Next Generation,” a once-great sci-fi procedural that was nearly a decade past its peak. That’s not to say that the series didn’t improve throughout its four-season run. After two years of struggling to justify the show’s very existence, Berman and Braga swung for the fences with a radically different third season that reinvented Enterprise (now renamed Star Trek: Enterprise) as a grim and gritty serialized drama unpacking the aftermath of a 9/11-scale attack on Earth. While immediately more compelling, the revamp failed to boost the show’s sagging ratings, and it was reworked yet again the following year, and leaned further into the “prequel to Star Trek” angle under new showrunner Manny Coto. This, many fans will argue, is where Enterprise finally found its legs, but it was too little and too late to prevent its cancellation. Still, each iteration of the troubled spinoff had its highlights and our list of the 10 strongest Enterprise episodes is spread fairly evenly throughout the run of the show. Warning: This article contains spoilers for each listed episode.

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Chris Pine's Star Trek Movies Ranked According To IMDb

The rebooted movie version of the "Star Trek" set of films pays tribute to its roots and moves the series characters we know and love in new and unexpected directions. They're also all, obviously, played by fresh actors. Chris Pine's version of Captain James T. Kirk goes from a cocky ladies' man to a confident leader over the course of three films. He forges unforgettable friendships with Spock (Zachary Quinto) and Nyota Uhura (Zoe Saldana) while taking on his first command and navigating hostile planets,  Starfleet politics, and inter-crew conflicts. It's a growing-up story that shows Kirk is more than worthy of carrying on his late father George's (Chris Hemsworth) mantle.

All three films in the modern "Star Trek" series have managed to land on the higher end of IMDb's ratings scale. While none of them have managed to make it to the auspicious highest reaches, they've performed solidly in terms of the ranking system, which factors in viewer votes to determine just how good a movie can be. Which Chris Pine-starring "Star Trek" movie ranks the highest? According to the franchise's incredibly passionate fanbase, here's how they currently rank, from lowest to highest-rated production, on IMDb.

Star Trek: Beyond (7.0)

Coming in at the bottom of the pile is "Star Trek: Beyond," the third film in the trilogy. It's rated a not-too-shabby 7.0 on IMDb as of press time. This is slightly under the 80% audience approval score the film has on Rotten Tomatoes .

In reviews, viewers have highlighted "Star Trek: Beyond" for its tense action sequences, sense of humor, and ability to make you care about the characters. But more negative reviews continue to unfavorably compare the movie and its previous iterations with the original series and complain that it abandons science fiction for action movie theatrics and over-the-top writing. 

"Star Trek: Beyond" follows the crew after the USS Enterprise is forced to crash-land on an alien planet. This is the home of Krall (Idris Elba), a half-lizard alien being, whose greatest power is his ability to leech energy from others. Krall wants to completely destroy the Enterprise to get his hands on an artifact the ship is transporting. The mission soon becomes Kirk's greatest test as a captain as he and the crew fend for themselves in the wild and try to survive Krall's vendetta for long enough to find a way to get out of his dictatorship and back to their proper solar system.

Star Trek: Into Darkness (7.7)

Next up is "Star Trek: Into Darkness," which sits on IMDb at a 7.7. This sequel pits the crew against destructive forces within Starfleet that seek to take the entire organization down. Kirk has been stripped of his command after the events of the first movie. Shaken, Kirk returns to Earth for some rest and relaxation time off-duty, only to learn that there's been a bombing at Starfleet's London offices. John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch) is discovered to be working for Klingon forces and Kirk — motivated by the desire to get his command back and a desire for revenge — decides to pursue him. Harrison has a surprising identity that will rock the foundation of everything Kirk knows, as well as Starfleet itself.

Fans have said that the plot is better than that of "Star Trek: Beyond" and that the action and character development are likewise strong here. But other IMDb users have called the movie out for its slipshod writing and because it leans too hard into action-driven spy antics. Some watchers also didn't enjoy the story surrounding the discovery of Harrison's true identity. But the movie's positives are enough to land the film right in the center of the pack for users of IMDb.

Star Trek (2009) (7.9)

At the top of the heap is the very first film in the series, 2009's "Star Trek," which currently has a 7.9 audience score on IMDb. The movie follows Kirk, Spock, and their fellow crew members as they struggle to cope with their first-ever assignment out of Starfleet Academy. Kirk is young, cocky, and rash here; he struggles to make new friends and deal with adult life while proving his worth on deck. Can Kirk overcome his rivalry with Spock to help Captain Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood) defend the ship against Romulan Commander Nero (Eric Bana)?

Consumers have applauded the way "Star Trek" manages to weave in cameos from the TV series and create compelling new backstories for Spock and Kirk. But other fans dislike the fact that the film doesn't carry the same thoughtful heft or emotional weight endemic of most "Star Trek" shows. And many, many reviews have lodged their complaints about the movie's overreliance on lens flares. 

Whether you agree with Pine that  the "Star Trek" reboot movies failed where the Marvel Cinematic Universe thrived , or are still waiting for the fourth part of the series to debut, it's absolutely undeniable that his version of Kirk runs an entertaining starship. 

Screen Rant

The best star trek series, ranked (according to imdb).

Totalling up the various views of diehard Trekkers and general viewers and fans alike, here are the best Star Trek series to date, according to IMDb.

With a long and successful career as one of the most popular franchises in television and film history, Star Trek has experienced a renaissance in recent years, due to the success of new series like Discovery and Picard .

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This success has spurred more Trek series to be developed for the small screen, including the Captain Pike-era centered Strange New Worlds and the Michelle Yeoh Discovery spinoff revolving around the mysterious shadow organization known as Section 31. With adherents and detractors amongst diehard Trekkers and general viewers alike, here are the best Star Trek series to date, according to IMDb.

Lower Decks - IMDb Rating: 6.9

Star Trek: Lower Decks is notable in that it is the second Trek animated series to air since the 1970s and the focus of its narrative is not on captains or high-ranking officers, but junior and low-ranking officers. The adult-oriented cartoon also takes place in the TNG -era on a relatively unimportant ship in the Federation fleet, the USS Cerritos .

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Ensigns Beckett Mariner, Brad Boimler , and D'Vana Tendi provide humor as they navigate mundane careers in Starfleet, occasionally crossing paths with notable Star Trek characters like William Riker and Q.

Discovery - IMDb Rating: 7.2

Discovery ’s premiere in 2017 marked the end of a long period in which Star Trek was absent from television, arguably the medium that bests suits it. The show quickly established itself as different than previous iterations of Trek , with a serialized approach to its narrative and a focus on darker themes.

Rather than center upon a captain as its main character, like the Trek series that had come before it, Discovery revolves around Michael Burnham , a disgraced first officer. There’s no denying Discovery has breathed new life into the Star Trek franchise.

The Animated Series - IMDb Rating: 7.4

When the original Star Trek series went off the air in 1969, fans all over the world commiserated. Yet the popularity of the show would not die, and the show’s creator, Gene Roddenberry, decided to continue the adventures of Captain Kirk and the intrepid crew of the Enterprise in an animated format.

As a direct sequel, the show featured the return of the entire original cast in the voices of the roles they made famous and featured many popular secondary characters and settings from the live-action series. Due to the freedom an animated series could afford producers in depicting alien life forms, many new characters also made their debut on this show.

Enterprise - IMDb Rating: 7.5

Named after the most famous ship in the Star Trek universe, Star Trek: Enterprise was the earliest  Star Trek series in terms of chronology, taking place shortly after First Contact and before the creation of the Federation.

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The galaxy Captain Archer and the crew of the NX-01 Enterprise found themselves in was definitely bigger, less familiar, and less technologically advanced than what viewers had come to expect from a Trek series, but they definitely made due. Though not as beloved as previous Trek  shows, Enterprise forged its own unique path as a prequel series.

Picard - IMDb Rating: 7.5

Picard picks up years after the final Next Generation film Nemesis  and sees the legendary captain retired on his family winery in France. Viewers are quickly brought to speed as to recent events: a supernova has destroyed the Romulan homeworld, and an attack on the shipyards on Mars by rogue synthetics crippled the Federation’s relief efforts.

Haunted both by his failure to save the Romulan survivors and the death of his friend Data, Picard comes out of retirement to fight for the rights of synthetic lifeforms all across the Federation.

Voyager - IMDb Rating: 7.8

Boasting the first female captain in a lead role for a Star Trek series , Voyager had an interesting premise: the ship would be manned by a crew combined of Starfleet officers and Maquis fighters and would be catapulted to the Delta Quadrant, 70 000 light-years away from Earth.

The show didn’t disappoint on narrative tension, as the crew learned to accept each other’s differences and encountered new civilizations and stellar phenomenon. Midway through the show’s run, the crew even rehabilitated a Borg drone  and made her part of the crew--no easy feat for any captain!

Deep Space Nine - IMDb Rating: 8.0

When Deep Space Nine premiered in 1993, it stood out as being the only Star Trek spin-off to take place entirely on a space station. The series took about two seasons to find its footing, and really picked up the narrative pace when it introduced the empire on the other end of the wormhole, the Dominion. With their Jem’Hadar shock troops, the Dominion wreaked havoc on the Alpha Quadrant for four seasons.

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Often considered the “black sheep” of the Star Trek universe for showcasing darker themes and morally ambiguous characters that purists believed were not conversant with Gene Roddenberry’s utopian vision, Deep Space Nine was nevertheless a compellingly thought-provoking and worthy entry into Star Trek canon.

The Original Series - IMDb Rating: 8.3

The series that started it all, Star Trek premiered in 1966 and differed from other science fiction shows significantly. Rather than depict a dystopian wasteland as a future, it showcased humanity’s ability to overcome its lesser instincts and conquer its predilection for things like war and disease. Traveling the stars in search of new worlds and new civilizations as part of a galactic Federation dedicated to knowledge and peace appealed to an audience desperate for hope in the face of the Cold War and civil unrest.

Built on the interplay between the passionate Dr. McCoy , coldly logical Mr. Spock , and unflappable Captain James T. Kirk , this series was the template for all other Star Trek series to come.

The Next Generation - IMDb Rating: 8.6

Considering the reverence accorded the original series, starting a whole new show with none of the original actors was a huge gamble when Paramount launched Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1987. However, the show quickly found its footing and a loyal viewership after an uneven first season.

Stewarded by the diplomatic yet decisive Captain Jean-Luc Picard, the series introduced new characters, worlds, and alien races to the Star Trek universe and plumbed narrative depths that were rewarding to watch . The show fulfilled creator Gene Roddenberry’s vision of a utopian future and is arguably the best Star Trek series to date.

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'Discovery's Elias Toufexis Could Be 'Star Trek's Next Jeffrey Combs

Toufexis and Eve Harlow breakdown their Breen backstory and call the 'Discovery' set the best they've ever worked on.

The Big Picture

• Star Trek: Discovery Season 5, Episode 5, "Mirrors," delves into Moll and L'ak's backstory, revealing their love and the price on their heads.
• Stars Eve Harlow and Elias Toufexis discuss fleshing out their romance, joining the sci-fi series for its final season, and L'ak's connection to the Breen.
• The duo also praises the Star Trek: Discovery cast and crew for the warm and welcoming atmosphere, with Sonequa Martin-Green leading the way as a fantastic number one.

A few weeks ago, Star Trek: Discovery kicked off the series' final season with a dazzling new mystery and a pair of wildly compelling antagonists. Seemingly out to cash in on the greatest treasure the galaxy has to offer, lovers Moll ( Eve Harlow ) and L'ak ( Elias Toufexis ) have been neck-and-neck with Michael Burnham ( Sonequa Martin-Green ) and her crew as they hunt for clues . This week's episode "Mirrors," sees Burnham catch up with the two as she and Book ( David Ajala ) corner them on an abandoned ISS Enterprise from the Mirror universe.

As the two couples are made to face each other, we also get a glimpse into Moll and L'ak's backstory. Not only do we learn how they fell in love, but we also come to understand why they're on the run — L'ak is a Breen and in their attempt to run away together the duo killed a pair of guards. Now the warlike race has a price on their heads.

Ahead of the episode, I sat down with Harlow and Toufexis to talk about the big reveals in "Mirrors," the complex relationship between their characters, and what they're taking away from their time on Discovery . During our conversation, we also spoke about their personal experiences with Star Trek , when Toufexis learned he would be playing a Breen, and which episodes of Season 5 are their favorites.

Star Trek: Discovery

Taking place almost a decade before Captain Kirk's Enterprise, the USS Discovery charts a course to uncover new worlds and life forms.

Both Harlow and Toufexis have a fair share of sci-fi credits to their names with Harlow having made waves on shows like The 100 and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. while Toufexis appeared in the smash hit series The Expanse as well as having voiced characters in a truly impressive number of video games. When asked what it was like to go from their sci-fi roots to arguably the biggest sci-fi series of all time, Harlow admitted that she'd actually "never seen Star Trek before." She went on to explain, "to me, I was like, 'Oh, cool, another job. Oh, cool, I get to be in space!'"

Meanwhile, Toufexis was a huge Star Trek fan. "And Elias was like, 'No, you don't understand. This is Star Trek .' Even in the sides for the audition, I remember the word “Klingon” being in there, and I'm like, “Wait, how do I pronounce this? What is this?” And on set it was like, “What's a Tribbler?” Harlow joked. "Then Elias was like, 'Okay, let me send you a YouTube video.' So I think for me it was just like, 'Oh, cool. This is fun. This is nice,' and then being told the importance of it by my co-star," she laughed.

For Toufexis, the role was a dream come true. He explained:

"It was great for me. I love sci-fi, and I was happy to do a lot of sci-fi before Star Trek, but yeah, I'm a giant Star Trek fan. Accepting the role was a no-brainer, and I was very, very happy and geeked out every day on set. I would get mad at people who worked on the show who didn't know the stuff that I knew. Not Eve. I would never get mad at Eve."

As actors, both Harlow and Toufexis know the struggle of auditioning over and over for until something sticks. He said, "as an actor, you audition for everything, and you take what sticks, right? That's the nature of the beast." He went on, calling Discovery a career highlight. "So it just happened to be that I have done a lot of sci-fi stuff in my career, so Star Trek is kind of the peak sci-fi . So, it's all downhill from here," he laughed. However, as any good Star Trek fan knows, playing one character is not always the end of the line for an actor in the series. I joked that Toufexis could return on another series in the future, following in the footsteps of actors like Jeffrey Combs and Suzie Plakson , to which he heartily agreed, "I'll play, like, 10 characters."

'Star Trek: Discovery's Moll and L'ak Are Hopelessly Devoted to Each Other

Shortly after we meet these two in the first episode of Season 5 , it becomes very clear that L'ak would do anything to protect Moll, to the point of taking out excessive violence on anyone who threatens her. When asked if that defensive nature was a result of their nature or inherent in them as individuals Toufexis explained, "I think it's inherent in them, but they bring it out of each other. It's a part of their character."

He went on to explain that L'ak was already looking for a way out of his life as a high-ranking Breen when he fell in love with Moll. He said, "I don't know if he was looking for love, but he found it, and then that brought out the guardian in him." He went on to say that one thing he loved about the fifth episode is that, in learning their history, we see that Moll and L'ak are more equals than it seemed in the first four episodes.

"It looks like he's almost her bodyguard, but when they're alone, you see it's not really the case. They're on absolutely equal footing, and he defers to her a lot. He's just protective of her, but she is of him, and that's their love." He went on to explain, " My favorite thing about these characters is their love for each other. It's rare in sci-fi that you have antagonists that have a genuinely good reason to do what they're doing, that I think people would relate to their love and passion for each other and freedom. That's it. We're not bad guys. We just want you to leave us the hell alone." He points out that in this episode, Moll admits they never would have made an enemy out of the Discovery crew if they'd just been left alone, "But you keep on us, and we’re gonna defend ourselves.”

Meanwhile, Harlow explained that the complete devotion Moll and L'ak have for each other is what makes them relatable. She said:

"I do think it's inherent to their nature, and I think that that's what makes them likable, is that there's the love and loyalty there, and they're the first beings in each other's lives that have been, like, he's proven to me that he's worth the love, he's worth the loyalty. Literally, everybody else has either died or betrayed, left. All that stuff. This one being has shown me that it's like, 'No, this is actually where I can store my loyalty, love in this being, and I'm gonna hold on to this being no matter what.' "

With this episode being called "Mirrors," not only for the time spent on a Mirror Universe ship, but for the relationships within, as Moll and L'ak serve as a foil to Book and Burnham. I asked the pair if they felt like their characters recognized themselves in their counterparts. For Toufexis, Book and Burnham are barely even on his radar. He said, "At least as an actor, I never even considered that. I was just like, 'Nah, I don't care about them.' He's very one-track-minded." He then laid out L'ak's priorities, saying:

"At least for me, the way I played it was, 'I just want Moll, and I want you to leave us alone. And if this tech, whatever it is that we may not understand, or even if they understand its power, whatever this tech is, if it could grant us freedom and to be left alone and to just go live our lives in love together, that's all that matters.' So I don't think they're looking and going, 'Oh, they're a lot like us, those two.'"

Meanwhile, Harlow agreed, comparing their characters to "caged animals." She said: "Everyone else are [our] oppressors, and so I don't care what's happening out there. I don't care how similar it is, because ultimately they have the key to the door to freedom, and they're holding here. It’s like, 'Fuck yeah!'"

Elias Toufexis Learned He Was Playing a Breen While Getting His Prosthetics for 'Star Trek: Discovery'

While the Breen have existed since the 90s, having first appeared in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , we know very little about their species. Most notably, we don't know what they look like under their helmets — at least we didn't until this episode. As a fan of the franchise, I had to ask Toufexis if he knew he would be playing a Breen when he first got the role or if he found out when he read the script. He revealed that he actually found out while getting his prosthetics made. But before telling the full story of how he found out L'ak was a Breen, Toufexis took a brief detour to joke about another vast disparity between his Star Trek experience and Harlow's.

He said: "This is a funny story we haven’t told yet. When I auditioned, I knew I was gonna be in makeup because I had already been on the show in the third episode. I played one of the prisoners that's on the show, on Discovery , so I knew I couldn't play with my own face again. I knew I'd be in prosthetics. And I remember, this is like a side thing, but I remember calling Eve and talking about working together, and I said, 'So what's your makeup process?' She's like, 'I don't have any makeup. I don’t have any prosthetics.' 'What? You mean I have to go through five hours of hair and makeup…?'" Harlow chimed in confirming the call, "You were like, 'No, no, no, like prosthetics.' I’m like, 'Yeah, no. Nothing.' And he's like, 'Wait, are you sure?' [Laughs] I’m like, 'I don’t know how to break it to you, but no.'"

He joked that he was "hoping we were both gonna have 2:30 a.m. calls and all that kind of stuff," before diving into how he learned he'd be playing a Breen. He explained:

"But when I found out that he was a Breen was when I went to do the first step of the prosthetics. Being a giant Star Trek geek, I said, 'Can you show me what I'm gonna look like?' Because they’re doing that thing, the plaster mold, where you have to sit there in 20 minutes and try not to have a panic attack. But at that session, I said, 'Do you have any art of what he's gonna look like?' And they showed me, and I said, 'Do you know what race he is?' Because I think I had heard that he was a new race, or an unseen race, or something like that. And they said, 'Yeah, he's a Breen.' I was like, 'Wait, Breen? They don’t take off their helmets.' My geek mind starts going. Then they're like, 'Yeah, you're gonna be the first time that this race is revealed in Star Trek,' and that really got me going. I was like, 'Oh, okay! Let's plaster me up. Let's do this.' And somehow I got through it. But yeah, I was really excited to find that out. Especially [because] Deep Space Nine to me is, like, I love Deep Space Nine . I know the Breen they talk about in TNG a little bit, but Deep Space Nine to me is, like, one of my favorite shows ever, not just Star Treks shows. So, the fact that I was gonna be involved in that. We kind of delve into Deep Space Nine , so I was super happy."

Moll and L'ak Aren't Villains — They're Just Antagonists

In "Mirrors," Moll and L'ak become much more fleshed-out characters as we get a glimpse into their history with each other. Much like the revelation with the Breen, I had to ask Harlow and Toufexis if they had made up any backstory for their characters prior to learning the roots of their love story when they got the script for this episode. Harlow explained that they really only fleshed out the basics like how long they'd been together. She pointed out that sometimes if you make up a backstory for your character it can get entirely undone by the narrative. She said: "The thing is, you could create a backstory, and then you get the next episode and it’s like, 'Ha, joke’s on you. Totally wrong. Everything that we thought…' So, at least this is the way that I work, it's like, 'Okay, what are the stakes? This person is my everything.' That’s just how I’m gonna play it. "

"In terms of the flashback, I mean, it was fun," she grinned. "This might sound really vain, but looks-wise, what did she look like back then? I’ve just got to shout out to the hair and makeup and costume team. Freaking amazing. Such talented people, and also so collaborative, and talking about all this, and being excited about it as well. I think this is what was really cool about the show. Literally every single person is so excited about what they do. Like the props people, they're like, 'This is so awesome,' and then you're like, 'Yes! This is so awesome.'"

Despite not being a Star Trek fan before joining the franchise, Harlow explained that she couldn't help but fall in love with the whole team. "So even though, again, I did not know Star Trek , you can't help it. It's infectious when you're surrounded by that energy, and so it's like, 'Oh, cool. We get to explore our characters’ backgrounds and be in this Breen world.'" She went on to say, "seeing the sets is insane. That screen, the wall, is incredible. You step into the space and you're like, 'Whoa, people created all of this and I get to be a part of it? Incredible.'"

Toufexis was thrilled to get an episode so heavily dedicated to Moll and L'ak's motivations. Having played his fair share of TV baddies , he noted that this is the first time he's gotten to play out the why of what his character is doing himself. He told me:

"The backstory was the best part for me because, I've said this before, but I play a lot of bad guys on TV, and very often it's other characters that are just explaining why my character is doing what he's doing, or make a line thrown here or there, like this is what happened to me, so this is why I'm doing this. Whereas with L’ak, I got to play it. I got to go back and play how he got to where he is, and the great thing is it's justified. What I hope is that the people who watch Episode 5, when they rewatch, they go, 'Oh, yeah, everything they're doing they have a right to do. They're not bad. They're just the antagonists.' I don't mind if they call us villains for promotional purposes, but I’m kind of like, 'They're not villains.'"

Harlow chimed in saying, "They have hearts of gold, okay?" To which Toufexis doubled down on Moll and L'ak's desire to just be left alone.

Eve Harlow and Elias Toufexis Reveal Their Favorite Episodes of 'Star Trek: Discovery' Season 5

Again, as a pair of Trekkies, I had to ask Toufexis about the incredible experience of getting to actually spend time on the bridge of the Enterprise in this episode. Naturally, he was delighted. He told Collider:

"Well, you can imagine. I've already said I'm a super nerd. And also, The Original Series , that's what I watched growing up . I'm not that old, my dad had them all on tape — so I'm old, but I'm not that old. My dad had them all on tape in the ‘90s, so I watched them over and over and over again, and the movies, especially. So, for me, that was my introduction to Star Trek was the Kirk Enterprise, right? Even though I know this is not the Kirk Enterprise, but Kirk's on it. So being on that ship, I know story-wise it was the ISS Enterprise, but I'm still like, 'This is the Enterprise. I don't care what decals they put over this. I'm sitting on the Enterprise.' I went and took secret pictures of me on the bridge and stuff like that. I was just freaking out, man. I was like, 'This is like the coolest thing.' How can you not freak out being a fan of something and then suddenly getting paid to be there? It's pretty cool."

While she didn't have any personal connection to the sets herself, Harlow understood the importance through Toufexis' experience. "I had him explain all this to me," she laughed. "It's like this is my very own Star Trek Wikipedia sitting next to me. I'm like, 'Okay, cool, noted. Thank you.'"

When asked what their favorite episodes of Discovery Season 5 were, Toufexis decidedly chose the one we all just watched. "Five for me, for sure," he said, though he was sure to give some praise to the rest of the season as well. "There's a couple of episodes coming up that are really good, too, but for me, it's five because of that, the background and getting to play the background. It's kind of their big episode that reveals everything about her. So for me, it's five. " Meanwhile, Harlow set her sights on the series finale, saying, "I forget which episode it is, but it's later, it's either Episode 9 or 10, and I don't think I can say anything. I'm not gonna say anything, but yes, there is one I like."

The 'Star Trek: Discovery' Set Is Unlike Any Other Thanks to Sonequa Martin-Green

While this is Harlow and Toufexis' first season of Discovery, it's also the show's last. As I noted in my review, despite the writers not knowing Season 5 was the end, they somehow managed to bring the story to a full circle moment. And Toufexis felt the exact same way, he said, "You know what, I was just thinking about this morning. I was thinking about how it's somehow in this weird… The TV gods… Because the episodes that were already written before they knew it was gonna be the last season have this feeling of closure in this weird way, right?" He went on to explain, " Like Episode 4, where they go back and see themselves in the past. That is something that you would do when you would be ending a show, or Doug [Jones], Saru, going off and having these new chapters. That's something you would do when you would end the show. So, it’s this weird kind of thing that happened where it almost was fate that it was going to be the last season . I don't know if that is a sad note or something, but it just worked so well."

"So what I hope people take out of it is just this great feeling of closure of this amazing five years that these people have done. I mean, I'm a fan of the show and I've watched every episode. You're sad that it's ending but at the same time it's ending so well that you just kind of hope everybody just really enjoys the ride of this last season and then looks at everything as five years of what this show actually accomplished, which if you step back and look at it is a lot."

While Harlow admitted that she hadn't "thought about it that deeply, but ultimately I just want people to like it." She had nothing but high praise for series star Sonequa Martin-Green , saying: "The first thing, I stepped on set and everyone, Sonequa was so kind and so welcoming. Every single person on that set was wonderful , and one of the first things that I was told was, 'Welcome to the family.' I just want people to like it, to deserve that title of being in the family, if that makes sense."

For these two, working on Discovery was unlike any other set they'd ever worked on. "I would like to piggyback off of that," said Toufexis. "Eve has worked a lot, I’ve worked a lot, and this is one of the best sets you could work on. From Sonequa and down to the crew, to Michelle [Paradise] and Tunde [Osunsanmi], and all those guys, Alex Kurtzman. You just end up going like, 'All these people are nice.'"

The vibes on set were amazing from the start, to the point that Harlow could hardly believe it to be true, certain that at some point the magic would wear off. However, the warm, familiar atmosphere never faded. She explained:

"When I started, I was like, 'There is no way that this lasts for six months. There's no way.' Because people get stressed. It's just like being on sets — it's chaotic, there’s so many people. And, oh my god, until the very end people were so kind. I feel like a fangirl when I talk about it, and I feel like I've talked about it so much, but it's just because it's lasted, and it just shows what a set can be like. We had this thing, crew appreciation, which is like every single day, a different crew member would be clapped for, and throughout the day, if you saw this crewmember, you could just start clapping for them. So that means that by the time we finished filming, everybody knows everybody's names and what they do and has an appreciation for everybody's job. I've never seen that on any set. And it didn't get in the way of us finishing days. I know that some people are like, 'Oh, it takes time to do this care and appreciation.' Yes, it takes time. It’s, like, 30 seconds, and it lifts everybody's spirits. Anyway, yeah, it's great."

Toufexis confirmed that the source of those good vibes without a doubt comes back to their fearless leader. "It's Sonequa’s set," he said. "Sonequa was the number one, and she's the best number one I've ever worked with. Hands down. Just [the best] of the whole show. She's amazing. I could never say enough good about Sonequa." And Harlow couldn't help but agree: "Every single time I see her, I’m like, 'Sonequa, I love you so much!' I know I'm gushing again for the 50th time, but yes."

"Mirrors" is available to stream now on Paramount+ . New episodes of Star Trek: Discovery hit the platform every Thursday. Stay tuned at Collider for more.

The 10 best non-Marvel Chris Hemsworth movies, ranked

A ustralian actor Chris Hemsworth is best known as the God of Thunder, Thor, in the expansive Marvel Cinematic Universe, but what does one need to do to be considered for such a legendary role besides getting into Thor-like shape and having the right heritage? The guy has acting chops.

Hemsworth has acted in an array of roles, from comedy to thriller all the way to drama, and of course, more sci-fi . His filmography features more roles than most would expect, and not even all of them are included in this list. However, given that his most prevalent character is Thor, and that accounts for a whopping 8 out of 25 movie roles, I’ve decided to rank his top performances that don’t include the hammer-swinging, emotion-bottling demigod. These Chris Hemsworth movies overall range from subpar to great, but the rankings are based on Hemsworth’s performances alone.

10. 12 Strong (2018)

• Metacritic: 54%
• IMDb: 6.5/10
• Duration: 130m
• Genre: War, Drama, Action, History
• Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Michael Shannon, Michael Peña
• Directed by: Nicolai Fuglsig

A pretty awesome war movie overall, 12 Strong is not exactly Hemsworth’s best role. Based on a true yet pretty unbelievable story, 12 special forces operatives are the first U.S. retaliation after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Obligated to join forces with the Northern Alliance of Afghanistan, the 12 initiate an unlikely and outnumbered assault to destabilize the Taliban’s power center in Mazar-i-Sharif. Hemsworth’s portrayal of Capt. Mitch Nelson is noble and brave — as it should be — but it didn’t seem like a role in which Hemsworth could truly shine. His accent is also inconsistent in this role. But his macho manliness is apparent as ever — it just doesn’t quite convince. In the end, I don’t blame Hemsworth as much as I do the lazily constructed backstory and writing surrounding the main plot, but he could have given the character more depth in the few emotional scenes provided.

Watch on Amazon

9. Men in Black: International (2019)

• Metacritic: 38%
• IMDb: 5.6/10
• Rated: PG-13
• Duration: 115m
• Genre: Comedy, Science Fiction
• Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Tessa Thompson, Rebecca Ferguson
• Directed by: F. Gary Gray

A fun and CGI-driven adventure, Men in Black: International is a somewhat campy tale within the canon of the original, imaginative Men in Black films. We discover that the Men in Black have been operating for a long time all over the world, but now they find a mole in their ranks bent on destroying the organization that polices alien activity on Earth. Hemsworth plays Agent H, a womanizing, socializing, satirizing macho Man in Black. So, basically, he’s Thor, but replace god-like strength and a hammer with fancy toys and chrome laser guns. The script has some good comedy, and Hemsworth plays well with them, but International doesn’t quite live up to the original three films and their snappy young gun/grumpy old veteran dynamic. This movie isn’t just about his character — he’s really the supporting character to Agent M (Tessa Thompson) — but this movie makes me want to see Hemsworth in a vastly different role to see the true range of his performances.

8. In the Heart of the Sea (2015)

• Duration: 122m
• Genre: Thriller, Drama, Adventure, Action, History
• Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Benjamin Walker, Cillian Murphy
• Directed by: Ron Howard

In the Heart of the Sea is a story about survival and the extremes humans can go to when faced with disaster. It takes place in the early 1820s, aboard a whaling ship called the Essex out of Nantucket, Massachusetts. Chris Hemsworth stars as one of the whalers on the ship, Owen Chase, who is a skilled first mate. The Essex is attacked by a giant, enraged sperm whale in a nightmarish encounter, and the damaged ship sinks, leaving the crew adrift in the vast ocean with limited supplies. The survivors face starvation, dehydration, and harsh elements as they desperately try to find land, and they’re pushed to their limits and forced to make unthinkable choices to survive. The film portrays the real-life events that inspired Herman Melville’s classic novel Moby Dick .

7. Vacation (2015)

• Metacritic: 34%
• IMDb: 6.1/10
• Duration: 99m
• Genre: Comedy
• Stars: Ed Helms, Christina Applegate, Skyler Gisondo
• Directed by: John Francis Daley, Jonathan M. Goldstein

A continuation of the classic National Lampoon films, Vacation is an all-out adventure of idiocy and sexual jokes that don’t quite match the originals. Rusty Griswold (Ed Helms) remembers his days of traveling to Walley World with his family as a child. Determined to create memories with his own family as his father did, they drive across the country and run into all sorts of mishaps. Hemsworth shows up in the film — getting maybe 10 minutes of screen time — as an exaggerated personification of his physical traits, which are all referenced or shown in his short cameo. Though he’s not a big part of the movie, Hemsworth has got to be the absolute highlight. Hair coiffed, abs out, evenly tanned, Hemsworth fully dives into the role as the hunky, southern a-hole with hilarious magnificence. The film, overall, is lowbrow and crude, with little to take away, but Vacation does have some great moments if you want to sit for two hours and turn your brain off.

6. Extraction (2020)

• Metacritic: 56%
• IMDb: 6.7/10
• Duration: 116m
• Genre: Drama, Action, Thriller
• Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Rudhraksh Jaiswal, Randeep Hooda
• Directed by: Sam Hargrave

Overshadowed by needless violence and explosions, Extraction turns the tables and tries to focus more on emotional depth in a less conventional movie. When black-market mercenary Tyler Rake (Hemsworth) is hired to save an imprisoned warlord’s son, the stakes rise exponentially as more and more local gunrunners and traffickers learn of the situation. Playing a rogue agent who has nothing to live for, Hemsworth has a better script from which to work for this role. The emotional narrative in his character’s evolution is a much better opportunity to show his strengths, not just his physicality. His success in fulfilling the vision of veteran stunt coordinator/first-time director Sam Hargrave was mostly what impressed me about Hemsworth’s performance. He also had to do most of the fighting/free-running takes all in one go, back to back.

Watch on Netflix

5. Rush (2013)

• Metacritic: 74%
• IMDb: 8.1/10
• Duration: 123m
• Genre: Drama, Action
• Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Daniel Brühl, Olivia Wilde

A gritty and cutting racing story, Rush is the best Ron Howard sports movie and his only one since Cinderella Man . In the 1970s, James Hunt (Hemsworth) and Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl) begin their bitter rivalry, pushing each other to obsessive lengths to be the best. The performances in this film are fantastic, both Hemsworth and Brühl shine in their opposition and emotional performances, but Brühl a bit more so. For somebody who was hoping for a bit more subtlety, it was a bit disappointing to see Hemsworth show up in the very first scene shirtless and womanizing, despite the promising writer and director. Though this does play on Hemsworth’s strengths and later ends up working well for the character, I wish it wasn’t so simple as that. I was glad to see later that Hemsworth’s role included a dark period of alcoholism and sadness, leaving him with nothing else but racing, but even that was a bit lacking. Seeing him begin to stretch his arms in a new type of role is exciting, which increases anticipation for the upcoming Hulk Hogan biopic he has been cast in.

4. The Cabin in the Woods (2012)

• Metacritic: 72%
• Duration: 95m
• Genre: Horror, Mystery, Thriller, Comedy
• Stars: Kristen Connolly, Fran Kranz, Chris Hemsworth
• Directed by: Drew Goddard

Seemingly a run-of-the-mill slasher flick, The Cabin in the Woods — brought to you by director/writer Drew Goddard and veteran co-writer Joss Whedon — is a lovely surprise for thriller/dark comedy fans all around. A group of college friends decides to go on vacation out in the deep, dark woods, but something foul is at play when they start to be attacked by supernatural forces. The cast of characters for this film was excellent and truly comedic, however, they stray from their character tropes almost instantly. Hemsworth plays Curt, the hard-headed jock who is dating the popular cheerleader, and he obviously succeeds with ease, as we’ve seen him with a similar demeanor before. Don’t let the letterman jacket fool you, though. Hemsworth is a well-read and educated sociology major and a spirited team leader. His character’s narrative arc is badass and heroic throughout. Hemsworth shows some real depth in his portrayal, especially when you see it from start to finish.

Watch on Hulu

3. Bad Times at the El Royale (2018)

• Metacritic: 60%
• IMDb: 7.1/10
• Duration: 141m
• Genre: Thriller, Drama, Mystery, Crime
• Stars: Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo, Dakota Johnson

From director/writer Drew Goddard comes the twist-happy, storyline pileup, Tarantino-esque mystery film Bad Times at the El Royale, which is bloody, witty, and also somehow a bit confused. Seven complete strangers check into the eerily tidy yet desolate El Royale hotel on the border of Nevada and California, all for their own reasons, which will be revealed in thrilling and bloody fashion. Hemsworth, though not one of those seven strangers, is the highlight of the film in a role I had never expected him to shine in. Without getting too far into spoiler territory, he plays an unsettlingly charming leader of what can only be described as a cult, inspiring his followers to stay with him to any end. In this role, Hemsworth is, of course, very alluring as usual, but with a sort of Woodstock meets Manson family energy. Again, I don’t want to give too much away, but the scene where he dances — button-up fully open revealing his impeccable physique — sensually and terrifyingly to Deep Purple’s Hush is definitely the scene that stood out most in the entire film.

2. Star Trek (2009)

• Metacritic: 82%
• IMDb: 7.9/10
• Duration: 127m
• Genre: Science Fiction, Action, Adventure
• Stars: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana
• Directed by: J.J. Abrams

An unforgettable, exhilarating, and witty revival of the classic sci-fi series , Star Trek is an absolute blast from start to finish. Acting as a stand-alone origin story, we see the beginnings of the Starship Enterprise and its crew, led by its fearless captain, James T. Kirk (Chris Pine). Right from the beginning, audiences are sucked into the action and story as though by a tractor beam from a Borg cube. Most of the instant appeal starts in the opening performance from Hemsworth as Kirk’s father, the proud and honorable Capt. George Kirk, doing what captains do best and sacrificing himself. Though his screen time is short and the rest of the movie is uniformly excellent, his emotional performance connects instantly with the audience. Hemsworth’s turn here says a lot about his potential in any role.

1. Ghostbusters (2016)

• IMDb: 6.9/10
• Duration: 117m
• Genre: Action, Fantasy, Comedy
• Stars: Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon
• Directed by: Paul Feig

Yet again a movie that rehashes an already stellar franchise, Ghostbusters stars a hilarious all-female cast, except for Hemsworth. Attempting to prove that ghosts are real and a threat, a paranormal researcher and a physicist form a team to fight the evils that come to prey on New York City. Composed of such comedians as Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Leslie Jones, and the underrated Kate McKinnon, Hemsworth is just the bow on the box that ties the story together. Though not a main character, he takes his direction — flipping the script by being a sexy but stupid male secretary — and gives it an extra boost. His comedic timing and utter lack of common sense are genuinely hilarious and original, making this my favorite of his non-Thor performances. The funniest scene in the movie — where Hemsworth interviews for the secretary job — was 100% improvised. That was shocking and outstanding to discover, making any viewer more excited to see what kind of performance he can come up with next.

The post The 10 best non-Marvel Chris Hemsworth movies, ranked appeared first on The Manual .

IMDb Charts

Imdb top 250 movies.

1. The Shawshank Redemption

2. The Godfather

3. The Dark Knight

4. The Godfather Part II

5. 12 Angry Men

6. Schindler's List

7. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

8. Pulp Fiction

9. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

10. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

11. Forrest Gump

12. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

13. Fight Club

14. Inception

15. Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back

16. The Matrix

17. Goodfellas

18. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

19. Dune: Part Two

21. Interstellar

22. It's a Wonderful Life

23. Seven Samurai

24. The Silence of the Lambs

25. Saving Private Ryan

26. City of God

27. Life Is Beautiful

28. The Green Mile

29. Terminator 2: Judgment Day

30. Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope

31. Back to the Future

32. Spirited Away

33. The Pianist

34. Parasite

36. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

37. Gladiator

38. The Lion King

39. Léon: The Professional

40. The Departed

41. American History X

42. Whiplash

43. The Prestige

44. Grave of the Fireflies

45. Harakiri

46. The Usual Suspects

47. Casablanca

48. The Intouchables

49. Cinema Paradiso

50. Modern Times

51. Rear Window

52. Once Upon a Time in the West

54. City Lights

55. Django Unchained

56. Apocalypse Now

57. Memento

58. 12th Fail

60. Raiders of the Lost Ark

61. The Lives of Others

62. Sunset Blvd.

63. Paths of Glory

64. Avengers: Infinity War

65. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

66. Witness for the Prosecution

67. The Shining

68. The Great Dictator

70. Inglourious Basterds

71. The Dark Knight Rises

72. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

73. American Beauty

76. Amadeus

77. Toy Story

78. Das Boot

79. Avengers: Endgame

80. Braveheart

82. Princess Mononoke

83. Good Will Hunting

84. Your Name.

85. Once Upon a Time in America

86. High and Low

87. 3 Idiots

88. Singin' in the Rain

89. Capernaum

90. Requiem for a Dream

91. Come and See

92. Toy Story 3

93. Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi

94. Oppenheimer

95. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

96. The Hunt

97. 2001: A Space Odyssey

98. Reservoir Dogs

100. Lawrence of Arabia

101. The Apartment

102. North by Northwest

103. Citizen Kane

104. Incendies

105. Vertigo

107. Double Indemnity

108. Scarface

109. Amélie

110. Full Metal Jacket

112. A Clockwork Orange

114. To Kill a Mockingbird

115. The Sting

116. A Separation

117. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

118. Die Hard

119. Metropolis

120. Like Stars on Earth

121. Snatch

122. Hamilton

123. L.A. Confidential

125. Bicycle Thieves

126. Taxi Driver

127. Downfall

128. Dangal

129. For a Few Dollars More

130. Batman Begins

131. The Wolf of Wall Street

132. Some Like It Hot

133. Green Book

134. The Kid

135. The Father

136. Judgment at Nuremberg

137. All About Eve

138. The Truman Show

139. Top Gun: Maverick

140. Shutter Island

141. There Will Be Blood

142. Casino

143. Jurassic Park

145. The Sixth Sense

146. Pan's Labyrinth

147. Unforgiven

148. No Country for Old Men

149. A Beautiful Mind

150. The Thing

151. Kill Bill: Vol. 1

152. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

153. Yojimbo

154. Monty Python and the Holy Grail

155. The Great Escape

156. Finding Nemo

157. Rashomon

158. Prisoners

159. Howl's Moving Castle

160. The Elephant Man

161. Chinatown

162. Dial M for Murder

163. Gone with the Wind

164. V for Vendetta

165. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

166. The Secret in Their Eyes

167. Inside Out

168. Raging Bull

169. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

170. Trainspotting

171. The Bridge on the River Kwai

172. Spider-Man: No Way Home

175. Catch Me If You Can

176. Warrior

177. Godzilla Minus One

178. Gran Torino

179. My Neighbor Totoro

180. Million Dollar Baby

181. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

182. Children of Heaven

183. 12 Years a Slave

184. Blade Runner

185. Before Sunrise

186. Ben-Hur

187. Barry Lyndon

188. The Grand Budapest Hotel

189. Gone Girl

190. Hacksaw Ridge

191. The Gold Rush

192. Memories of Murder

193. In the Name of the Father

194. Dead Poets Society

195. Wild Tales

196. Mad Max: Fury Road

197. The General

198. The Deer Hunter

199. On the Waterfront

200. Monsters, Inc.

201. Sherlock Jr.

202. The Third Man

203. The Wages of Fear

204. Wild Strawberries

205. How to Train Your Dragon

207. Mary and Max

208. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

209. Ratatouille

210. Ford v Ferrari

211. Tokyo Story

212. The Big Lebowski

214. The Seventh Seal

217. Spotlight

218. Hotel Rwanda

219. The Terminator

220. Platoon

221. The Passion of Joan of Arc

222. Before Sunset

223. La haine

224. The Best Years of Our Lives

225. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

226. The Exorcist

228. Jai Bhim

229. Network

230. Stand by Me

231. The Wizard of Oz

232. The Incredibles

233. Hachi: A Dog's Tale

234. The Handmaiden

235. Into the Wild

236. My Father and My Son

237. The Sound of Music

238. The Grapes of Wrath

239. To Be or Not to Be

240. The Battle of Algiers

241. Groundhog Day

242. Amores Perros

243. Rebecca

244. The Iron Giant

245. Cool Hand Luke

246. The Help

247. It Happened One Night

248. Aladdin

249. Dances with Wolves

250. Gangs of Wasseypur

The Top Rated Movie list only includes feature films.

• Shorts, TV movies, and documentaries are not included
• The list is ranked by a formula which includes the number of ratings each movie received from users, and value of ratings received from regular users
• To be included on the list, a movie must receive ratings from at least 25000 users

More to explore

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