Friday the 13th Movies Ranked

It’s Friday the 13th, which means two things – one, the more superstitious people out there are having a terrible day, and two, I’m reminded of one of my favourite horror franchises of all time. The Friday the 13th collection has seen its ups and downs – our main man Jason Voorhees has been through a lot in the many years since his conception. He’s demonstrated unconquerable clinginess in his loitering around Camp Crystal Lake for way too many years, decided to take a brief holiday in Manhattan, and then went to space – a life well-lived if you ask me. The twelve Friday the 13th movies released to this date have chronicled Jason’s time on the big screen – but which Friday the 13th was the best?

Well, we’re looking to answer that very question today, as we get into our list of the Friday the 13th movies ranked. From 1980 to 2009, Jason has haunted the horror scene, brandishing a machete and his signature hockey mask, and though he’s had more than a lengthy stint of conquering the genre, I’m sure some of you will ask, why did they stop making Friday the 13th movies? Well, aside from the fact that there’s very few places left to take this franchise beyond space, the truth of Jason’s departure from horror lies in the small print of a legal battle between Victor Miller and Sean Cunningham, the screenwriter and director of the original film respectively. Their legal squabble has long-plagued fans of the franchise who just want to see Jason get back to slashing. Luckily, it seems like A24 and Peacock are planning to release a prequel series based on Friday the 13th as early as this year, so there’s still hope that Jason Voorhees will see a revival in the near future. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about a prequel series, but hey – it’s something! With that being said, let’s get into the many, many Friday the 13th movies that we do have available to us, and kick off the ranking! A warning though – spoilers ahead for the Friday the 13th movies.

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12. Friday the 13th Part IX: Jason Goes To Hell (1993)

Image by New Line Cinema

There are only two movies on this list that I can say, with confidence, I entirely dislike. Even considering my dislike of the 11th entry on this list, the quality gap between that movie and Jason Goes To Hell is huge. This movie is awful, and no amount of revisionism is going to convince me otherwise. I’ve come to know better than to expect a high-quality level of storytelling when it comes to Friday the 13th, but the least these movies can do for their viewer is be fun. If Jason Goes To Hell involved Jason facing off against demons and ghouls in a fiery hellscape, I probably would have had a lot more respect for it, and that’s really saying something.

Instead, Jason Goes To Hell tells the bizarre story of a coroner who eats Jason’s heart (why, I’m not sure), becomes possessed by Jason’s soul, and then said soul materialises, and moves from person-to-person in a sort of possession storyline. Friday the 13th can certainly go off the rails from time to time, but this movie seems to just forget the rails entirely. There’s always been a supernatural element to Jason, in that he seems to just keep reviving himself no matter what, but to see him rapidly evolve from a demonic slug infant into a fully-grown masked killer is just too strange to digest. The only thing this movie has going for it is the kills, and its commitment to over-the-top gore with them. Outside of that, it’s an almost embarrassing addition to the franchise, and a movie where I can confidently say that I will never choose to watch it again.

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11. Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning (1985)

Image by Paramount Pictures

And here we have the only other movie on this list that I dislike, though the jump from Jason Goes To Hell to A New Beginning is fairly substantial. That being said, I still have no desire to revisit this movie like I do the other entries on this list. There are two main reasons that A New Beginning finds its home so low on this ranking. The first is the most obvious reason for anyone who’s seen this movie – the absolutely awful, Scooby-Doo-like twist that forms the basis of this film’s plot. A paramedic who we saw for about thirty seconds at the start of the movie after his son got axed over a chocolate bar (nice) turns out to be Jason all along. Looking past that though, the second reason is how the very existence of this movie betrays the franchise by way of its very existence.

The fourth instalment of Friday the 13th is named The Final Chapter – that’s because it was intended to be the final movie of the franchise, a bookend to the story of Jason Voorhees. Not only does the existence of A New Beginning completely undo the closure of the fourth film, but spoiler alert, The Final Chapter is a significantly better movie than A New Beginning. A blatant cash-grab more preoccupied with a ‘whodunit’ storyline that has far from a satisfying payoff, A New Beginning is a real outlier in the franchise for just how much of a disappointment it is. The solitary reason that it beats out Jason Goes To Hell is that, if you put on your rose-coloured glasses, you might be able to appreciate that this is an early, unique take on the franchise, and has some pretty promising elements as a dark comedy – just remember, this whole movie kicks off, because of a chocolate bar.

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10. Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)

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We’ve reached the first entry on this list that I enjoy! Don’t get too excited though, because Jason Takes Manhattan is still a deeply flawed movie, and it might also take the crown for the most frustrating film in the franchise. There’s a real case to be made against the Friday the 13th franchise for false advertising – two movies in the series have the world ‘final’ in their titles, and neither of them are actually the franchise’s final entry. However, Jason Takes Manhattan might just take the cake for disingenuous titles – and it hits all the harder here because of just how good this movie could have been, and how much it let us all down.

For the vast majority of this movie’s runtime, Jason is on a boat on his way to Manhattan. What this means is that, instead of the thrilling premise of a skulking murderer lurking in the streets of New York, we’re treated to the very limited environment of a ship, and as a result, a lot of this movie is the same old same old for the Friday franchise. To no one’s surprise, once Jason gets to actually take Manhattan, the movie gets much better, with more than a few stand-out scenes to choose from. The New York scenes are really what elevate the movie to this spot on the list, because the boat stuff is pretty unbearable at times. This is made all the worse by this movie being the longest in the franchise – just salting the wound of what could have been. The movie is essentially a ghostly whisper of a film killed by its own budget constraints, but when we do get brief glimpses of the original script, we see just how brightly this entry might have shined. Also, bonus points for the boombox scene – it cracks me up everytime.

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9. Friday the 13th (1980)

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I’m not quite sure if this is a controversial take or not, because I feel that for a lot of people who truly love this franchise as a whole, a low ranking of the original movie is no surprise. While it makes for a perfect throwback movie night, the original Friday the 13th is really nothing to write home about. A blatant, admitted knock-off of 1978’s Halloween, with a script so unpromising that even the star of the movie herself originally didn’t want anything to do with it, the original Friday the 13th may have been a cultural phenomenon at the time, but very little about it holds up today. Even the final girl, Alice, who is the first final girl in Friday the 13th history, has faded into relative obscurity overtime – which I will say, is pretty unfortunate, because I do like her here.

There are definitely some memorable scenes, and the kills are deceptively gnarly for a 1980 film, but it’s Betsy Palmer’s performance as Pamela Voorhees that I personally cite as the reason this movie got any traction at all. For anyone confused, Pamela is actually the killer in this movie – Jason doesn’t make an appearance in the debut movie of his own franchise! I feel like most people know this fun fact by now, majorly because of its mention in Scream, but hey, it might still surprise some people. It was definitely surprising at the time, because there is absolutely no reason at all to suspect Pamela – mainly because she’s not mentioned as a character in the movie until she’s actually revealed as the killer. It’s an incredibly poorly executed ‘twist’, but Betsy Palmer saves the day with her performance. Overall though, the movie is actually quite boring, with very little to set it apart from the rest of the franchise other than being ‘the first one’. So, with a heavy heart, I place it at ninth – and it can thank Betsy Palmer that it made it that high at all.

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8. Freddy vs. Jason (2003)

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Freddy vs. Jason is a strange movie. Part of me adores its bonkers premise, and how it fully commits to the idea of these two horror icons facing off against each other, fist fight and all. The other part of me realises just how badly it’s aged, and though I’m not opposed to the corniness and outlandishness of certain 2000’s horror movies, there are some scenes in this movie that make me squirm at the thought that, at one point in time, people found them cool – a scene involving a certain Kelly Rowland comes to mind. These elements aside though, Freddy vs. Jason is a pretty fun time.

The team behind the movie actually managed to connect the mythologies of Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees surprisingly well, so much so that the crossover actually makes sense. The kills here are impressive too, with a particularly memorable bed execution early in the film by our favourite hockey-masked murderer. What lets this movie down is its incredibly weak cast of ‘survivors’, some of whom have very convoluted storylines for how little we’re meant to care about them (looking at you Lori). There’s also a frustratingly stupid scene where we see that Jason is afraid of water, which makes little to no sense considering how often he’s in it – I get that he drowned, but for the entire franchise up until this point, he’s had absolutely no aversion to aquatics. Essentially, this movie is deeply flawed, but very fun – the perfect choice for a Halloween flick for horror fans.

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7. Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988)

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From Freddy vs. Jason, to Carrie vs. Jason – or at least, that’s the unofficial title given by fans to the much contentious seventh entry in the Friday the 13th franchise, The New Blood. Despite its lower-half spot here, I actually like The New Blood more than most, mainly because I fully buy pretty much everything it’s selling. By this point, realism and Friday the 13th have absolutely nothing to do with each other, and so, the idea of Jason going head-to-head against a young girl with telekinetic powers isn’t so far-fetched – and it’s actually pretty enjoyable.

This is also, in my opinion, one of the best looks Jason has ever had. He manages to be intimidating, while not looking completely outlandishly zombie-like, and better yet, this is the franchise debut for Kane Hodder, the man who, for many, holds the title for the best portrayal of Jason in the series. There’s a lot to love here, but unfortunately, anything that isn’t directly connected to telekinetic Tina and her showdown against Jason is incredibly weak, even by Friday the 13th standards. This is easily one of the most forgettable cast of ‘teens’ in the franchise, and overall, they really weigh down what could have been a much better movie. Oh, and there’s the fact that the kills in this movie are pretty much entirely censored, which for a slasher film, isn’t a great look. If you buy-into the telekinesis plot here, you’re gonna have a great time with The New Blood – if not though, it’ll probably fall on its face. Hard.

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6. Friday the 13th Part III (1982)

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As far as iconography goes, Friday the 13th Part III is potentially the most important movie in the franchise. Of course, it marks the debut of Jason’s hockey mask, which is enough to make this film iconic in and of itself, but I would also argue that this movie’s location and cast are also some of the most memorable in the series – though this opinion isn’t exactly commonly shared. Still, the fact that characters like Fox, Shelly, and Rick have all remained in my memory all these years, and have stayed there since such an early movie in the franchise has to count for something. That, and Chris Higgins is one of my personal favourite final girls in the Friday the 13th movies.

With that being said, this movie loses points for a pretty funny reason – the extreme focus on 3D throughout it. 3D is essentially the gimmick of Part III, and even when you watch it without these features, it’s obvious that’s what they were going for, as various creatures and objects are constantly flung directly into the camera lens. I’ll be honest, as weak as this obsession with 3D makes some of the scenes in this movie, I can’t help but laugh everytime I see them, particularly Rick’s death. Interestingly, the obsession with 3D went so far in this movie, that according to the Crystal Lake Memories documentary, actors were hired not based on acting performance, but based on how well they could use 3D technology. This might explain why the acting in this movie is so awful (you know what scene I’m talking about). Still, for having such an impact on my memory of this franchise, and for having a genuinely terrifying final Jason scene, Part III gets credit where it’s due – and probably some more credit than it deserves.

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5. Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986)

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From this point on, I love all of the movies on this list, so though I know Jason Lives is the favourite of many Friday the 13th fans, fear not! I still love this movie, just not as much as the others listed. Jason Lives gets big points for having the best portrayal of Tommy Jarvis in the franchise, who is essentially the closest thing we have to Jason’s human rival. It is also the conclusion to the ‘Tommy Jarvis’ trilogy that began in the fourth movie, and it sends the character off very well. Tommy is also paired up with Megan Garris here, who stands out as one of the better final girls in the franchise, giving Jason a real fight, and showing off a level of capability that’s almost uncharacteristic of Friday final girls.

Personally, the movie only really falters for me in how annoying the police plot is. With Jason running rampant throughout three movies prior to this one (excluding the original and A New Beginning), so the constant dismissing of Tommy explaining that Jason is back is incredibly irritating, even if I do understand that it’s needed to move the plot along. As a result, Sheriff Mike Garris is one of the most polarising characters in the franchise for me. Aside from this though, the kills are great, Tommy and Megan shine, and all in all, it’s just a really great Friday the 13th movie.

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4. Friday the 13th Part X: Jason X (2001)

Image by New Line Cinema

Now this is a movie that knows how to have fun with the absolutely bonkers concept behind it. Many people have dismissed Jason X over the years, mainly laughing off the idea that Jason going to space could potentially make for a great movie. Nowadays though, following some much-needed revisionism, Jason X has gotten the cult-classic status it deserves, and undeniably, it’s one of, if not the most fun movie in the franchise. The cast here is also excellent, with KM-14, Janessa, Rowan, and Brodski all earning their status as some of the most enjoyable performances in Friday the 13th history. Even Adrienne, who dies early in the movie, has earned a level of fame due to how iconic her kill scene with the liquid nitrogen is.

The movie’s only weakness (aside from its cheesiness that may not land well for everyone) is that, despite how crazy it already is, I wish it took certain opportunities to go even further. There’s a lengthy sequence in this movie where Brodski’s team are annihilated by Jason, and the environment is so dark that it borders on feeling too similar to the old Friday the 13th movies. When Jason operates out loud and proud in this movie, it’s a great time, so I wish we got a little more of that. Still though, this movie is overall a great time, and succeeds at what it aims to do – be campy, ridiculous, and fun. Plus, the movie is surprisingly funny – the camp simulation scene is still one of my favourite moments in the franchise.

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3. Friday the 13th: Remake (2009)

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Where Jason X excelled by taking the franchise to new, out-of-this-world places, the 2009 remake makes its mark by doing the exact opposite. Friday the 13th 2009 is gritty, dark, grounded, and importantly, terrifying. Seriously, Jason has never really scared me throughout the other eleven films in the franchise, but this Jason? Horrifying. The way that he sprints through the woods, and relentlessly chases after his victims takes the character to new heights in terms of horror, a distinctive trait found in other remakes of this era. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and A Nightmare On Elm Street both received remakes in the 2000’s that aimed to take a much darker, more sinister approach to the original movies, and in my opinion, Friday the 13th benefitted from this treatment the most.

With excellent performances from Jared Padalecki and Amanda Righetti as the Miller siblings, combined with Derek Mears fearsome new take on Jason, Friday the 13th 2009 crafts a non-stop thrill ride by compressing the plot of the first four Friday films into one fright-filled extravaganza. It’s jumpscare-filled, packed with memorable kills, and has all the makings of an excellent slasher movie. The only small gripes I have with this movie come from it being too dark (visually, not tonally), and I’m not entirely sure how I feel about the whole ‘Whitney being held captive’ storyline – though it is something new for Jason, so I’ll give it credit for that. It’s usually controversial for a remake to rank higher than an original, especially by such a large margin, but the 2009 remake of Friday the 13th is such a step-up from so many of its predecessors, it wasn’t a difficult choice to make.

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2. Friday the 13th Part II (1981)

Image by Paramount Pictures

Before the 2009 remake, Friday the 13th Part II was for me, easily, the most terrifying depiction of Jason Voorhees in the franchise – and surprisingly, the film achieved this feat without his signature hockey mask. Baghead Jason has earned notoriety for his once-off appearance in Part II, and though the look certainly isn’t as iconic as his later iterations, this distance from his iconography makes him feel all the more menacing. There are multiple scenes throughout Part II that send chills down my spine, in a way that no other Friday movie manages to do.

The kills here are excellent, and Ginny Field is, for many, the best final girl in the franchise, an opinion I would have to agree with. Tina, Chris, and Megan all gave Jason a run for his money, but Ginny holds her own against Jason in such an impressive way, particularly when she uses Pamela’s sweater against him. Ginny is a force to be reckoned with, and shines across from Jason as the movie’s central duo, but the supporting cast do help elevate the movie – particularly Mark and Vickie. That being said, the movie sours somewhat in the disrespect it shows towards the original Friday the 13th final girl, Alice, who is unceremoniously murdered within the opening moments of the film. For more info on Adrienne King’s role in this movie, I would recommend checking out the Crystal Lake Memories documentary – it provides great insight into her experience with Part II as the returning Alice, as well as her life outside of the set. Outside of this though, the movie is a shining example of a Friday film done right, and introduces Jason Voorhees to the world with a bang (and a bag).

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1. Friday the 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter (1984)

Image by Paramount Pictures

In a somewhat unsurprising move though, the gold medal goes to The Final Chapter, a movie that is agreed upon by many as the best in the franchise. For starters, it introduces the Jarvis family, with Corey Feldman depicting a young Tommy Jarvis, only at the starting line of his role as Jason’s ultimate rival. Alongside him is Kimberly Beck, portraying his sister Trish Jarvis, and let’s just say, Tommy’s conviction in the later films runs in the family. The Jarvis twins make for an excellent pair at the centre of what was supposed to be Jason’s final tirade across Crystal Lake.

Though the characters outside of our protagonists aren’t all that memorable, the kills are a different story. Almost every kill in the movie stands out, which is an important asset in a slasher movie. Perhaps the most important kill of all though, is the death of Jason Voorhees, which by all accounts was actually meant to mark the end of his life, and thus, the franchise. Studios want money though, so Jason would return many, many times. Still, there’s no beating the sense of finality that The Final Chapter has when you consider its original intentions. As a slasher movie, it’s near-perfect in every way, and more than deserving of the top spot on our list.

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Conclusion

With a Friday the 13th prequel series on the horizon, it’s the perfect time to revisit this chaotic horror staple, with so many highs and lows, it would make anyone’s head spin. What’s your favourite Friday the 13th movie? Do you agree with our ranking, or did we completely miss the mark? Be sure to let us know in the comments!

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