Fast & Furious: All 11 movies ranked worst to best

10) 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)

2 Fast 2 Furious is the only installment in the franchise where our muscle-bound patriarch Dom is absent. The film tries to make up for this void by teaming Brian up with the wisecracking duo of Roman and Tej, played by Tyrese and Ludacris. While they’ve since become a hilarious staple of the franchise, this film doesn’t quite give their witty banter the spotlight it deserves. Yes, Brian and Roman share a somewhat acerbic camaraderie, but it simply doesn’t hold a candle to the brotherly bond Brian and Dom share. The movie lacks an emotionally compelling relationship to root for.

That being said, 2 Fast 2 Furious revs things up in terms of action, serving up stunts where vehicles smash into boats or get obliterated under the colossal tires of a truck. There’s an endearing absurdity to these sequences that keeps the fun alive. Even though it’s the movie I tend to revisit least, it’s undeniably an F&F movie. As such, expect the usual high-speed car chases, overblown drama, and memorable dialogue.

9) The Fate of the Furious (2017)

In the aftermath of Paul Walker’s untimely death, the creators of Fate of the Furious had a monumental task at hand: carrying forward the legacy of the franchise without one of its central characters. The heartache was palpable, but franchise veteran Chris Morgan and new addition F. Gary Gray made a bold move. They decided to stir things up by making the loyal family figurehead Dom Toretto betray his crew, an audacious flip in the narrative.

The new approach pushed the franchise’s well-loved formula to the brink of collapse. The film seemed to lose sight of the “family first” ethos at the series’ heart. They controversially pardoned Jason Statham’s Deckard Shaw for murdering Han, one of the franchise’s most beloved characters, a move that undercut the series’ goofy sincerity.

It’s a shame, particularly because Statham’s charismatic heroism adds an appealing dimension to the film, especially in his interactions with Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson). This duo injects a dose of buddy comedy into the narrative, which was on the verge of being lost due to Walker’s absence. This dynamic was so captivating that it later spun off into an entirely new franchise.

Fate also introduced Cipher (Charlize Theron), a fearsome hacker with a notably outrageous wig. Theron takes a low-key approach to the role, threatening our characters in hushed whispers, while Helen Mirren takes delight in playing Magdalene Shaw.

There are certainly moments of spectacle throughout the film, but none of them quite compensate for the movie’s core betrayal of the franchise’s identity.