What Are The Most Successful Film Franchises Of All Time?

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In recent years, Hollywood has become awash with film franchises, from adventures in a galaxy far far away, to superheroes, to magical schools, to a legendary assassin getting revenge on the people that killed his dog, franchises span a wide range of genres. But what is the “most successful” film franchise of all time? Well, that rather depends on how you rate success.

Helpfully, the folk over at online slots site Betway have put together a list which looks at a range of criteria to come up with an index of the most successful film franchises. This takes into account the highest-grossing franchise films (Box Office Mojo), the highest-rated franchise films (IMDb), and the franchises that have won the most awards (IMDb), along with the franchises that have the most returning cast members (IMDb), and the most searched-for franchises (ahrefs data). Here’s what they discovered.

What are the highest-grossing film franchises?

Let’s begin with the money, given that is the major factor for studios as to whether they continue a franchise or not. It should come as no shock to anyone that Marvel sits on top of this list, although Star Wars does come a close second, with Harry Potter trailing a little further behind in third place.

I you look further down the list, two more Marvel properties also pop up – Spider-man, which takes fourth place on its own, and X-Men, which takes seventh. Whilst you could boost Marvel’s lead further by bundling these all into one “Marvel” bracket, that wouldn’t really be fair. The Spider-man movie franchise is owned by Sony, not Marvel directly, whereas the X-Men franchise was under the control of Fox. That has changed more recently with Disney (who owns Marvel) buying out Fox in 2019, allowing them to bring the X-Men into the Marvel Cinematic Universe at some point in the future.

What are the highest-rated film franchises?

Next, we move on to ratings, which are based on data taken from IMDb. Here we get a bit of a switch, as whilst a movie franchise might bring in the cash, it doesn’t mean it is always the most loved by critics and filmgoers. This time, the top spot is handed to The Lord of The Rings franchise, which includes both The Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit trilogies. There is a change in second place too, with the Harry Potter franchise casting its magic to push Marvel into third place.

Which franchises have won the most awards?

You don’t always think of movie franchises when it comes to awards, due to many of the big awards like the Oscars and BAFTA overlooking big-budget blockbusters in the main categories. However, many franchise films do pick up accolades for behind-the-scenes work such as visual effects, costume, score, and make-up. Marvel reclaims the top spot here, bagging an impressive 555 awards in total, including a BAFTA for Best Special Visual Effects on Black Panther, and an Oscar for Best Makeup and Hairstyling on Guardians of the Galaxy.

The Lord of The Rings franchise pops up in second place with 494 awards including a Best Film BAFTA for The Fellowship of the Ring and The Return of the King taking home eleven Oscars. Star Wars came third with a total of 348 awards across their franchise, including Oscars for John Williams’ brilliant score and the visual effects on the film that started it all, Episode IV: A New Hope.

Which franchises have the most returning cast members?

When you have a big franchise, there are characters which you want to return again and again, so making sure the cast sign up for multiple films is an important part of the process. As you might expect, Marvel has this nailed down with your favourite superheroes jumping from film to film with ease! A total of 232 cast members have returned across multiple MCU movies.

Second place goes to the Harry Potter franchise. I doubt Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter), Emma Watson (Hermione Granger), Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley) and the rest of the students at Hogwarts could have had any idea just how insanely popular that franchise would be when they signed up for Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone over twenty years ago (and yes, sorry, you are that old!) 219 cast members came back across the franchise there.

Star Wars takes the third place spot, with 121 cast reappearing since Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope premiered in 1977.

What are the most searched-for franchises?

Lastly, we look at which film franchises the general public searched for the most, whether it’s looking for when the next film is out, movie merchandise, the latest trailer, or more information about the characters.

The top spot goes here to Star Wars, getting the highest overall score when taking into account all those search factors. Spider-Man swings into second place, with Harry Potter waving their wand over third.

What Are The Most Successful Film Franchises Of All Time?

So, pulling all this data together, which film franchises overall come out on top? It is, of course, the beloved Star Wars franchise. The adventures of Luke, Han, Chewie, Leia, Obi-Wan, and Vader have been entertaining people of all ages since 1977, and show no signs of stopping. Whilst things have gone a bit quiet on the movie side for the moment, Star Wars is very much alive and well on Disney+, in both live-action and animation.

Interestingly, Spider-Man manages to beat out his fellow Avengers to land the second-place spot. There is a lot of love for the web-slinger out there, and you can see why Sony are continuing to expand the franchise, recently announcing a new set of Spider-Man adjacent tv series coming to Prime Video.

Third place goes to Marvel and their MCU juggernaut. As we come to the end of Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the franchise shows no signs of slowing down on the big or small screen. Next year, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania will kick off Phase Five in February 2023, followed by Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and The Marvels later in the year. That will continue through the following year, before we hit Phase Six in late 2024/early 2025.

Whatever your thoughts on movie franchises, they are most definitely here to stay for the foreseeable future.