A Quiet Place Movies Ranked: Best to Worst

The A Quiet Place movies rank best to worst as A Quiet Place (2018), then A Quiet Place: Day One, then A Quiet Place Part II, judged on three things: how cleverly each film uses silence as a rule, how much I care about the people on screen, and how well the creatures are staged as a threat. Box office is context and not a score. This is opinion, and a different viewer could shuffle the order without being wrong. A Quiet Place Part III is not ranked because it has not been released, and you can follow its progress on the A Quiet Place Part III page.

If you want the story order before you read on, the A Quiet Place movies in order page lays out both release and chronological order. For the wider series, start at the A Quiet Place movies hub.

A Quiet Place (2018), directed by John Krasinski, is the best film in the series because it builds its whole scare engine out of one simple rule and then never cheats it. Sightless creatures with extremely sharp hearing hunt anything that makes noise, so the Abbott family lives on an isolated New York farm and talks in American Sign Language. The film lands its first gut punch early, when young Beau is killed after switching on a noisy toy, and Evelyn is left expecting a baby in a world that punishes every cry.

What makes it work is the cast and the craft together. Emily Blunt and Krasinski play the parents, Millicent Simmonds plays Regan and Noah Jupe plays Marcus, and the sign language scenes give the family a believable private life. The production shot on 35mm and filmed the silo practically, and Screen Global Production reported filming in Pawling, New Paltz and Little Falls, with 24 acres of corn. Marco Beltrami scored it, and the film runs a tight 91 minutes. It opened SXSW in 2018 as the opening night film, and it went on to gross roughly $341 million worldwide against a $17 million budget, according to Box Office Mojo. So, to answer a common question, it was a hit by any measure. You can read more on the A Quiet Place 2018 page.

A Quiet Place: Day One (2024), directed by Michael Sarnoski, is second because it changes the angle without losing the rule. Lupita Nyong'o plays Sam, a terminally ill cancer patient in a hospice outside New York City, and Joseph Quinn plays Eric. Alex Wolff and Djimon Hounsou are in the mix too, and Sam's service cat, Frodo, quietly steals the film. Sarnoski has said there is no CG cat, and two real cats played the part.

The film is more about grief and a last good day than about family survival, and in my opinion that is why it lands. The production built sets at Leavesden, redressed Chinatown as Harlem and used just over 400 VFX shots from ILM, which is restrained for a city under attack. Alexis Grapsas composed the score, and Nina Simone's Feeling Good is a notable song choice. It runs 100 minutes and grossed about $262 million worldwide on a $67 million budget, according to Box Office Mojo and The Numbers. It could be argued that it is a friendly entry point for a newcomer, though I would still start with the original. See the A Quiet Place Day One page for details.

A Quiet Place Part II (2021), directed by Krasinski, is third because its second half moves between locations more than it builds one sustained trap. That being said, it opens with the best sequence in the series: the first day of the invasion at a small town baseball game, when the sky lights up with a falling object and the armored creatures attack. The story then jumps ahead to Evelyn, Regan, Marcus and a newborn baby leaving their wrecked farm to look for survivors.

Cillian Murphy joins as Emmett, a neighbor who lost his own family, and the group shelters in an old steel foundry after Marcus is hurt in a trap. Murphy gives the film real weight, and Simmonds gets more to do as Regan. Even so, the 97 minute runtime splits attention across several threads, and none of them reaches the focused dread of the farm. It grossed about $298 million worldwide on a $61 million budget, according to Box Office Mojo. Is Quiet Place 2 better than 1? In my opinion, no, though it is a worthy sequel. The A Quiet Place Part II page has the full facts.

A Quiet Place Part III is confirmed for a US release on July 30, 2027, and it sits outside this ranking until it arrives. TheWrap reported the date from Krasinski, and Variety Australia reported an earlier date of July 9, 2027, so the film has moved once. Krasinski is writing, directing and producing, and the cast includes Blunt, Murphy, Simmonds and Jupe. The order above will be revisited once the film is released. In the meantime, the A Quiet Place reviews page will hold our verdicts as they are written, and the A Quiet Place box office page has the numbers.