Resident Evil Movies Ranked: All Eight Films, Best to Worst

In my opinion, the Resident Evil movies rank like this, best to worst: Resident Evil (2002), Resident Evil (2026), Resident Evil: Extinction, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, Resident Evil: Afterlife, Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, Resident Evil: Retribution and Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City. That is eight films across three runs: the six films with Milla Jovovich, the 2021 reboot, and Zach Cregger's new film.

My method is simple. I weigh how well each film uses its setting and its monsters, how clearly the story is told, how it treats its characters, and what it earned against what it cost. Money does not decide the order (a film can make a fortune and still disappoint), but it is a fair check on my taste. Box office and budget figures come from Box Office Mojo and The Numbers, and the full table sits on the Resident Evil box office page. Everything below is opinion, so disagree freely.

Fans often compare the Alice saga with the source material, and the Resident Evil games vs movies page covers that debate.

Resident Evil (2002), directed by Paul W. S. Anderson, is the best of the series because it commits to a small, tight idea. Alice (a character created for the films, who is not in the games) wakes in a mansion with no memory, and a commando team arrives to descend into the Hive, a hidden underground lab where the Red Queen computer has sealed everyone in. The corridors, the train ride down and the lockdown logic give it a clear shape that the sequels traded for scale. It cost $33 million and took in about $103 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo, so it paid for itself more than three times over. Michelle Rodriguez as Rain is a big part of why the ensemble works.

Resident Evil (2026), written and directed by Zach Cregger, takes second place for changing the angle. Instead of a superhuman hero, it follows Bryan (Austin Abrams), a medical courier on a snowy night, who takes a double pay delivery to Raccoon City General Hospital and gets bitten on the way. Putting an ordinary person in a hospital full of Umbrella's outbreak victims is a smart use of a 95 minute runtime. It is also the series record holder: a $60 million US opening, according to Deadline, and a reported $400 million worldwide on a $75 million budget. I rank it below the original only because the 2002 film has the longer shadow.

Resident Evil: Extinction, directed by Russell Mulcahy, is the best of the sequels in my view. The T-virus has turned most of the planet into desert, a clone of Alice dies in a trap in the opening scene, and the real Alice drifts alone while Claire Redfield (Ali Larter) leads a convoy across the wasteland. The post collapse mood, closer to a western than to a horror film, gave the saga a distinct look. It made about $148 million worldwide on a $45 million budget, which is a decent return, if not a spectacular one.

Resident Evil: Apocalypse, directed by Alexander Witt, is the film that brought game characters into the Alice story, and that is both its charm and its problem. Umbrella seals Raccoon City after the T-virus spreads, and Alice teams up with Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory) and Carlos Olivera (Oded Fehr) while the supersoldier Nemesis hunts them. The Nemesis chase is a proper set piece and the film runs a lean 94 minutes. It earned about $129 million worldwide on $45 million, a bigger total than the original but a weaker multiple.

Resident Evil: Afterlife, directed by Paul W. S. Anderson, brought him back to the series and was its first 3D instalment, according to Screen Daily. After a raid on Umbrella's Tokyo base, Albert Wesker takes Alice's powers, and she searches Alaska for the rumored safe haven Arcadia, where she finds Claire with her memory gone. Albert Wesker is now played by Shawn Roberts, and Wentworth Miller joins as Chris Redfield. It looked slick and it sold: about $300 million worldwide on a $60 million budget, with most of that from overseas. For me, the slow motion action leans harder on style than on the stakes.

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, directed by Paul W. S. Anderson, opened in Japan in December 2016 and reached the US in January 2017. Alice wakes in the ruined White House, and the Red Queen tells her Umbrella holds an airborne antivirus that could end the outbreak, but it will wait 48 hours for the last human survivors to die, so she must return to the Hive beneath Raccoon City. Going back to the series' starting place is a good idea, and Ever Anderson's turn as Young Alicia and the Red Queen adds an interesting twist. It earned about $312 million worldwide on a $40 million budget, almost eight times its cost, though only about $27 million of that came from the US. I rank it sixth because its frantic editing makes the fights hard to follow across 107 minutes.

Resident Evil: Retribution, directed by Paul W. S. Anderson, is where the saga's habit of cramming in fan favorites gets out of hand. Alice is captured after Umbrella gunships attack the ship Arcadia, with Jill under mind control, and she wakes as a suburban housewife with a deaf daughter named Becky. That opening domestic sequence is the best part. Later the film brings in Leon Kennedy (Johann Urb), Ada Wong (Li Bingbing) and Barry Burton (Kevin Durand), each with too little to do. It took about $240 million on a $65 million budget, so it did fine commercially.

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, directed by Johannes Roberts, goes last, but I want to be fair to it. It is the film that tries hardest to match the games, set in 1998 with Claire (Kaya Scodelario), Chris (Robbie Amell), Jill (Hannah John-Kamen), Leon (Avan Jogia), Wesker (Tom Hopper), Chief Irons (Donal Logue) and William Birkin (Neal McDonough). In my opinion, 107 minutes is too short to give all of them room. It made about $42 million worldwide on a $25 million budget, the smallest gross of the eight.

If you want to watch all eight yourself, start with the Resident Evil movies in order page, then check where to watch Resident Evil for what is streaming in your country.