Twilight Movies Ranked From Best to Worst

I ranked the five Twilight films by how well each one serves the love story at the center of the saga, then by how it handles its own set pieces, supporting cast and pacing, and I left critic scores out of it entirely. Everything below is opinion, and I have tried to keep it separate from the facts, which come from Box Office Mojo, The Numbers and the studio and trade coverage of each release.

Why not simply average the critic and audience scores? Because repeating someone else's arithmetic would swap my judgment for theirs. What I can offer is a stated order, reasons you can disagree with, and the grosses that show what audiences actually paid to see. That being said, the two lists do not match, and the gap between them is the interesting part. The film I place first earned the least, and the film that earned the most sits third.

Twilight (2008), directed by Catherine Hardwicke, is my pick for the best film in the series, and I think the small scale is the reason. With a $37 million budget, it has no army to fight and no wedding to stage. It has Bella Swan, newly arrived in the rainy town of Forks, Washington to live with her father Charlie, and Edward Cullen behaving oddly around her until he saves her from a sliding van in the school parking lot. Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson play the early scenes with an awkwardness that suits two teenagers who cannot stop staring at each other. The film also launched a soundtrack that topped the Billboard 200, with Decode by Paramore as its signature song. It earned about $405 million worldwide, the lowest of the five, which tells me it was the least expensive way into the story rather than the least loved. You can read the full details on the twilight 2008 film page.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, directed by David Slade, is the best of the sequels because it finally gives the saga a plot with a clock on it. A string of killings in Seattle points to a growing group of newborn vampires, and Victoria (now played by Bryce Dallas Howard, after Rachelle Lefevre in the first two films) is quietly building them into an army aimed at Edward. Bella is graduating and wants Edward to change her, and Jacob chooses this moment to tell her he loves her, which makes the triangle feel earned rather than assumed. Howard Shore's score and the Muse single Neutron Star Collision give it a darker edge than New Moon had. Details are on the twilight eclipse page.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2, directed by Bill Condon, is the most confident film in the series, and it is the one audiences turned out for in the greatest numbers, with about $889 million worldwide according to Box Office Mojo. Bella wakes as a newborn vampire and plainly enjoys it, which is a welcome change after years of her being the one who needs rescuing. Her daughter Renesmee grows at a startling speed, Jacob bonds with the child, and Irina misreads what she sees and carries the news to the Volturi, which brings Michael Sheen and Jamie Campbell Bower in as Aro and Caius. The Renesmee effect, built by face mapping Mackenzie Foy after the production dropped an animatronic doll, is uneven, and I could argue it holds the film just below Eclipse. Read more on the breaking dawn part 2 page, and meet renesmee in her own entry.

The Twilight Saga: New Moon, directed by Chris Weitz, who took over after Hardwicke left, is more interesting than its reputation suggests. Bella turns eighteen, a paper cut at her birthday party sends Jasper lunging, and Edward leaves Forks with his family, so the middle of the film is about grief and an absent leading man. That is hard to dramatize, and the early stretch drags in my opinion. What rescues it is jacob black, whom Taylor Lautner turns into a real second lead, and the Volturi, with Michael Sheen as Aro and Dakota Fanning as Jane, shot in Montepulciano in Italy. Alexandre Desplat scored it and Death Cab for Cutie contributed Meet Me on the Equinox. It earned about $710 million. See the twilight new moon page for the rest.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1, also directed by Bill Condon, lands last for me, though I want to be fair to it. The final book was split across two films shot back to back, and Part 1 carries the slow half: a wedding, a honeymoon on a private island, and Jacob's anger at the match, all in 117 minutes. The wedding itself is staged with care, and Carter Burwell's score gives it some warmth, but it is a film of preparation. Its budget of $110 million and a gross of about $732 million show it did well, so this is a placement about pacing, not about popularity. It is also the only entry rated MA15+ in Australia (the others are M), which parents there should keep in mind. The breaking dawn part 1 page has the details.

If you want the love story at its simplest, start with Twilight (2008), and if you want the most action, go to Eclipse. If you are watching with teenagers who have not seen the saga, the twilight movies in order guide shows the sequence, and the twilight books vs movies page explains where the adaptations differ from Stephenie Meyer's novels. A newer story is in development as well: Twilight: Midnight Sun, an animated series ordered by Netflix in September 2024, is television, not a film, and has no release date. For anything beyond that, see the new twilight movie page. Pick your starting film from the order above, and check where to watch twilight before you settle in.