Ranking the Ocean’s Franchise

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Ranking the Ocean’s Franchise

The Ocean’s franchise is the most famous heist movie franchise of all time. As is the case with all heist movies, they are fun, but a disposable form of entertainment with great humor and solid action, but weaker storylines. This series has its weak entries, but it also has a couple of strong ones. So here is my ranking of all the entries released so far.

5. Ocean’s Twelve

Yes, this flick has per usual very good humor and the characterization is reliably strong, but other than those good aspects, this is easily the weakest of the Ocean’s movies and thus deservedly sitting on my last spot. It is very forgettable and disposable, but its incoherent plot is particularly frustrating to follow.

4. Ocean’s 11

Ocean’s 11 is probably the first heist movie ever and it thus needs to be respected. Its score is excellent and the ensemble cast is phenomenal. However, the movie did not age well at all owing to its lack of more action scenes and a particularly slow, uninvolving pace. It has its strong moments, but it mostly fails to generate any genuine excitement.

3. Ocean’s Thirteen

As far as third movies go, Ocean’s Thirteen is better than many. It really bothered me how few female characters it has and the action is pretty weak, but the cast is reliably suave and fun plus the character dynamic and the team overall worked so well here. It’s an improvement upon its predecessor with the standout being Matt Damon who thankfully got much more to do here.

2. Ocean’s 8

This spin-off/continuation of the franchise proved to be a good choice for the series despite its detractors such as the lack of a strong team dynamic and a weaker second act. But I just loved the beginning and the heist is pretty entertaining in its own right. The all-female cast is particularly superb with suave Sandra Bullock and funny Anne Hathaway being the standouts.

1. Ocean’s Eleven

Ocean’s Eleven is a textbook example of how to properly do a remake – they took a very dated material and made it fresh again by including a lot of fun action scenes and a more energetic approach to telling its story. It still has a not so memorable heist, but it’s the best entry in the franchise so far mostly thanks to its infectious energy and a great cast where Don Cheadle is the funniest and George Clooney’s Danny Ocean is the most effortlessly cool member.