Every James Gunn Movie, Ranked Worst To Best

From the low-budget gross-outs of Troma films to head of DC movies at Warner Bros. is a journey maybe only James Gunn could have made. Heavily versed in all the classics — Marvel, DC, and Shakespeare — the writer/director's sensibility have always jelled with fans of his generation and beyond. In his younger years, he made cult films that college kids delighted in. As he grew in stature, his pop culture sensibilities became mainstream. Frequently working with other people's properties, he very much made them his own, to the point that his takes often eclipse the originals. Yondu, Peacemaker, Polka-Dot Man, Mantis, Drax ... chances are when you picture all of these characters, you're thinking of interpretations specifically created by Gunn.

Gunn made his name as a distinctive screenwriter before directing his own words, so in ranking his films we're including features written by him and directed by others. We're not including shorts or segments, so "PG Porn" and "Troma TV" aren't on here. Nor is "Peacemaker," as it's a TV show. Even when other helmers as distinctive as Zack Snyder took on his words, Gunn's voice has always come through, though sometimes to far better effect than others. Here's every James Gunn movie, ranked worst to best.

James Gunn's feature directorial debut, a horror-comedy about killer alien slugs, is an amalgamation of his many pop culture influences thrown into a blender. Where it falls short of his other films, however, is in the need to point them all out. From character names like "MacReady" and "Flagg" to shot homages based on the likes of "A Nightmare on Elm Street," it falls into the film school trap of showing off every influence to prove the director knows his stuff. That only works well for someone like Quentin Tarantino, who references other movies so obscure that only the most hardcore exploitation heads get the references, and more casual viewers aren't taken out of the film by them.

The humor works, and the gore effects are aces, but watching "Slither" still feels a bit like having the class nerd desperately trying to convince the cool kids that he's down with all their faves (something his pal Joss Whedon made a career of, to be fair). With a track record of clever and successful screenplays under his belt, Gunn didn't have to prove himself to anybody, but he might have tried too hard here. The best result was that he formed ongoing friendships with Nathan Fillion and Michael Rooker, who would go on to deliver some of their best work in entries further down this list.

Suppose you weren't online during the years that the "Dawn of the Dead" remake was being made. In that case, you may not be able to imagine the sheer amount of hatred aimed at James Gunn and a relatively unknown director named Zack Snyder for daring to touch George A. Romero's zombies-in-a-shopping-mall-classic. The original was considered by many cinephiles to be the best zombie movie ever made, and the Scooby-Doo guy dared to think he could rewrite it. Then-prominent Internet geek personality Harry Knowles repeatedly and publicly savaged the idea, with his fans proceeding to harass Gunn until Knowles finally read the script and did a 180.

Though Romero's film won't be replaced, Snyder and Gunn's film made its mark by using "fast zombies." The walking undead onscreen had previously been distinguished by shuffling movement and relative individual weakness. The power of zombies was always in numbers and packs. Gunn changed that, making unique zombies capable of predatory speed and focus, to the point that one could bite before a person even knew it. Zombie-adjacent franchises like "Resident Evil" and "28 Days Later" also took that notion and, well, ran with it. We still got zombies in a mall, but by changing what the zombies actually were the remake made itself new. It's one of Gunn's least overtly comedic scripts, but many of the kill gags are as sickly amusing as fans would expect.

Somehow, James Gunn persuaded Warner Bros. to give him $185 million to essentially remake "Troma's War." In that low-budget exploitation film, survivors of a plane crash wash up on the beach of an island where insane military types are engaged in biological experiments with which to attack the USA. "The Suicide Squad" mainly adds superheroes and intelligent marine life to that calculus.

While Gunn talked big during the promotional tour for the film about how any character could die, nobody was likely that surprised when the main characters played by the biggest stars survived. The gory death scenes played for laughs really weren't as shocking as they'd been hyped up to be, and unlike David Ayer's genuinely transgressive predecessor "Suicide Squad" (which reimagined major DC supervillains with a Los Angeles gangster-style makeover), Gunn essentially made Adam West Batman-style camp versions of the key characters, then had them commit R-rated violence. The main reason "The Suicide Squad" is as high on this list as it is? It spawned the "Peacemaker" TV show, which is legitimately some of Gunn's finest work. Long-suffering WWE fans finally got to see John Cena turn heel and break free from PG, and both developments proved hugely satisfying.

"Parting is such sweet sorrow!" declares Juliet. "Totally sucks!" affirms Tromeo, her would-be star-crossed lover in Troma Studios' "Tromeo and Juliet," a Shakespeare semi-adaptation by way of "Class of Nuke 'em High." Narrated by Motorhead singer Lemmy, Lloyd Kaufman's violent, gross, and very funny butchery of the bard takes place in Manhattan, involves a giant penis monster, and was James Gunn's first produced feature screenplay. So much better was it than most Troma fare that it gave the studio a brief comeback of sorts. Kaufman followed it with "Terror Firmer," "Toxic Avenger IV," and "Poultrygeist," meaning he didn't necessarily learn the proper lessons. Rather than noting that audiences were enjoying Gunn's clever meta-humor, Kaufman fixated more on the toilet jokes, amping that aspect up in subsequent films. The director's recent return to Shakespeare with "The Tempest" parody "Shakespeare's Sh*tstorm" features "Free Willy"-ish leaping killer whales repeatedly raining diarrhea on boats below them.

With a soundtrack boasting the likes of Wesley Willis, Superchunk, Brujeria, and Motorhead, along with a vastly changed ending in which the lovers discover they're siblings and have deformed kids together, "Tromeo and Juliet" gained punk-rock cred and college campus followings Troma hadn't had in years. Nobody would have guessed at the time that the scribe who turned Juliet into an incestuous cow monster would one day be in charge of Scooby-Doo and Superman.

If "The Specials" demonstrated that James Gunn could write an excellent X-Men parody, "Super" proved he could direct an equally darkly comedic riff on Batman. Rainn Wilson plays the Crimson Bolt, a short-order cook who feels called to fight crime in costume when the finger of God reaches inside his head in a vision. Donning red spandex and adopting the phrase "Shut up, crime!" he proceeds to beat offenders in the head with a wrench. Ultimately, he wants to win back his girlfriend (Liv Tyler) from her new drug-dealing man (Kevin Bacon). To do it, he finds a willing sidekick in the delightfully pervy Boltie (Elliot Page), a comic store clerk who's even more violent in her inclinations.

With Michael Rooker as an evil henchman and Nathan Fillion as a Christian TV show superhero called The Holy Avenger, not to mention Rob Zombie as the voice of God, "Super" isn't exactly family-friendly. Its climactic bloodbath is much more "Scarface" than "Iron Man." In combining virulent misanthropy with a weird sweetness and sense of empathy, Gunn demonstrated a rare understanding of the complex feelings great comics can evoke. We can morally condemn the Crimson Bolt, enjoy his beatdowns of bad guys, and feel sad about his inner emptiness all at once. With the MCU only just beginning, there was a more complex voice they needed to co-opt. In hindsight, it also feels like a dry run for "Peacemaker."