Every Jason Bourne Movie Ranked
If you want to know what drove the mood of '00s action cinema, you need to look to one franchise: the Bourne movies. For a stretch of time there, Matt Damon's amnesiac super-spy took over the genre, and the franchise's low-fi, barrel-fisted, chaos-first and sense-later approach to storytelling forced a radical reinvention of how Hollywood produced movies like this. Even James Bond was forced to adapt. Over 20 years after the first film hit theaters, we've absorbed what this series was throwing down so thoroughly, so completely, that what was fresh and thrilling back then sometimes feels a bit standard now. Jason Bourne — and those who wrote and directed his films — raised the bar so effectively that everyone was forced to play catch-up.
Although the series has seemingly come to an end (a spin-off film and an attempted revival didn't quite get anyone's motors running, as this article will attest), it remains a subject of fascination among action aficionados. The baby-faced Damon, still fresh on the scene, proved he could be a badass hero. Director Paul Greengrass reinvented what an action scene could look and sound like. And fans of character actors in suits standing around rooms lit by computer screens, scowling at blurry satellite photos, will forever weep tears of joy. Even in retirement, Jason Bourne reigns supreme.
So naturally, we here are /Film had to do what you do with every movie franchise at some point. We had to rank all of the movies.
5. Jason Bourne (2016)
Underwhelming cinema, thy name is "Jason Bourne."
The problem with the 2016 relaunch of the Bourne franchise is not that this is a bad movie. It's not bad, really. It's made by capable hands — returning director Paul Greengrass knows what he's doing and Matt Damon commits to the part with his usual understated nerve. The problem is that the original trilogy wrapped up this whole story just fine, with that open-ended conclusion feeling like the perfect final statement rather than a loose thread. "Jason Bourne" never finds a reason to exist beyond someone at the studio realizing this is a franchise with a name people recognize. There's no pulse to it, no drive, no "Wow, I can't believe that just happened!" moment. It's a film made by obscenely talented people on autopilot, happy to be back for an easy hit, but not inspired enough to do their best work.
The result is something that can't help but feel more disappointing than an absolute dud. If this was a debacle, it would've been fun to talk about, to pick apart, to ponder. Instead, it's just more of the same but made with less enthusiasm and care. It's a band playing their greatest hits. They know how to do this in their sleep, so they do. Considering just how thrilling the original trilogy of films was, and how each one felt the need to top the previous one in ambition, that's the ultimate letdown. (Jacob Hall)
4. The Bourne Legacy (2012)
In 2012, five years after the original Bourne trilogy had concluded on a critical and financial high note, Universal made a gamble. They gambled that people would care about the Bourne Universe without Matt Damon or Jason Bourne himself. They also gambled that rising star Jeremy Renner was the man to lead audiences into this bold new world. The gamble didn't pay off.
"The Bourne Legacy" is an odd movie. It's by no means embarrassing to watch or poorly made, as director Tony Gilroy (who had been with the franchise since the first movie as a screenwriter) is a fine filmmaker who knows how to shoot an engaging movie and Renner is a good actor. The problem is that Gilroy's filmmaking can't match the chaotic madness of Paul Greengrass and the muscular throwback panache of Doug Liman, and that Renner, while a dynamic performer, just doesn't have that movie star magnetism of Matt Damon. You like watching him, but he can't carry a movie on his shoulders alone. He is the definition of an ensemble player.
Without Bourne and without Damon, "Legacy" just goes in one eye and out the other, barely leaving a trace of its existence in the mind. Over a decade later, no one can tell you the plot of the movie, or how Renner's character figures into it. But they do remember that everyone says the word "chems" a lot. That is the true legacy of "The Bourne Legacy." (Jacob Hall)
3. The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
"The Bourne Identity" ushered in a thrilling, run-and-gun filmmaking style that would take over the entire genre and "The Bourne Ultimatum" brought the original trilogy to a polished, deeply satisfying, full-circle close ... but "The Bourne Supremacy" was the one to marry the best of both worlds and deliver the rarest kind of action sequel. Here, the maverick shaky-cam of Doug Liman's 2002 movie becomes a precisely-honed weapon under director Paul Greengrass' eye for carefully-controlled chaos. Every shot and adjoining cut maximizes the intended effect of any given scene and, where the other films boast one stand-out action sequence each, "Supremacy" ramps up the spectacle right from the start. It opens with a heart-stopping car chase through Goa, India, neatly transitions to a visceral hand-to-hand battle in a Munich apartment, and stages an utterly rewatchable foot chase in Moscow before building to the crescendo of one of the best car chases ever put to film.
What truly sets "Supremacy" apart from the rest of the franchise, however, is its deceptively simple plot. Framed for a crime he never committed, Bourne spends much of the film on his back foot and at a severe disadvantage compared to the numerous agencies out for his blood. By the time his fractured memories finally begin to coalesce, however, he realizes that survival and revenge must take a back seat to something even more potent. Haunted by the killing that made him who he was, Bourne risks everything over the smallest act — seeking atonement. (Jeremy Mathai)
2. The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)
Debating which film is the best in the original "Bourne" trilogy is a lot like asking someone to choose between their children, but as far as this writer is concerned, there's never been a "Bourne" movie better than 2007's "The Bourne Ultimatum." The thrilling conclusion of director Paul Greengrass' saga is not just one of the best "Bourne" movies, it's also the one of the best action films of the 2000s. Taking place just a few weeks after the events of "The Bourne Supremacy," everyone's favorite psychogenic amnesiac action hero goes on an international manhunt to learn the truth behind not just Operation Blackbriar, but his own identity.
The film boasts some of the best action sequences of the entire franchise, with heart-pounding chase scenes, and non-stop twists. Matt Damon also delivers his most committed performance as the titular assassin, likely because he thought this was the last time he would take on the moniker. Watching him jump out the window with the follow-cam shot? Now, that's cinema. "The Bourne Ultimatum" eventually took home three Academy Awards for Best Film Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Sound Editing, beating out films like "No Country for Old Men," "Transformers," and "There Will Be Blood." For the third film in an action series, that's certainly something to write home about. (BJ Colangelo)
1. The Bourne Identity (2002)
What better way to hit reset on action movies than with an action star who constantly questions his own abilities? "Who am I?" Jason Bourne asks in "The Bourne Identity," a perfectly meta interrogation of what "action star" was supposed to mean in 2002. The first entry charted a new, grounded course for the genre at a time when Bond was infiltrating ice palaces in invisible cars. As Bourne rediscovered who he was, so too did we rediscover the action hero archetype.
But regardless of its wider impact on the genre, it's also a more finely-tuned film than the sequels. Director Doug Liman deployed fast-paced editing and shaky-cam with tact, while Paul Greengrass pushed the subsequent movies' intensity levels to the max, shooting even CIA boardroom meetings shaky-cam style. It still made for riveting action, but Liman established the blueprint with perhaps a little more tasteful restraint.
What's more, the sequels leaned into Jason Bourne as established badass, featuring much of the classic "Greek chorus" technique whereby characters other than the hero talk up the protagonist's unassailable skills so as to give them an almost supernatural aura — think Richard Crenna's Colonel Trautman telling the Sheriff in "First Blood," "I didn't come here to rescue Rambo from you, I came here to rescue you from him." But with "Identity" we discovered Bourne's own tactical and combat prowess along with him, making for not only a compelling spy thriller, but a genuinely novel action movie that inspired innumerable "Bourne Identity" imitators. (Joe Roberts)