X-MEN: Every Movie Ranked According To Their Rotten Tomatoes Score

The X-Men franchise has been hit-and-miss for many comic book fans, but how do they compare when their Rotten Tomatoes scores are taken into account? The series is no stranger to being Fresh or Rotten...

By JoshWilding - Sep 24, 2020 08:09 AM EST

Filed Under: X-Men

Love it or hate it, Rotten Tomatoes is now more important than ever when it comes to whether moviegoers decide to check out the latest releases in theaters (well, when they were still being released in them), and it's not uncommon for studios to tout scores as proudly as star ratings.

The X-Men franchise has felt the wrath of critics and their love over the years, and while Marvel Studios now plans to reboot the characters for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it's hard not to look back at the twenty years of stories Fox delivered without at least a handful of fond memories.

It goes without saying that looking back at how these movies fared on the review aggregator makes for interesting reading, and we think you'll agree after seeing how they all stack up against each other.

To take a look through this feature, all you guys need to do is click the "Next" button below!

14. Dark Phoenix

Score: 22%

Rotten or Fresh? Rotten

Critics Consensus: Dark Phoenix ends an era of the X-Men franchise by taking a second stab at adapting a classic comics arc -- with deeply disappointing results.

The final chapter in the X-Men saga was a complete and utter disaster, and Simon Kinberg proved that he's simply not capable of stepping behind the camera and directing a movie. While the production was plagued by reshoots, that's only because the original cut he delivered wasn't good enough to be played in theaters, an irony considering how he stepped in to take charge of Fantastic Four!

13. The New Mutants

Score: 34%

Rotten or Fresh? Rotten

Critics Consensus: Rendering a list of potentially explosive ingredients mostly inert, The New Mutants is a franchise spinoff that's less than the sum of its super-powered parts.

The last Marvel movie from Fox before the company merged with Disney suffered from countless release date delays, and no reshoots meant that what did eventually arrive in theaters felt extremely rough around the edges. More of a decent TV pilot than bad movie, The New Mutants' score is a tad harsh, but no one was surprised to see this franchise go out on a low after years of questionable storytelling.

12. X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Score: 37%

Rotten or Fresh? Rotten

Critics Consensus: Though Hugh Jackman gives his all, he can't help X-Men Origins: Wolverine overcome a cliche-ridden script and familiar narrative.

Every bit as bad as Dark Phoenix, Wolverine's first solo movie was a mash up of ideas, none of which really worked. A rushed origin story, convoluted ties to Sabretooth (an excellent Liev Schreiber), and whatever the hell "Barakapool" was, there was nothing to be found here beyond disappointment. The tie-in video game was pretty rad, but it's no wonder there were no more "Origins" tales after this one.

11. X-Men: Apocalypse

Score: 47%

Rotten or Fresh? Rotten

Critics Consensus: Overloaded action and a cliched villain take the focus away from otherwise strong performers and resonant themes, making X-Men: Apocalypse a middling chapter of the venerable superhero franchise.

X-Men: Apocalypse was probably the closest Fox ever came to making a Marvel Studios movie, and...it didn't work. There was a lot here that was good fun, but with way too many characters, a massively underwhelming spin of En Sabah Nur, and a director at the helm with no real ability to make a true blockbuster, this might have been doomed from the star. At least it gave us Olivia Wilde as Psylock, though, eh?

10. Once Upon A Deadpool

Score: 54%

Rotten or Fresh? Rotten

Critics Consensus: Once Upon a Deadpool retains enough of the franchise's anarchic spirit to entertain, but doesn't add enough to Deadpool 2 to justify its own existence.

It's surprising this even justified separate reviews as it was essentially the same film as Deadpool 2, albeit with toned down humour for a PG-13 audience and a few extra bits of footage. If nothing else, it proved that a non-R-Rated Merc with the Mouth could fit into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and it's easy enough to understand why critics were disappointed that it was so lacking on fresh content.

9. X-Men: The Last Stand

Score: 57%

Rotten or Fresh? Rotten

Critics Consensus: X-Men: The Last Stand provides plenty of mutant action for fans of the franchise, even if it does so at the expense of its predecessors' deeper character moments.

It's hard to understand how this one scored as well as it did, especially when it screwed up both "The Cure" storyline from Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men run and the classic "Dark Phoenix Saga." Brett Ratner was the wrong fit for the X-Men franchise, and while he delivered better action scenes than Bryan Singer ever did, the filmmaker (a generous term) simply couldn't tie together a cohesive story.

8. The Wolverine

Score: 71%

Rotten or Fresh? Fresh

Critics Consensus: Although its final act succumbs to the usual cartoonish antics, The Wolverine is one superhero movie that manages to stay true to the comics while keeping casual viewers entertained.

James Mangold's first Wolverine movie definitely struggled to escape the constraints of the wider X-Men franchise, and this adventure was undeniably at its best before it tried heading down the blockbuster route with a CGI heavy final battle that caused all sorts of continuity issues (we still don't know how Logan managed to get his Adamantium claws back or why that scene ever really needed to happen).