Okey dokie, since I’ve now actually seen Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, I am ready to do that thing we writers do where we rank all of a filmmaker’s given films ascending order of greatness. For the record, I am including Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas even though it was directed by Henry Sellick, although I am otherwise only including films that were directed by Tim Burton (sorry Cabin Boy fans). And, as always, this list will not be the same as your list, because what would be the fun in that? And without further ado, here we go…
Also On FORBES:
19. Planet of the Apes (2001):
20th Century Fox
Budget: $100 million
Domestic Box Office: $181 million
Worldwide Box Office: $362 million
I talk a lot about how Tim Burton movies were groundbreaking in one way or another, changing the industry for better and for worse. Aside from being one of the first modern reboots, this Mark Wahlberg sci-fi spectacular is awfully close to being the first version of what I like to call Generic Blockbuster: The Movie. The special effects are fine, but the storyline limps along with little urgency, and Burton seems almost afraid of making a movie that will replace the 1968 original on the critical totem pole. Couple that with far too little action, and you have a depressingly bad “reimagining” whose most redeeming quality is its "what the hell" ending that confused the entire world.
18. Alice in Wonderland (2010):
Walt Disney
Budget: $200 million
Domestic Box Office: $334 million
Worldwide Box Office: $1.025 billion
I wish I could say that this critically derided mega-hit has improved with time. While I love the fact that Walt Disney lets screenwriter Linda Woolverton pen righteously angry feminist fables with blockbuster budgets, this one strikes out. The core problem isn’t the cast (Johnny Depp is fine, folks) or the effects work (although the 3D did it no favors). No, the problem is a story in which Alice (Mia Wasikowska) flees to “Underland” to escape from her preordained destiny only to spend the rest of the film being told by her fantastical friends that she must fulfill a “kill the monster” destiny. And the film does little to entertain until she finally engages in a J.R.R. Tolkien-ish battle.
17. Dark Shadows (2012):
Warner Bros./Time Warner Inc.
Budget: $150 million
Domestic Box Office: $80 million
Worldwide Box Office: $246 million
The cast has a hoot in this adaptation of the classic vampire soap opera, and I love that the vast majority of main characters (played by Eva Green, Michelle Pfeiffer and Chloe Moretz among others) are women. But after an intriguing “Tim Burton movie set in the real world” beginning, the film plays like a soap opera, complete with copious scenes of characters standing around explaining the plot. The film villainizes Eva Green’s bewitching business tycoon while lionizing Johnny Depp’s bloodthirsty revived vampire as the rightful heir to the family business. Moreover, the film positions Green's aggressive and strong-willed villain with Depp’s (much younger) reclusive and “comely” love interest (Bella Heathcoate) as the biggest example of “virgin/whore” dynamics this side of The Town.
16. The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Walt Disney
Budget: $18 million
Domestic Box Office: $75
Worldwide Box Office: NA
Yes, yes, I know the stories, and I know the rhymes too. Each time I’ve watched this film, since October of 1993, I kept hoping this would be the time I fell under its spell. But alas, gorgeous visuals and catchy tunes notwithstanding, the film is 66 minutes of a delusional psychopath whose stupid plan goes stupidly. Jack Skellington’s moronic scheme has no legitimate chance of succeeding. He is shocked when it doesn’t work and doubly shocked when the three goons he hired to kidnap Santa Claus indeed took Claus to their murderous boss. Oh, but he’s a hero because he briefly cleans up his mess at the last minute. Come what may, Nightmare Before Christmas is an exercise in frustration.
15. The Corpse Bride (2005):
Warner Bros./Time Warner Inc.
Budget: $40 million
Domestic Box Office: $53 million
Worldwide Box Office: $117 million
In a weird full circle fashion, this Tim Burton-directed stop-motion fable, loosely based on a Russian folktale, was an early first show of force for Laika as an animation production company, which would eventually make a powerhouse animated debut with Coraline, directed by Nightmare Before Christmas helmer Henry Sellick. This film, about an about-to-be-married man dragged into the underworld by a murdered bride thirsting for an end to her loneliness, is a grimmer and more glacially paced affair, but it is also a more emotionally compelling and coherent narrative than Burton’s most famous animated offering. It may not be as aggressively rewatchable for kids and their parents, but I still contend it’s a better film than The Nightmare Before Christmas.
14. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (2016):
20th Century Fox
Budget: $110 million
Domestic Box Office: NA
Worldwide Box Office: NA
This newest Tim Burton film (opening today) is a gorgeous and creepy adaptation of Ransom Riggs’s “young adult fantasy” novel. The film’s first act is filled with dread and unease, but the film struggles to maintain a narrative momentum once our hero stumbles upon his grandpa’s magical friends. The film’s time loop angle adds poignancy to the proceedings, and the characters’ tragic fate works as an allegory for any given refugee crisis. Yet the conflict, when it arrives, is arbitrary and over explained to the point of confusion. Eva Green is great (in a sadly limited role), but the rest of the cast (even Samuel L. Jackson) doesn’t register as they should. Still, the production design and horror-tinged “special kids” are vintage Burton, and the action finale has a few worthwhile surprises up its sleeve. The sum of its parts make up for the "whole."
13. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005):
Warner Bros./Time Warner Inc.
Budget: $150 million
Domestic Box Office: $206 million
Worldwide Box Office: $475 million
It is somewhat hobbled by a tacked-on epilogue involving Willy Wonka’s father and (like the novel) a lack of any real Charlie-related climax (the Gobstopper thing was an invention for the first movie to give Charlie a moral challenge). Yet, this adaptation of the Roald Dahl novel can stand side-by-side with the 1973 Gene Wilder vehicle. This contemporary version is strongest in the first chunk of the film before the kids end up at the factory. Still, Johnny Depp offers a unique take on the candy titan, and the movie is a visual wonderland of delights. The new songs aren’t a patch on the old ones, but the kids (among them the future “young Carrie Bradshaw” and “young Norman Bates”) are great, and the film works as popcorn entertainment.
12. Frankenweenie (2012):
Walt Disney
Budget: $150 million
Domestic Box Office: $206 million
Worldwide Box Office: $475 million
In an odd irony, by the time Tim Burton was able to turn his once-rejected Walt Disney horror short (about a young boy who resurrects his hit-by-a-car dog) into a feature-length film, the filmmaker had been around for so long that the resulting product came to resemble an homage to Tim Burton films. That’s not a criticism, as it was one of his more spirited works in recent years. The film has a potently pro-science mentality, something that counts as almost political in today’s insane environment, and the film adds a delightful twist that expands and enriches the original 25-minute short film. Burton’s first “original” film since The Nightmare Before Christmas was an adaptation of one of his own short movies, but that’s fitting.
11. Edward Scissorhands (1990):
20th Century Fox
Budget: $20 million
Domestic Box Office: $56 million
Worldwide Box Office: $86 million
I hate the ending so, so much. Even Burton admitted that he was “blowing off smoke” with a finale that has the evil jock bully engaging threatening with our hero in an outright fight to the bloody death. I hated it so much that for years I hated the movie. But the preceding ninety minutes or so are pretty good, with Johnny Depp giving an iconic performance as a modern day Frankenstein whose father (Vincent Price) died before he could give his creation hands. An obvious but potent metaphor for being a suburban outcast, this is easily Burton’s most personal film. There is lots to admire, even if it has perhaps the worst ending in history for an otherwise good movie.
10. Mars Attacks! (1996):
Warner Bros./Time Warner Inc.
Budget: $80 million
Domestic Box Office: $38 million
Worldwide Box Office: $101 million
At its heart, this film is an ahead-of-its-time satire of what was quickly becoming the overstuffed blockbuster. And had it come out a few years later, it might have clicked accordingly. But the film was something of an inside joke for Burton and friends, grabbing a cast of a thousand stars but refusing to provide much in the way of sympathetic characters. And, in hindsight, intentional or not, the film now plays like a bizarre rightwing fantasy of how liberal politicians and leaders would react to a deadly alien invasion. That doesn’t mean the movie still isn’t a candy-colored bit of inappropriate hilarity, but I imagine this one is a popular favorite over at Big Hollywood. Ack-Ack-Ack, indeed!
9. Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (1985):
Warner Bros./Time Warner Inc.
Budget: $6 million
Domestic Box Office: $40 million
Worldwide Box Office: NA
The one that started it all. Tim Burton, Danny Elfman, Paul Reubens and the late Phil Hartman all teamed up to bring the character of Pee-Wee from the stage to the big screen. The film is a very loose remake of The Bicycle Thief, and its lasting legacy is another notch in the old “don’t remake, rip-off” rule. Reubens understandably dominates the proceedings, and it’s a little ironic that Burton’s first film dealt with a socially awkward man-child who had little-to-no problem fitting in and/or being part of a community. The angst would come later, but this film merely celebrates the goofy Pee-Wee and creates a world where he would fit right in.
8. Beetlejuice (1988):
Warner Bros./Time Warner Inc.
Budget: $6 million
Domestic Box Office: $40 million
Worldwide Box Office: NA
Tim Burton’s second film was also his last outright original live-action feature. The 1988 afterlife comedy has style and wit to spare, but the film is almost too quickly paced. There are memorable moments aplenty, and the afterlife material kills. Winona Ryder’s goth daughter became an icon for a generation, even if the film turns her into a damsel-in-distress. But the best choice is that it focuses not on Michael Keaton’s title character but on a lovely deceased married couple (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) who end up with a surrogate daughter when their house gets “invaded” by a living family. Those two remain two of the most openly joyful characters we’ve ever seen in a Tim Burton film.
7. Big Fish (2003):
Sony
Budget: $70 million
Domestic Box Office: $67 million
Worldwide Box Office: $123 million
This change-of-pace offering, based on Daniel Wallace’s 1998 novel, was startling at the time. It was a Tim Burton movie that took place on a “normal” version of Earth. The fable, about a dying patriarch and his son coming to terms with his dad’s wild stories as he is about to himself become a father, features terrific performances by its star quartet (Billy Crudup, Jessica Lange, Albert Finney, and Ewan McGregor) and the right mix of whimsy and pathos. The film feels like 90% “act one,” but it ends on three consecutive scenes of tear-jerking poignancy unrivaled by anything this side of The Sixth Sense. This one has, which was also Burton coming to terms with his own father’s passing, has aged quite well.
6. Sweeney Todd (2007):
Paramount/Viacom Inc.
Budget: $50 million
Domestic Box Office: $53 million
Worldwide Box Office: $152 million
This long-gestating adaptation of the beloved Stephen Sondheim musical is exactly what you’d hope it would be. The film nixes a few songs and plays down at least some of the politics, but you still get the class-based cruelty at the heart of the tale. Johnny Depp offers a grand star turn while everyone else (Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Sacha Baron Cohen, etc.) take their turns chewing musical scenery. What’s odd is that Alan Rickman played a “good-hearted” version of this character in Perfume just before playing the real thing. Paramount’s marketing campaign famously hid the fact that it was a musical, and allegedly opening weekend audiences weren’t terribly pleased, but fans of the source material and/or the director got what they paid for.
5. Sleepy Hollow (1999):
Paramount/Viacom Inc.
Budget: $100 million
Domestic Box Office: $101 million
Worldwide Box Office: $206 million
This was Tim Burton’s big comeback film, following the financial/critical failure of Mars Attacks!, the commercial failure of Ed Wood, and the backlash over Batman Returns. And, this Andrew Walked-penned revamp/reboot/etc. of the Sleepy Hollow tale remains akin to the ultimate Tim Burton movie. The period piece gem is part crime procedural, part macabre horror, and all excellent entertainment. Johnny Depp is terrific as a foppish investigator confronting supernatural murder with cutting-edge crime solving techniques, while the visuals (the blood!) are almost a parody of the filmmaker’s gothic stylings. Toss in ridiculously gory violence, Danny Elfman’s towering score, gorgeous production design, and a brooding tale of class-based inequity and religious intolerance, and you have what amounts to a perfect “Tim Burton film.”
4. Batman (1989):
Warner Bros./Time Warner Inc.
Budget: $40 million
Domestic Box Office: $251 million
Worldwide Box Office: $411 million
When I was growing up, this was my favorite movie, hands down. And even after 25 years of imitators. And, come what may, I still love the hell out of it. The film is a relatively faithful retelling of the first couple years of “The Bat-Man” comics, complete with 1940’s aesthetics, a laughably high body count (courtesy of The Joker and Batman), and a simplicity in narrative that makes this a character study. Michael Keaton is a great Bruce Wayne and Jack Nicholson stands alongside Heath Ledger and Mark Hamill as a definitive on-screen Joker. Toss in Danny Elfman’s iconic score with Anton Furst’s Oscar-winning art direction and the modern classic still holds up delicious popcorn entertainment. The blockbuster that changed Hollywood for the worse is still pretty darn good.
3. Big Eyes (2014):
The Weinstein Company
Budget: $10 million
Domestic Box Office: $14 million
Worldwide Box Office: $29 million
New rule: All future Tim Burton movies must have the word “big” in the title and/or be written by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski.
Another “change of pace” offering from a couple of years ago, this 1950’s/1960’s “true story” period piece stars Amy Adams as a gifted artist and Christoph Waltz as the patriarch who took artistic and financial credit for her work. The film occurs in the real world and lacks fantastical elements or explicitly larger-than-life production design, but Big Eyes feels like a Burton film through-and-through. It details repressive social mores as well as any Burton picture. It is another of his periodic examinations of how men (Sleepy Hollow, The Nightmare Before Christmas) and women (Alice in Wonderland, Batman Returns) and/or both (Sweeney Todd) suffocate under the norms of the place or era in which they live.
2. Batman Returns (1992):
Warner Bros./Time Warner Inc.
Budget: $80 million
Domestic Box Office: $163 million
Worldwide Box Office: $267 million
This gorgeous, haunting and unexpectedly moving comic book superhero sequel was an arthouse horror story using the protection of the most famous “branded” material in the world. It somewhat backfired on audiences and critics, who didn’t care for gore and sexuality in their kid-targeted superhero story. But the film stands tall today as an uncommonly personal and challenging blockbuster. Part “faithful” adaptation of the late 80’s/early 90’s Batman comics, part “Batman as a fairy tale,” this deliciously macabre action comedy is still one of the all-time great comic book adaptations. It also operates as a metaphor for the main character, with each of the three villains (Danny De Vito’s bitter abandoned orphan, Michelle Pfeiffer’s righteously crazed murderous vigilante and Christopher Walken’s heartlessly evil corporate tycoon) represented a “what-if” worst case scenario path that our hero could have taken.
1. Ed Wood (1994):
Walt Disney
Budget: $18 million
Domestic Box Office: $6 million
Worldwide Box Office: NA
Tim Burton’s loving homage to the “worst director of all time” is, almost unquestionably, his best movie. This black-and-white comedy, featuring an Oscar-winning performance from Martin Landau, was ironically Burton’s first box office flop even as it was his first universally-acclaimed offering. The whole “outcast struggling to fit in” thing plays well, with the twist being that said outcast (a career-peak turn from Johnny Depp) lives happily within his own self-denial and delusion. A fictional encounter with Orson Welles sums up the film in a nutshell, that it is better to have made something, anything at all, than to have nothing in your portfolio. The loving recreations of Wood’s most famous “bad movies,” highlight both their incompetence and their ahead-of-their-time sincerity that makes them far from “the worst movies ever made.” In a year filled with some of the best “modern classics” of our time (Speed, The Lion King, Pulp Fiction, Forrest Gump, The Shawshank Redemption), Ed Wood proudly takes its place among the greats.
