Every Tim Burton film ranked

On paper, it probably seemed like Tim Burton was the right director to make the outcast circus elephant with the big ears fly in a live-action remake, but it didn’t come together as well as anyone hoped. Although 2019’s Dumbo has go-to Burton actors such as Michael Keaton, Eva Green, Danny DeVito, and Alan Arkin in addition to Colin Farrell, there are only sporadic visual moments that remind you that, oh yeah, this is supposed to be a magical Burton film. Dumbo mostly feels uninspired, safe, and by the numbers—in other words unlike anything else Burton has ever directed. The titular elephant might fly, but Burton’s uncharacteristically restrained fantasy-adventure didn’t take off at the box office or with critics.

1968’s Planet Of The Apes is one of the most beloved sci-fi films of all time, so Burton wasn’t monkeying around when he got Mark Wahlberg, Helena Bonham Carter, Tim Roth, and Paul Giamatti on board for his 2001 remake/reimagining Planet Of The Apes. Although Rick Baker’s prosthetic makeup is top-notch, Danny Elman’s tribal score is pitch perfect, and the actors do the best they can with a confusing screenplay by three writers, it’s the shocking zinger of an ending that really soured audiences and critics to this sci-fi adventure. That inexplicable, unbelievably lame twist wouldn’t make sense even if it were released today when audiences are numb to multiverse superhero movies with anything-can-happen logic. Regardless, any plans for a sequel to Burton’s Apes were immediately scrapped.

Big Fish is a father-son fantasy-drama based on the Daniel Wallace novel Big Fish: A Novel Of Mythic Proportions. Edward Bloom (played by both Albert Finney and Ewan McGregor) is a lifelong teller of tall tales, which frustrates his son (Billy Crudup). Tim Burton shot the 2003 movie in Alabama as a series of fantastical vignettes with an emphasis on practical effects instead of CGI. The emotional story was well-received by critics, became a modest box office success, and Danny Elman’s score received an Oscar nomination.

If you’re going to make a musical slasher film based on a classic stage musical from Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler, Tim Burton is on the short list of directors to call. In 2007’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street, Johnny Depp plays the titular barber turned serial killer in Victorian England, Alan Rickman plays the judge who wrongly convicted and exiled Todd, and Helena Bonham Carter plays meat-pie maker Mrs. Lovett. The critically acclaimed movie played to Burton’s strengths and received several Oscar nominations, winning for Best Art Direction.

Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children is based on the 2011 novel of the same name by Ransom Riggs. Asa Butterfield plays Jacob, a boy who discovers a time loop in which Miss Peregrine (Eva Green) is headmistress of a school for children with extraordinary abilities. The 2016 fantasy film starring Terence Stamp, Allison Janney, Rupert Everett, Samuel L. Jackson, and Judi Dench improved on the tepid box office performance of Burton’s previous film, Big Eyes, and the director felt right at home making a movie about lovable misfits. The film was a box office success with critics praising its atmosphere and acting. If you can, check it out at home in 3D for an added dimension that makes the underwater sequences and third-act carnival showdown really pop.

Johnny Depp has simultaneously been Tim Burton’s greatest muse and Achilles’ heel, depending on whom you ask. In 2005’s Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Depp goes full weird as the eccentric, kind-of-creepy candymaker Willy Wonka. A young Freddie Highmore shows emotional depth beyond his years as Charlie Bucket, the boy who finds a golden ticket to gain access to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. The quirky musical fantasy received critical acclaim despite Depp’s love-it-or-hate-it oddball performance. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory was nominated for a Best Costume Design Oscar and is one of Burton’s highest-grossing films.

In the 2014 biographical drama Big Eyes, Amy Adams plays artist Margaret Keane, whose paintings of people with big eyes became a pop-culture phenomenon in the 1950s and ’60s. Keane had to fight her ex-husband (played by Christoph Waltz)—who wrongfully took credit for her art—in a well-publicized court case. Although the $10-million-budget biopic was smaller in scale than most of Burton’s movies, it had emotional weight to spare thanks to Adams’ Golden Globe-winning performance. Look for a cameo by the late Keane as she sits serenely on a park bench in the movie.

In Tim Burton’s live-action reimagining of Lewis Carroll’s classic 1865 novel, Mia Wasikowska plays Alice Kingsleigh, the young woman who literally and figuratively falls down the rabbit hole and meets the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter), and other fantastical residents of Wonderland. The visually overwhelming Alice In Wonderland earned more than $1 billion dollars worldwide and won Oscars for Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design. Many of the same actors returned for the 2016 sequel Alice Through The Looking Glass, an inferior follow-up which Burton produced but not direct.

In what has to be Tim Burton’s silliest movie, Mars Attacks! features a huge ensemble cast (including Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Annette Bening, Pierce Brosnan, Danny DeVito, Martin Short, Pam Grier, Michael J. Fox, and Natalie Portman) contending with invading Martians who have formidable weapons and a demented sense of humor. The wacko sci-fi comedy came out in 1996, the same year as Independence Day, which had a similar premise but very different tone. Burton reportedly said, “It almost seemed like we had done kind of a Mad magazine version of Independence Day.” Although Mars Attacks! didn’t beam up a lot of box office bucks domestically, it performed better overseas and later became a cult favorite, which is what it always should have been instead of being marketed as an all-star Christmas blockbuster.

Dark Shadows is Tim Burton’s reimagining of the 1960s gothic soap opera of the same name. In this 2012 dark fantasy film, Johnny Depp plays Barnabas Collins, an 18th-century vampire released from his coffin prison in 1972 who returns to his ancestral Maine home to protect his descendants (including Michelle Pfeiffer, Jonny Lee Miller, and Chloë Grace Moretz). Eva Green—a later-career Burton muse who never said no to playing a bonkers character—is a scream as Angelique Bouchard, a vengeful witch who just can’t get over Barnabas. A lot of critics seemed confused as to whether Dark Shadows wanted to be a comedy, horror or drama film, but hard-core Burton fans embraced the wacky vibe and appearance by Alice Cooper as himself. Depp said that he drew inspiration for his performance from Max Schreck in 1922’s Nosferatu. Our favorite bits are when Depp leans into the humor of the fish-out-of-water story, like how Barnabas reacts to 1970s pop culture.

Some would place 1999’s Sleepy Hollow lower on this list, but we’ll go to bat for what remains Tim Burton’s only straightforward horror film. Yes, there are moments of humor from Johnny Depp as jittery New York City police constable Ichabod Crane, but this atmospheric movie adaptation of Washington Irving’s “The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow” has some genuinely frightening moments as the Headless Horseman decapitates numerous victims in the foggy Dutch hamlet. Sleepy Hollow won the Academy Award for Best Art Direction and deserves a second look from those who dismissed it upon its initial release for not being as whimsical as Burton fans expected. This isn’t Beetlejuice funhouse horror, this is gothic HORROR horror, and it holds up.

Corpse Bride is a stop-motion musical fantasy co-directed by Tim Burton and Mike Johnson with characters created by Burton and Carlos Grangel. Some might argue that Corpse Bride doesn’t belong on this list because Burton co-directed it, but the characters SCREAM (in all caps) Burton, so it counts. Johnny Depp voices Victor, a shy groom who practices his upcoming wedding vows in front of Emily (Helena Bonham Carter), the titular corpse bride, who rises from the grave with his promise to wed. In true Burton fashion, the underworld is depicted as lively and full of color, music, and dancing, while the real world of Victorian England is shown as dreary, gray, and miserable. Corpse Bride was critically and commercially successful, and even got nominated for a Best Animated Feature Oscar.

It’s difficult to remember a time when cinemas weren’t carpet-bombed with a new superhero flick every month, but back in 1989 the Superman franchise starring Christopher Reeve had run its course and there were no tentpole superhero movies in sight until Tim Burton directed Batman starring Michael Keaton as Gotham City’s Dark Knight. The movie was an immediate box office smash, earning over $411 million worldwide and winning the Oscar for Best Art Direction. Not only was Keaton a hit as Batman, Jack Nicholson received much praise for becoming completely unhinged as the Joker—a role he seemed born to play.

2012’s Frankenweenie is a remake of Tim Burton’s 1984 short film of the same name about a young boy named Victor Frankenstein who brings his beloved bull terrier Sparky back to life via an electrifying science experiment. The black-and-white, stop-motion animated movie is a simultaneous homage and parody of the 1931 film Frankenstein. Burton finally had the Disney-sized budget in 2012 to make a version of Frankenweenie that matched his vision, and this joyously weird movie is chock-full of lovable, big-eyed, goth-looking, misfit characters for which Burton is known. The underlying message about the importance of scientific curiosity is even more relevant today as people debate if the Earth is round or whether or not to get the latest vaccine. The 3D film was nominated for a Best Animated Feature Oscar and we still think it deserved to win more than Brave.

The 1985 gem Pee-wee’s Big Adventure is Tim Burton’s first feature-length movie and it made a star out of the late Paul Reubens, who played the titular bow tie-wearing man-child who goes on a wild nationwide search to retrieve his stolen bicycle. The cult favorite gave audiences a feel for Burton’s unique visual style and fondness for adorable misfits. This cinematic parody of 1948’s Bicycle Thieves spawned two Pee-wee sequels (not directed by Burton) and its success (along with that of Beetlejuice) led to Burton being offered to direct Batman.

After the success of Batman, it made sense that both director Tim Burton and star Michael Keaton would be invited back for a sequel. In Batman Returns, which arrived in 1992, Burton really put the “goth” in Gotham City for this moody follow-up featuring the Penguin (Danny DeVito) as a societal outcast who grew up in the sewers and Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer) as a mousy secretary who transforms into a patent leather-clad vixen with a whip and sharp claws. The latter and Batman have an instant animal attraction, and the doomed romance that percolates between the two masked characters adds another intriguing layer that was missing from the 1989’s Batman. Sadly, Batman Returns was Burton’s final Batman film and the last time we’d see Keaton as the character until he returned in 2023’s The Flash.

Edward Scissorhands is Tim Burton at his magical best—completely in his goth-adjacent comfort zone. The romantic gothic fairy tale with a story cowritten by Burton features Johnny Depp as the titular artificial man whose creator died before completing him. Edward does the best he can with his scissor hands by giving haircuts to the nearby suburban residents, but he knows he will never fit into their colorfully manicured world with his pale, scarred face and a tousled mop of hair reminiscent of the Cure’s Robert Smith. Edward is a gentle misfit who is just too much of an outsider to get the girl of his dreams (played by Depp’s then-girlfriend Winona Ryder), which makes Edward Scissorhands a timeless, heartbreaking romance even if the characters don’t ride off together into the sunset. Stan Winston and Ve Neill received an Oscar nomination for Best Makeup, and Danny Elfman received a Grammy nomination for his hauntingly beautiful score.

It’s no surprise that Tim Burton would be drawn to making a film about an oddball cult director. Ed Wood stars Johnny Depp as the director of Plan 9 From Outer Space—considered by many to be the worst film ever made—and the movie follows Wood as he tries make his filmmaking dreams come true despite a lack of funds and questionable talent. Martin Landau won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his brilliant performance as Dracula actor Bela Lugosi, and the movie also won a Best Makeup Oscar. Although Ed Wood didn’t recoup its production budget at the box office, it remains one of Burton’s most critically acclaimed films and we can think of no other director better suited to viewing Wood’s life and career through a more sympathetic lens.

Tim Burton’s best (and signature) film is the 1988 fantasy-horror-comedy Beetlejuice. In the movie, a ghost couple (Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin) hire a devilish spirit named Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton) to scare off a family that moves into the couple’s former home. Winona Ryder plays the family’s gothic teenager Lydia Deetz, who memorably says, “Live people ignore the strange and unusual. I myself am strange and unusual.” Burton didn’t write the screenplay, but those words could have come out of his mouth as a description of his life philosophy. Beetlejuice is funny, spooky, whimsical, weird ... everything a Burton movie should be. It won the Oscar for Best Makeup and spawned an animated series, video games, a stage musical, and—at long last—an upcoming sequel that Burton is currently working on with Ryder and Keaton set to return.