In the early 2010s, film audiences couldn’t get enough of dystopian YA series and studios were constantly on the lookout for the next big thing —the next billion dollar book-to-film franchise to rival the likes of success stories like The Hunger Games. When the first Maze Runner film came out in 2014, it checked all the boxes needed for a hit series: a popular YA book trilogy (written by author James Dashner) as the source material, a cast full of young popular leading actors, and a (slightly forced) love triangle. When the first film was well received by both audiences and critics alike, it looked like the next big thing had arrived.

While it didn’t quite pan out that way – dwindling interest in the genre and a large delay between the second and final movie due to lead actor Dylan O’Brien recovering from an on-set injury halted the series’ momentum — the Maze Runner movies were definitely a financial success, making close to $1 billion at the box office and are some of the best films to come out of the YA book-to-movie craze. Like many similar adaptations, some fans of the books were less than thrilled with the movie adaptations, but when viewed as stand-alone films, the Maze Runner franchise is an underrated gem in a bloated genre.

That being said, we believe there’s a clear standout film among the trilogy. Here’s our ranking of all three Maze Runner films from worst to best (but don’t worry fans, we think they’re all great).

3. Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015)

Almost any sequel to 2014’s The Maze Runner was doomed to live in the shadow of its predecessor’s massive success and for what it’s worth, Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials is a fast-paced thriller of a film. In this 2015 followup, Thomas and the surviving Gladers learn the Maze — with all its dangers — was preferable to the state of the real world; unprecedented solar flares have changed Earth into an almost uninhabitable planet and worse, people are susceptible to a deadly virus, ominously called the Flare, which causes people to lose their humanity and become cannibalistic zombies or “Cranks.” There’s a quite few changes made from the books, and most of them are actually good (and we love cast additions like Game of Thrones‘ Aidan Gillen as WCKD baddie Janson) but turning the Cranks into more stereotypical film zombies is a slight disappointment. In the books, the Cranks still have short moments of clarity and retain the ability to speak, making them even more terrifying than their film counterparts. It may feel like we’re splitting hairs by using this change as our main reason for putting The Scorch Trials last but it’s a testament to how solid the trilogy is when the movies are this close in quality.

2. Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2018)

Like the first two films, Maze Runner: The Death Cure takes liberties with the source material but fortunately, this is mostly to the benefit of the plot. In the trilogy’s final installment, Thomas — accompanied by his fellow Gladers, Frypan (Dexter Darden) and Newt (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) — must infiltrate WCKD’s stronghold in The Last City to rescue Minho (Ki Hong Lee), who is being tortured in the hopes of finding a cure for the Flare. The Last City wouldn’t be humanity’s last holdout if it was easy to break into and, of course, it’s fortified by a giant, impenetrable wall. To make things more complicated, Newt reveals to Thomas that he’s been infected and the group are racing against the clock to find a cure for their friend. We meet some familiar faces once again, like Teresa who had previously left the group to help WCKD and there’s plenty of action to keep viewers on their toes. The reason this film ranks higher than The Scorch Trials is the trilogy’s heartbreaking conclusion; The Maze Runner‘s ending is more than satisfying but it’s not a happy, clean ending by any means. The changes made to the plot make sense for the film, including the decision for Thomas to not end up in a romantic relationship — after everything that’s happened to him, he deserves some time to heal on his own.

1. The Maze Runner (2014)

It’s a bit of a cliché to name the first film in a franchise as the best one, but The Maze Runner is easily the best movie in the trilogy. When this film came out in 2014, the YA dystopian film market was thriving and The Maze Runner was, in many ways, a breath of fresh air compared to its competitors. Unlike many protagonists in the genre, Thomas starts off knowing about as much as the audience does about his predicament and we learn about this new world along with him. That’s what makes The Maze Runner such a great film; there’s so many possibilities to be discovered and questions to be answered about this mysterious maze. When Thomas wakes up in a service elevator knowing nothing about his past, we can’t help but wonder what obviously shady organization would come up with such an elaborate maze. Meeting the other Gladers and seeing the makeshift society the boys have created keeps our curiosity piqued and when Teresa (played by Skins‘ Kayla Scodelario) arrives as the only girl —with a note saying she’s the last to enter the maze — we know we’re in for one hell of a trilogy. Throwing a bunch of young people into the deadly maze is an interesting premise on its own and when we learn more about why they’re in the maze, we grow even more intrigued. The Maze Runner ends when the Gladers escape the maze, only to enter an even deadlier reality and viewers couldn’t wait to see what happened next. Of course, we now know how the story ends but the first film remains our favorite.

The Maze Runner films were arguably both ahead of their time and released a little too late to fully capitalize on the genre boom. However, as audiences continue to reexamine previously written-off media, we hope studios take note and consider adapting one of the Maze Runner prequels into a miniseries so the franchise can have a deserved renaissance.

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