All 5 Evil Dead Films Ranked In Order Of Greatness

The Evil Dead franchise is also smart in how it spaces its projects out. The original three films in Raimi and Campbell’s trilogy had six years between each installment; you can be confident that there was never any sense of overwhelming Evil Dead fatigue. The franchise has been reborn both on TV and in video games, and a 2013 reboot/continuation film kept the spirit of the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis (the franchise’s ever-inciting book of the dead) alive and well.

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Back in 2023, the franchise was back in theaters for its first big screen installment in a decade. And while Raimi and Campbell aren’t directing or starring (respectively) in Evil Dead Rise, they’re both involved as producers—and with an 88% score on Rotten Tomatoes from critics (and 86% from audiences), the newest installment of Evil Dead lore is just as fun (and brutally violent) as the series has ever been.

Now, things can get a little tricky, because not all of the Evil Dead franchise entries are directly connected. The bulk of our piece below will simply focus on the films in the order in which they were released—which we always recommend when it comes to watching a series in any order. But there’s also the fact that Evil Dead (2013) is in a different continuity from the rest of the franchise, and Evil Dead Rise (2023) continues in the original.

From Sam Raimi’s original duology and “Army of Darkness” to Fede Álvarez’s 2013 reboot and Lee Cronin’s new “Evil Dead Rise,” this is Evil Dead ranked

There’s a kind of shaggy glory to Evil Dead: Sam Raimi’s demonic scary movie series spawned from the writer/director’s triumphant indie horror marvel from 1981. Starring childhood friend Bruce Campbell and shot in the Tennessee wilderness with next to no budget, the inaugural outing with Raimi’s Necronomicon (aka Book of the Dead) and its flesh-ripping Deadites — also known by the original film’s title, “The Evil Dead” — established a formula for four more films with immeasurable influence on skin-peeling, tendon-snapping, chainsaw-revving pop culture as we know it.

The first film sees final guy Ash Williams (Campbell), his sister Cheryl (Ellen Sandweiss), his girlfriend Linda (Betsy Baker), and friends Scott (Richard DeManincor) and Shelly (Theresa Tilly) heading out for a stay at a remote cabin. Once there, a cursed book and tape summons a demonic presence that slowly begins to feast on the souls of the unlucky travelers one by one. It was a schlocky, but surprisingly effective affair: enough to hoist Ash, the Deadites, and Raimi to unending genre fame, and create a pattern worth repeating four more times.

“Evil Dead II” (also known as “Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn”) excited the midnight movie masses in 1987, when the success of Raimi’s feature directorial debut earned him financial backing from an impressed producer and resulted in one of cinema’s greatest horror comedies. The beefed up budget allowed Raimi to burn through the beats of the first film at a blistering pace (a quirky requirement of a thorny IP dispute, which means the duology doesn’t make sense as a continuous timeline) and churn out an action-packed extension incorporating the series’ most beloved elements.

This critically includes the first utterance of final guy Ash Williams’ catchphrase (“Groovy!”), and the supernatural time-jump stinger that made it possible to set 1992’s over-the-top goofy second sequel “Army of Darkness” in the Medieval Times. (The film was supposed to be called “Medieval Dead,” until one of those completely annoying executive marketing decisions apparently killed that idea.)

**The complete Evil Dead series in chronological order:**

The Evil Dead (1981)

Evil Dead II (1987)

Army of Darkness (1993)

Ash vs. Evil Dead (2015 – 2018) *

Evil Dead Rise (2023)

*TV series, not a film

And, separately:

Evil Dead (2013)

Writer/director Fede Álvarez, co-writer Rodo Sayagues, and scream queen Jane Levy gave the series a hardcore reboot in 2013, matched a decade later with Lee Cronin’s newly released, splatter-ific “Evil Dead Rise.” Here are all five Evil Dead chapters ranked, excluding TV series “Ash vs. Evil Dead.”

5. “Evil Dead Rise” (dir. Lee Cronin, 2023)

Ony the luckiest horror franchises have movies this generally good ranked last a full five movies in. Lee Cronin’s “Evil Dead Rise,” described by the writer/director as a sequel to the universe’s other events, relocates the Necronomicon to the basement of a Los Angeles apartment building. There hides a vinyl-pressed recording of its contents being read aloud: swiftly uncovered and played by two teenagers (Morgan Davies, Gabrielle Echols) who unwittingly unleash its demonic powers on their mother (Alyssa Sutherland). Together, they must face the consequences with their little sister (Nell Fisher), the punnily brilliant prop Staff-anie, and their rad-as-hell guitar technician aunt (Lily Sullivan) in a blood and vomit-soaked gore fest good enough to make fans of extreme aughts horror newly nostalgic. Despite its clever wrap-around structure, “Evil Dead Rise” feels hollow compared to Fede Álvarez’s surprisingly smart 2013 reboot, though admirably emulating and tightening its terror. And it doesn’t compare to the ingenuity of Sam Raimi’s frenetic trilogy. Still, it’s a solidly enjoyable IP resurrection that sees someone get straight-up cheese grated. I wouldn’t insult you by saying more.

4. “Army of Darkness” (dir. Sam Raimi, 1993)

Like so many great horror franchises of its time, the “Evil Dead” series was clearly making shit up as it went along. You threw every idea you had into each film you made, then started from scratch when it was time to write the next one. No sane person who saw the original “Evil Dead” could have possibly predicted that it was setting up for a medieval time travel adventure, but hey, why not? “Army of Darkness” remains a polarizing title for that very reason. Originally titled “Medieval Dead,” the film follows Ash as he is somewhat inexplicably transported to the Middle Ages (with a chainsaw, fortunately) and is forced to track down the same Necronomicon that has tormented him so much in order to find his way back to the present. The charmingly silly film features plenty of the bloody deaths that fans of the franchise have come to expect, but it’s considerably campier than its predecessors. It’s a good time at the movies, even if it ultimately prevented the franchise from going in a more serious narrative direction for 20 years.

3. “Evil Dead” (dir. Fede Álvarez, 2013)

Fede Álvarez rebooted Evil Dead in 2013 with the kind of gore-is-more ethos Rob Zombie brought to “Halloween” in 2007, and generally succeeded in justifying his film’s pulpy heinousness with a grounded (if occasionally shallow) drama of friends battling addiction. Jane Levy broke out from her post-“Suburgatory” sitcom image with a perversely perfect leading performance as Mia: the first human possessed when a scurge of Deadites gets unleashed at a remote cabin where Mia’s friends are attempting to help her detox. “Evil Dead” (2013) most closely resembles the original in conceit, but has just enough bursts of the chainsaw antics and zippy one-liners (“Choke on this, motherfucker!”) from its campier sequel to read as a reboot of the entire franchise. It’s a smart movie, cleverly crafting the metaphoric box its characters are trapped in while steadily pushing them to the extremes of 2010s terror through mostly practical means. This one’s worth it for the tongue-splitting knife scene alone, and remains a crowning jewel for scream queen Levy.

2. “The Evil Dead” (dir. Sam Raimi, 1981)

“The Evil Dead” is the stuff of indie film legend. A 20-year-old Sam Raimi and his childhood friend Bruce Campbell took a ragtag crew into the Tennessee wilderness for a hellish shoot that ended with them burning furniture to stay warm in the cabin that they were both shooting and living in. The low budget debacle resulted in a fittingly punk film that makes up for its rough edges by filling every frame with in-your-face badassery. Raimi takes a simple premise — a group of friends visit a cabin in the woods, only to unleash a slew of demons when they stumble onto a tape recording of the Necronomicon — and drives a train through it by throwing every practical effect he could find at the audience. Even with his inexperience and budget constraints, Raimi was directing with a creativity far beyond his years — how many filmmakers have the guts to feature shots from the perspective of evil itself? For all of its flaws, “The Evil Dead” had all the bones of the franchise we’d come to love. In hindsight, it’s not remotely surprising that so much greatness eventually followed.

1. “Evil Dead II” (dir. Sam Raimi, 1987)

The greatest elevator pitch in film history might be “‘The Evil Dead,’ but with an actual budget.’” That’s exactly what Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell delivered with “Evil Dead II,” which represents the undead horror franchise at its absolute best. The film utilizes a similar formula as its predecessor, following Ash Williams as he takes a trip to a cabin in the woods and finds a tape recording that literally causes hell to break loose. All of the ingredients — Campbell’s charisma, Raimi’s creative camera movements, the endless gore — are still there, but the lack of logistical restrictions make for an even bloodier good time. While the indie film magic of the original movie will always be charming, it’s an absolute delight to watch Raimi bring his gory vision to life with a full chest of filmmaking toys and a few more years of experience under his belt. For that reason alone, “Evil Dead II” is the pinnacle of the series.