Tier List
Ghostbusters Movies Ranked: All 5 Films (2026)
All 5 films, from the 1984 original to Frozen Empire, ranked from S-tier to D-tier. Then settle your own order with head-to-head comparisons.
The Complete Ghostbusters Tier List
Five films across forty years, 569 minutes of running time, three separate attempts to continue one 1984 comedy and no agreement whatsoever about which of them count. This is a short franchise with an unusually loud argument, because the gap between the first film and everything after it is the widest in any series on this site: one perfect comedy, then thirty-seven years of people trying to work out what made it perfect. Here is every Ghostbusters movie ranked into classic S/A/B/C/D tiers. Think Ghostbusters II is underrated, or that the 2016 reboot deserves better than last? Settle it yourself in minutes with Shortlist.
Ghostbusters
(1984)One of the few genuinely perfect studio comedies, and the reason it works is that nobody in it is playing a hero. Dan Aykroyd wrote a sincere science-fiction script about interdimensional ghost hunting; Harold Ramis rewrote it as a film about three academics who lose their grant and start a small business. Bill Murray then plays Peter Venkman as a man who does not believe a word of any of it and is mostly there for the money, which is what keeps the whole thing from tipping into whimsy. Ivan Reitman shoots New York like a disaster movie, Elmer Bernstein scores the ghosts straight, and Sigourney Weaver commits completely to a part most actors would have condescended to. It cost $30 million and made $296.6 million, it produced a theme song that reached number one, and forty-two years later every sequel here is still trying to reverse-engineer it.
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Ghostbusters: Afterlife
(2021)The best of the four films that are not the first one, and the only one that found a reason to exist beyond the logo. Jason Reitman moves the story to a dying Oklahoma farm town and makes it a film about inheritance: Egon Spengler died alone and estranged, and his granddaughter reassembles both the equipment and the man from what he left behind. Mckenna Grace is genuinely excellent as Phoebe, Paul Rudd is doing the Murray job without imitating it, and the summoning of the Ecto-1 through a wheat field is the best action sequence the franchise has staged since 1984. What keeps it out of S is the last ten minutes, which stop the film to resurrect Harold Ramis as a digital effect and ask an audience to be moved by it. TMDB rates it 7.31 against the original's 7.50; this list puts a full tier between them, because a film that is about grief should not have to import the actual dead.
Ghostbusters II
(1989)The retread, made because $296 million demanded one, and the strange thing is how much of it still lands. The premise is a genuinely good idea in the wrong shape: a river of psychoreactive slime under Manhattan that feeds on the city's bad mood, which is a 1989 New York joke and a real one. Murray, Aykroyd, Ramis and Ernie Hudson are all sharper here than the material deserves, and the courtroom scene with the Scoleri brothers is as funny as anything in the first film. It is dragged down by structure: the plot resets the team to broke and disbelieved so it can run the same arc again, the villain is a painting, and the finale animates the Statue of Liberty because the last one animated a marshmallow man. $215.4 million on a $37 million budget, and it is the only sequel here made while everyone involved still wanted to.
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
(2024)Competent, crowded, and the point at which the revival ran out of new things to say. Gil Kenan takes over from Jason Reitman, moves the Spengler family back into the New York firehouse, and then has to service two casts at once: the four surviving originals, the four Afterlife leads, Kumail Nanjiani, Patton Oswalt and a new ghost mythology, in 115 minutes. Almost every strand is fine and almost none of them are finished. Mckenna Grace gets the one real story in it, a friendship with a ghost that the film keeps abandoning for set pieces, and the Ecto-1 chase in the opening ten minutes is the best thing here. It made $202.0 million on a $100 million budget, the lowest gross of the five, and it is the first Ghostbusters film that feels like content rather than a movie.
Ghostbusters
(2016)The most expensive film here at $144 million, the lowest rated at 5.34, and the one that got a fight it did not deserve and then did not survive on its own merits either. Paul Feig had made *Bridesmaids* and *Spy* and the cast is stacked: Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones can all do this, and McKinnon is having such a good time that a better film is visible around her in every scene. The problem is that the film is edited like a sketch reel. Long stretches are improvised riffing where the plot should be, the villain is a nothing, the third act is a CGI parade down a green-screened Times Square, and the surviving originals turn up in cameos as different characters, which tells the audience the film does not quite believe in itself. It made $229.1 million and lost money. Ranked last on what the money and the talent should have bought.
How to Build Your Own Ghostbusters Tier List
You just built one. The card above took your taps and nothing else, no star ratings, and on a franchise this small that is the only method that produces a real answer. Five films means ten possible pairings and every one of them is a live argument: is Ghostbusters II a lazy retread or the last time the original four were actually funny together? Is Afterlife a moving film about inheritance or a feature-length callback? Ratings cannot separate those, because four of the five sit between 6.4 and 7.5 and the ordering inside that band is entirely a matter of what you want a Ghostbusters film to be.
There are five of them, made by four different directors across four decades. Shortlist ranks the whole run head-to-head, keeps the list current as the next one arrives, and gives every ranking a share link for the friend who still defends the 2016 one.
Read more about the comparison-based approach in our movie tier list guide.
Two different things get scored around this page. The S to D tiers above are editorial, and S means a film that held up rather than one that reviewed well on opening weekend. The score you see in the app is a different number: it is built from the head-to-head comparisons you make, scaled to 0 to 10, not from critic averages. How Shortlist scores work sets out the whole method.
What Order Should You Watch the Ghostbusters Movies In?
Release order, and on this franchise release order and story order are the same thing except once. Ghostbusters (1984), Ghostbusters II (1989), Ghostbusters (2016), Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021), Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024). That is 569 minutes, about 9 hours and 29 minutes, and it is a single evening and a half rather than the week most franchises on this site ask for.
The 2016 film is the exception and it is optional. Paul Feig's version is a full reboot in its own continuity: different characters, different origin, no connection forward or backward. Afterlife ignores it completely and picks up thirty-two years after Ghostbusters II instead. So you can watch it wherever you like, or not at all, and nothing else in the series changes. Skipping it costs you no plot and one very good Kate McKinnon performance.
The three-film spine, if five is too many. Ghostbusters (1984), then Afterlife, then Frozen Empire. That is 344 minutes, under six hours, and it is the version of this franchise the current films are actually telling: the original, the film that inherits it, and the sequel that moves the inheritors back into the firehouse. Add Ghostbusters II if you want the original four one more time, which is a better reason to watch it than the plot is.
There is no chronological-order trap here. Unlike Star Wars or Planet of the Apes, nothing in this franchise jumps backwards in time. The only ordering decision you have to make is what to do with the reboot, and the answer is that it does not matter.
Ghostbusters Tier List FAQ
What is the best Ghostbusters movie?
The 1984 original, and no sequel has come close. Dan Aykroyd wrote it sincerely and Harold Ramis rewrote it as a film about three academics who lose their grant and start a small business, which is why it is funny rather than whimsical, and Bill Murray plays the lead as a man who does not believe any of it. It cost $30 million and made $296.6 million. The strongest case against it is Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021), which is the best of the revivals and the only one with a reason to exist beyond the logo.
How many Ghostbusters movies are there?
5 released theatrical films: Ghostbusters (1984), Ghostbusters II (1989), the standalone 2016 reboot, Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021) and Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024). Two of them are titled simply Ghostbusters, which is why this list shows the year next to those. Watching all five takes 569 minutes, about 9 hours and 29 minutes.
What order should you watch the Ghostbusters movies in?
Release order: 1984, 1989, the 2016 reboot, Afterlife, Frozen Empire. Nothing in this franchise jumps backwards in time, so release order and story order are the same thing. The only real decision is where to put the 2016 film, and since it is a separate continuity that nothing else refers to, it fits anywhere or nowhere.
Do you need to watch the 2016 Ghostbusters before Afterlife?
No. Paul Feig's 2016 film is a full reboot with its own characters, its own origin story and no connection in either direction. Ghostbusters: Afterlife ignores it entirely and picks up thirty-two years after Ghostbusters II, with the original cast and the original equipment. Skipping the reboot costs you no plot at all.
Is Ghostbusters: Afterlife a sequel to Ghostbusters II?
Yes. Afterlife is a direct continuation of the 1984 and 1989 films: Egon Spengler died estranged on an Oklahoma farm and his grandchildren find the equipment he left behind. Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson and Sigourney Weaver all return. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024) then moves that family back into the New York firehouse and continues the same line.
Why is the 2016 Ghostbusters ranked last?
On what the money and the cast should have bought. It is the most expensive film in the franchise at $144 million and the lowest rated at 5.34, with Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones in it and a director who had just made Bridesmaids and Spy. The film is cut like a sketch reel: long improvised riffs where the plot should be, a villain with nothing to play, and a green-screened third act. McKinnon is genuinely great in it, which is the frustrating part.
Is Ghostbusters II worth watching?
Yes, for the cast rather than the plot. The premise is a good 1989 New York joke, a river of psychoreactive slime under Manhattan that feeds on the city's bad mood, and the courtroom scene with the Scoleri brothers is as funny as anything in the first film. What holds it back is structure: it resets the team to broke and disbelieved so it can run the same arc again, and it animates the Statue of Liberty because the last one animated a marshmallow man. It is the last time the original four were all firing.
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