Tier List
Hunger Games Movies Tier List: All 5 Films Ranked (2026)
All 5 Hunger Games movies, from the 2012 original through Mockingjay to the prequel The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, ranked from S-tier to C-tier, with the box office return on every one. Sunrise on the Reaping makes it six on November 20, 2026. Then build your own Panem tier list with head-to-head comparisons.
The Complete Hunger Games Tier List
Few YA adaptations stuck the landing the way the Hunger Games saga did. Across five films, Suzanne Collins' dystopia of Panem grew from a survival thriller into a sharp meditation on propaganda, power, and revolution, carried by Jennifer Lawrence's Katniss and, later, a chilling origin story for President Snow. Here are all five films ranked into classic S/A/B/C/D tiers. Think The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes deserves to be higher? Settle it yourself in minutes with Shortlist.
Each film below also says where to watch it in the US, checked October 7, 2026 (JustWatch). Rights move, so those lines disappear rather than guess once that check is over three weeks old.
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
(2013)The high point of the saga. Francis Lawrence sharpens the politics, the Quarter Quell raises the stakes, and Jennifer Lawrence delivers her best work as Katniss. Widely considered the best film in the series.
Streaming on Netflix
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The Hunger Games
(2012)The original that launched the dystopian YA boom. The Reaping, the tributes' parade, and the arena still hit hard, anchored by a star-making Jennifer Lawrence performance.
Streaming on Netflix
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
(2023)A rich, surprisingly dark prequel about a young Coriolanus Snow. Rachel Zegler shines as Lucy Gray Baird, and the 10th Games offers a fresh, brutal take on the arena.
Streaming on Netflix
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2
(2015)The propulsive, emotional finale. The pods sequence in the Capitol and the bittersweet ending deliver a satisfying close, even after the slow build of Part 1.
Streaming on Netflix
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1
(2014)The weakest entry: the decision to split the final book leaves this half feeling like setup. Strong propaganda-war themes, but light on the action the series is known for.
Streaming on Netflix
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That is our Hunger Games ranking. Here is a blank one for yours.
All 5 Hunger Games films, one tap each, S down to D. It saves as you go and it prints. No email, no signup.
Open your Hunger Games tier sheetHow to Build Your Own Hunger Games Tier List
The card above builds the whole thing. There are only five Hunger Games films, so it does not sample the series, it ranks all of it, and it does that without asking you to score anything. Most fans crown Catching Fire and bury Mockingjay - Part 1; a few taps tell you where you actually land.
The reason to open the app is everything else you watch. In Shortlist the same head-to-head taps work across your whole watchlist, not one saga: your dystopian YA tier list, your 2010s blockbusters, your year in film. The list keeps updating as you go, and every one of them gets a share link.
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.
This website uses TMDB and the TMDB APIs but is not endorsed, certified, or otherwise approved by TMDB.
Every Hunger Games Movie at the Box Office
No Hunger Games film has ever lost money. Across five films the saga took $3.305B worldwide on $590.0M of production budget, a blended 5.60x return, and the weakest entry on that measure still made 3.37x. That is the rarest thing about this franchise and it is the column no tier list publishes.
| Film | Worldwide | Budget | Return | Tier | TMDB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Hunger Games: Catching Fire2013 | $865.0M | $130.0M | 6.65x | S | 7.4 |
| The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 12014 | $755.4M | $125.0M | 6.04x | C | 6.8 |
| The Hunger Games2012 | $694.0M | $75.0M | 9.25x | A | 7.2 |
| The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 22015 | $653.4M | $160.0M | 4.08x | B | 6.9 |
| The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes2023 | $337.4M | $100.0M | 3.37x | B | 7.0 |
Worldwide grosses, production budgets, runtimes and user scores read from the TMDB API on 2026-09-04, fetched by film id. Return is worldwide gross divided by production budget, computed from the two columns beside it. It is a rough measure on purpose: it counts no marketing spend and no share to exhibitors, so a film needs roughly 2.5x before it is genuinely profitable. On that stricter reading all five still clear the bar.
Two things in that table argue with the tier list above it, and both are worth knowing before you build your own. Catching Fire is the top grosser at $865.0M, which matches its S tier. But the best RETURN in the franchise is the 2012 original, which turned $75.0M into $694.0M for 9.25x, the only entry to clear 9x and a multiple Catching Fire never approached on its heavier budget.
The stranger pattern is the one that runs the whole length of the saga. Every Hunger Games film returned less than the one before it, without a single exception across eleven years: 9.25x, 6.65x, 6.04x, 4.08x, 3.37x in release order. The audience did not collapse, the budgets climbed and the multiple absorbed it. Mockingjay - Part 1 is bottom of the tier list here and still out-earned Songbirds & Snakes by $418.0M, which is the strongest case anyone can make that the C tier above is about the film and not about the money.
All five run 11h 45m back to back. The longest is Songbirds & Snakes at 157 minutes, the shortest Mockingjay - Part 1 at 123.
What Order Should You Watch the Hunger Games Movies In?
For first-time viewers, watch in release order: The Hunger Games (2012), Catching Fire (2013), Mockingjay - Part 1 (2014), and Mockingjay - Part 2 (2015), then the prequel The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023). The prequel is set 64 years before Katniss's story, so you can start there chronologically, but it lands harder once you already know who President Snow becomes.
The Sixth Film: Sunrise on the Reaping
The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping reaches US cinemas on November 20, 2026, and it is the reason this tier list will have six entries rather than five. It is a second prequel, set on the morning of the reaping of the 50th Hunger Games, the Second Quarter Quell, 24 years before the original film, which makes it the story of how Haymitch Abernathy won his Games, a quarter century before he sat across a train table from Katniss.
It is deliberately absent from the ranking above. A tier list is a record of films people have actually seen, so nothing goes in a tier here until it has opened, and a build check on this page fails if it ever does. What follows is what is confirmed rather than what is expected.
| US release | November 20, 2026 |
| Director | Francis Lawrence |
| Setting | The 50th Hunger Games, the Second Quarter Quell |
| Cast | Joseph Zada as Haymitch Abernathy, Ralph Fiennes as President Coriolanus Snow, Jesse Plemons as Plutarch Heavensbee, Mckenna Grace as Maysilee Donner, Whitney Peak as Lenore Dove Baird, Elle Fanning as Effie Trinket |
Release date, director and cast read from the TMDB API on 2026-09-04. The date is the US theatrical entry from the release-dates endpoint, which is the one that differs from the record TMDB shows on the film's main page.
One fact reframes the tier list above it. Francis Lawrence will have directed five of the six Hunger Games films. He took over for Catching Fire and has made every one since, so the only entry in the whole saga he did not direct is the 2012 original, which is also the entry with the best box office return on the table above. The debate this franchise keeps having about whether it peaked at Catching Fire is really a debate about one director's eleven-year run.
When it opens, the question every ranking argument turns on is whether it lands above or below Songbirds & Snakes, the other prequel. You can settle that in the app the day you get out of the cinema: Shortlist puts the new film head to head against the five above and rebuilds your order around it.
Hunger Games Tier List FAQ
When does The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping come out?
The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping reaches US cinemas on November 20, 2026. Francis Lawrence directs, and the film covers the 50th Hunger Games, the Second Quarter Quell, 24 years before the original. Joseph Zada plays a young Haymitch Abernathy, with Ralph Fiennes as President Snow.
What is the highest grossing Hunger Games movie?
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013) is the highest grossing at $865.0M worldwide. The 2012 original is second at $694.0M, but it is the better investment: it returned 9.25x its $75.0M budget, the only film in the series to clear 9x.
Did any Hunger Games movie flop?
No. All five Hunger Games films earned back more than three times their production budget, and the series took $3.305B worldwide on $590.0M of budget, a blended 5.60x. The lowest multiple belongs to The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes at 3.37x, which is still comfortably profitable.
Who directed the Hunger Games movies?
Gary Ross directed the 2012 original. Francis Lawrence directed every film since: Catching Fire, both Mockingjay parts, The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, and the upcoming Sunrise on the Reaping. That gives Francis Lawrence five of the six films in the franchise.
What is the best Hunger Games movie?
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013) is the near-unanimous pick. Director Francis Lawrence tightened the storytelling, the Quarter Quell raised the stakes, and the film deepened the saga's political themes while delivering its most thrilling arena. It routinely tops critic and fan rankings alike.
How many Hunger Games movies are there?
There are 5 released films, made between 2012 and 2023: The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, Mockingjay - Part 1, Mockingjay - Part 2, and the prequel The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. A sixth, The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, reaches US cinemas on November 20, 2026, which will make six.
Is The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes worth watching?
Yes: it's a strong, darker prequel that reframes the entire saga. It follows a young Coriolanus Snow as a mentor in the 10th Hunger Games and explains how the Games and Snow himself became what they are. Rachel Zegler's Lucy Gray Baird is a standout.
Why was Mockingjay split into two movies?
Lionsgate split the final book into two films, a common move for YA franchises at the time. The result is divisive: Part 1 is widely seen as the slowest entry because it's mostly setup, while Part 2 delivers the action and emotional payoff. It's exactly the kind of debate a head-to-head ranking is built to settle.
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