All 5 John Wick movies ranked — first place is a fight between the cheapest and the biggest
The first John Wick was made for $20–30 million and lost its opening weekend to Ouija. Chapter 4 cost $100 million and made more than the first two movies combined, which still isn't enough to win.
There have been five John Wick movies since October 24, 2014: four chapters starring Keanu Reeves, plus the 2025 spinoff Ballerina. Together they've grossed about $1.18 billion worldwide. A fifth chapter has been official since Lionsgate announced it at CinemaCon on April 1, 2025, with Reeves and director Chad Stahelski returning, though Stahelski admitted that June that the story is still "a bit of a conundrum" (Newsweek).
The money tells one story, from the cheapest to the most expensive (Wikipedia's franchise table):
- John Wick (2014): $20–30 million budget, $86.1 million worldwide, 101 minutes.
- Chapter 2 (2017): $40 million, $174.3 million, 122 minutes.
- Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019): $75 million, $328.3 million, 131 minutes.
- Ballerina (2025): $90 million, $140.2 million, 125 minutes.
- Chapter 4 (2023): $100 million, $447.3 million, 169 minutes.
The ranking doesn't follow the money. Every movie on this list has good action, so the order comes down to what each one adds to John Wick's story, and how much of your evening it takes to do it.
5. Ballerina (2025)
Ana de Armas plays Eve, a Ruska Roma assassin out for revenge, in a story set between Parabellum and Chapter 4. Len Wiseman directed it, the release slipped a year, and reports claimed Stahelski spent months refilming most of the movie in early 2024. Both directors pushed back, saying the additional photography took about two weeks and that they ran it together (Wikipedia)).
It opened to $24.5 million behind Lilo & Stitch and finished at $140.2 million on a $90 million budget, the worst return on budget in the franchise. Reeves turns up late, mostly to help Eve out from behind a sniper scope.
"absurd, and thrilling, and gorgeous"
— Alison Willmore, Vulture
Willmore is right about the fights, and Ballerina still lands last, because it borrows the world without adding anything to it. Slant's Justin Clark put it most precisely: the movie lacks "a mythology of its own."
4. John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019)
Parabellum is the one that proved the franchise could open big. It debuted to $57 million, knocked Avengers: Endgame off the top of the box office in the process and finished at $328.3 million on a $75 million budget (Wikipedia). The first hour is the series at its most inventive: a library fight against 7-foot-4 NBA center Boban Marjanović, modeled on Game of Death, and Halle Berry's Sofia, who refuses to hand over her Belgian Malinois and then fights alongside her dogs.
Berry broke three of her own ribs in rehearsal. Mark Dacascos took the villain role of Zero after Hiroyuki Sanada, the original choice, tore his Achilles tendon.
"a work of pop cinema so blissfully, albeit brutally, entertaining"
— Peter Sobczynski, RogerEbert.com, 4/4
The trouble is the back half. After the desert detour, the movie stops telling a story and starts setting up the next one, ending on John Wick in the hands of the Bowery King with nothing resolved. It's the only chapter that feels like the middle of something.
3. John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)
The budget doubled to $40 million, and so did the audience. Chapter 2 opened to $30.4 million, more than twice what the original made on its first weekend, and passed the first movie's entire worldwide total in nine days (Wikipedia). It's also where the mythology arrives: Santino D'Antonio calls in a blood marker, the High Table enters the picture, and Laurence Fishburne, Reeves's Matrix co-star, turns up as the Bowery King.
The set pieces travel from the catacombs under Rome to a running knife fight with Common's Cassian on the New York subway. Not every critic bought it.
"a shameful example of Hollywood gun pornography"
— Jordan Hoffman, The Guardian
Hoffman was in the minority, with the film at 89% on Rotten Tomatoes, and Chapter 2 is the sequel that made the series a franchise. It sits in the middle because the rules it invented work better in the movies that came after it than in the one that introduced them.
2. John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)
This is the biggest one in every sense: $100 million budget, a $73.8 million opening, $447.3 million worldwide, 94% on Rotten Tomatoes and 169 minutes long (Wikipedia). It gives Sanada his overdue role as the manager of the Osaka Continental, adds Donnie Yen as Caine, a blind High Table assassin and old friend of John's, and builds to a dawn duel in Paris. The top-down sequence, shot on a purpose-built set and inspired by the video game The Hong Kong Massacre, is the best single action scene in the franchise.
Lance Reddick, who plays the Continental's concierge Charon, died on March 17, 2023, a week before it opened.
"best American action blockbuster since George Miller's Mad Max: Fury Road"
— Rafael Motamayor, IndieWire
Motamayor has a case, and Chapter 4 would win this list if the list were about set pieces. It isn't. The plot is a delivery system for spectacle, a duel arranged so John can win his freedom, and by the time he's fighting his way up the stairs to Sacré-Cœur, you've been watching him do roughly the same thing for close to three hours.
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1. John Wick (2014)
The first movie barely got made. Derek Kolstad's spec script was called Scorn, the financing came in below what was promised, Reeves put in his own money and Eva Longoria was among the backers (Wikipedia)). Lionsgate picked it up about two months before release as the only bidder, with no money upfront. Stunt veterans Stahelski and David Leitch directed it together, but the Directors Guild wouldn't give them a shared credit, so Leitch is listed as a producer.
It opened to $14.4 million, second behind Ouija, and everything the franchise still runs on is already there in 101 minutes: the Continental, the gold coins, the rules, the gun-fu. Every chapter since has had to invent a reason for John to fight. This one only needed a beagle puppy named Daisy, the last gift from his dead wife.
The first John Wick is the only one whose plot fits in one sentence: they killed his dog.
Chapter 4 is the better-made action movie. The first one wins because it's the only chapter where you care why he's fighting, and it gets there in a little over an hour and a half.
What's next for the franchise
Lionsgate film chief Adam Fogelson said at CinemaCon that Reeves, Stahelski and producers Basil Iwanyk and Erica Lee wouldn't come back without "something truly phenomenal and fresh to say." Alongside Chapter 5, the studio is making an animated prequel with Reeves voicing Wick, covering the "Impossible Task" that freed him to be with Helen, and a Caine spinoff that Donnie Yen is directing. Reeves, for his part, has been honest about the limiting factor.
"my knees right now are saying, 'You can't do another John Wick'"
— Keanu Reeves, to CBS News, via Deadline
He also said his heart still wants to. Stahelski's test for Chapter 5 is whether the story will be satisfying, and the franchise already has a template: 101 minutes, a modest budget and a dog.
Previously we wrote: Street Fighter won its opening weekend, then lost Monday to Nathan Fielder's movie