10 Most Thrilling Tim Burton Movies, Ranked

Tim Burton is one of the most popular filmmakers working today, and has impressively managed to deliver another huge box office success with Beetlejuice Beetlejuice four decades after he first entered the industry. Although recent years of Burton’s career have been plagued by critical and financial disappointments like Dumbo and Dark Shadows, no one would mistake these films for the work of anyone else because of how unique they all look and feel.

Burton has a very unique style of filmmaking that includes aspects of horror, suspense, comedy, action, and satire, making it very hard to pin his films down to just one genre. While generally he’s made films that appeal to a broad audience, Burton is certainly capable of making some electrifying thrillers when his attention is on point. Here are the ten most thrilling Tim Burton movies, ranked.

10 ‘Ed Wood’ (1994)

Starring Johnny Depp and Martin Landau

Ed Wood is a real outlier in Burton’s career, as it was based on the life of the titular struggling film director (played beautifully by Johnny Depp) as he attempts to make his low-budget B-movies like Glen or Glenda and Plan 9 From Outer Space. Although it’s a charming film about the power of artistic integrity, Ed Wood does heighten its stakes when the protagonist faces the possibility that the industry will never accept him or his work.

Ed Wood gets to some really emotional places that most other Burton movies don’t, as Ed is forced to deal with the death of the classic movie actor Bela Lugosi (Martin Landau), which makes the production of Plan 9 From Outer Space even more challenging. While it hits all the right notes to be a good biopic, Ed Wood is still evocative of the themes of outsiders and acceptance that are integral to all of Burton’s work.

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9 ‘Beetlejuice’ (1988)

Starring Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder

Beetlejuice is the best of Burton’s collaborations with Michael Keaton, whose performance as the titular bio-exorcist is one of the most genius works of comedic screen acting in the history of Hollywood. Although Keaton’s energy is a major reason why Beetlejuice works as well as it does, Burton is responsible for many of the key decisions that make the film so thrilling; it was a pretty bold choice for him to kill off his main characters in the opening moments and turn them into ghosts.

Beetlejuice is a great introduction to the horror genre for younger viewers, as it plays with scary imagery without ever negating its inherently goofy premise. That being said, audiences would not share the same affection for Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) all these years later if Burton had not put her in a genuine sense of danger.

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8 ‘Mars Attacks!’ (1996)

Starring Jack Nicholson and Pierce Brosnan

Mars Attacks! is Burton’s most wildly misunderstood film, as he attempted to craft a satire of the generic ways in which disaster movies would play out, where humans would rally together and work together in a time of crisis. Burton presents a far funnier, yet also more cynical examination of how things would actually play out; when the President of the United States (Jack Nicholson) is an idiot, humanity is destined to be ravaged and destroyed.

Mars Attacks! is quite cynical in what it says about human nature, as it shows mankind being completely defenseless when faced with alien technology. While there are some moments of humor that come from the graphic dismemberments, Burton also seems to enjoy getting some genuinely disturbing moments of gore in the film that show the consequences of trying to reason with an enemy that isn’t willing to listen.

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7 ‘Corpse Bride’ (2005)

Starring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter

Corpse Bride was the first animated film that Burton directed for himself, even though he also served as a key producer and creative consultant on Henry Selick’s hit holiday classic The Nightmare Before Christmas. Although making a PG movie with stop motion animation would seemingly suggest that Burton was toning down his style for a younger audience, Corpse Bride is a rather tragic love story about the impossibility of rekindling a romance that has been haunted by death.

The tone and style of Corpse Bride is quite moody and atmospheric, allowing Burton to relish in the gothic influences that have been so dominant throughout his entire filmography. It’s also impressive that Depp and Helena Bonham Carter were able to instill such emotion into the story with their vocal performances that the characters felt real, even if the situations that they found themselves in were obviously supernatural in nature.

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6 ‘Frankenweenie’ (2012)

Starring Charlie Tahan and Martin Landau

Frankenweenie is perhaps the most personal film that Burton has ever made, as it was based on a short film he made before growing in prominence as a director after the release of Pee-wee’s Big Adventure in 1985 took his career to new heights. The film revolves around the young boy Victor (Charlie Tahan), who tries to revive his beloved dog Spark in a narrative that parallels the story of Frankenstein.

Frankenweenie is thrilling because it brings to life the feelings of childhood loss, specifically for a character like Victor who has a hard time connecting with his peers. The anti-science rhetoric that Victor’s community spouts at him when he tries to shed light on the experiments that he is working on is also quite disturbing, as this sort of defiance of logic has become far too common in recent years.

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5 ‘Edward Scissorhands’ (1990)

Starring Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder

Edward Scissorhands is the most romantic movie of Burton’s career, as it is yet another story about an innocent character who doesn’t feel like he has a place in the world. The difference is that while Edward is initially accepted by a family that seems to love him, tension arrives when the more conservative members of his community begin to lash out at him in fear.

Edward Scissorhands gets quite harrowing in its last act, as Edward is blamed for a crime that he doesn’t commit, attacked by the local bullies, and forced to run away from everyone that cared about him. While the stakes of the story are more emotional than they are visceral, Burton does a great job in Edward Scissorhands at turning a charming coming-of-age style into a thrilling examination of how society treats those that are different.

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4 ‘Batman’ (1989)

Starring Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson

Batman set a new standard for comic book movies, proving that superhero movies could be dark and gritty. While most audiences had come to associate Bob Kane’s characters with the cheesy television show starring Adam West from the 1960s, Burton created a version of Gotham City that felt like a classic neo-noir thriller from the 1930s, as each corner presented a new sense of danger.

Jack Nicholson’s performance as the Joker is genuinely terrifying, as is seen as a character so crazed that he doesn’t care about the significant collateral damage that he causes. The decision to focus only on Keaton’s performance as Batman, and leave much of his life as Bruce Wayne ambiguous, was a clever choice that only made the film more nuanced. The film’s final action scene at the Joker’s parade may be the single greatest fight that Burton has ever captured on film.

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3 ‘Batman Returns’ (1992)

Starring Michael Keaton and Michelle Pfeiffer

Batman Returns is a darker and scarier sequel to Batman in every way, as Burton created a dense character study about the outcasts of society that desperately vie for power. The transformation of Selina Kyle (Michelle Pfeiffer) into Catwoman is quite intense, as she goes from being a mousy secretary to a powerful supervillain who proves to be more than Batman’s match.

Although Danny Devito’s performance as The Penguin is genuinely a work of pure nightmare fuel, Burton goes deep into the political subtext of Batman Returns, as the villainous politician Max Schrek (Christopher Walken) is responsible for turning Gotham City into an environment of hate. Although it is deeply unfortunate that Burton was unable to make a third Batman film with Keaton, Batman Returns set such a high standard for the franchise that it took Christopher Nolan over a decade to top it.

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2 ‘Sleepy Hollow’ (1999)

Starring Johnny Depp and Christopher Walken

Sleepy Hollow is the scariest film that Burton has ever made, as it was the first instance in which he made a true horror film without any of his comedic sensibilities. While the Sleepy Hollow story has been told countless time before in many different forms of media, Burton’s film treated it as a neo-noir thriller where a quirky investigator (played again by Depp) must stop a mythic figure from butchering the town’s innocent inhabitants.

Sleepy Hollow is the most graphic and violent of Burton’s films, showing just how unleashed he could be with an R-Rating. It’s actually rather tragic that Burton never returned to this style of filmmaking again, as those disappointed by his work on Alice in Wonderland and Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children would have loved to see him try his hand at something more intense.

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1 ‘Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street’ (2007)

Starring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street was an adaptation of the acclaimed musical of the same name, but managed to bring to life moments of graphic detail that never would have been possible on stage. The tension in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street revolves around whether or not Depp’s character will get away with his crimes; despite his horrific action, he’s a character that audiences have still come to have sympathy for because of the ways in which he challenges the instruments of capitalism.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street has a caustic sense of humor, and is far more mean-spirited than anything else that Burton had done up until that point. Even for those that don’t traditionally enjoy musicals, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a brilliant work of horror.

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