Had a discussion with two of my friends about this, and want to know you guys' opinions as I respect them and am curious what you think. This is completely off topic from football, but in these days with the boring international break etc. I guess it's fine. Me and my friends landed on this list:

1: Harry Potter
2: Star Wars

3: James Bond
4: Middle Earth
5: Batman
6: Spider-Man
7: X-Men
8: Star Trek
9: Transformers
10: Pirates of the Caribbean

State what you think as well. Take into account everything: amount of fans, commitment of fans, box office, budget, legacy, amount of movies, etc. Especially curious about 1st place.

PS: Don't count Marvel as one franchise as this would just make the list uninteresting; rather separately as one Avengers, one Iron Man, one Captain America, one Thor, etc. Same for Pixar.

Haha :) You've missed out my friend, I highly recommend to at least watch the Harry Potter films you haven't seen (especially if it's the later ones). From the 3rd movie, the quality and maturity of the films are wonderful.

The story of Fantastic Beasts takes place about 70 years before Harry Potter was born so obviously a lot of the characters from the time of Harry Potter won't be in Fantastic Beasts, but it IS confirmed that none other than Albus Dumbeldore will appear in the 2nd Fantastic Beasts and onwards as well as Gellert Grindelwald who is considered the most dangerous dark wizard of all time after Lord Voldemort. Could for sure be others too.

I feel like we could regurgitate all of these kinds of threads and create poll in for them :P

Or here.

@Lilywhite This is from the naming thread. :) Yes I am from the US and yes Star Wars is much more popular in the US than much of the world, but Harry Potter is big here too. We also have Lord of the Rings as mentioned by SunFlash.

Star Wars is more sentimental to me due to seeing it with family and it's imprint since I was 5 when I saw the first one. It had such an impact, perhaps because of the age I was, but it amazed me. It was ground breaking for it's time and took me to a whole different place in the Galaxy.

I do like Harry Potter and Dragons, and Witches, ect... Game of Thrones is my favorite TV series if that puts anything into perspective.

I see, thanks for the insight. I just found it interesting because most of those I know where I'm from (Belgium and Europe) know very little about Star Wars and don't have any connection to it, while pretty much everyone I know from the US are huge fans. Probably a cultural thing, then. Much like Harry Potter in the UK I would think.

@Lilywhite I dunno mate, but one thing which seem to be similar for most of us Star Wars fan is that we started loving it because of parent showed it to us when we were younger. Actually, I think Star Wars was especially a hit in North America when it was released. They propably didn't put much budget on advertising Star Wars oversea, wich mean it was naturally not as popular there. Tell if you think that make sense. :D

Avangers. Btw, Game of Thrones is my favorite TV series. Probably a cultural thing, now. I really like it.

Huh, if I had to pick I wouldn't take a second to pick Godfather. Ruined every other movie for me for some time, same for X-Files and TV shows. Of course, we all have different taste, and I'd have to rewatch all these movies to form concrete opinion but as far as I remember, I thought LOTR was better than Harry Potter. Can't tell for anybody else, but LOTR left me impressed and genuinely happy to watch it next time. After Harry Potter, I just thought, okay, it's good movie.

Godfather will be once again on TV here. First part has all the stuff I liked about it, storyline, actors, plot development and death scenes which were shocking but also iconic. I liked second part even more, so I will watch it on Friday.

@Croatian You might appreciate those if you like the godfather:

No one mentioned the God Father? :( that's the best one ever made

@Emo, oh yeah, those look class! Thanks for sharing them.

@Croatian Hehe, I was actually just gonna post the Ranieri one but then I saw the Conte one and thought I had to share. Glad I did, it bring back great memory. Especialy Leicester win in 2016. :)

It is odd looking at the first couple posts of this thread a few years later. Star Wars has released several movies, all doing well at theaters but with many people (including myself) strongly disliking the direction the franchise is going. Harry Potter released a spin-off (Fantastic Beasts) which did pretty well but nowhere near the older Harry Potter's or even the less well-received Star Wars releases.

Sometimes it's just best to let a series be a series, and accept that adding onto it will always be problematic, (but still profitable).

@SunFlash

Sometimes it's just best to let a series be a series, and accept that adding onto it will always be problematic, (but still profitable).

Exactly. I'm a huge Harry Potter fan but haven't even wanted to read/watch A Cursed Child, Fantastic Beasts and all those other spin-offs outside the main series. I'd rather keep my Harry Potter memories solely with the originals.

All of those movies from the list are for a particular crowd, kids. No wonder they keep making superhero movies till this day it's where the money is.

I honestly can't even tell if any of those from the list ever won an Oscar, not that it would mean that it was a good movie per say but it would have some other value to the art of cinematography, I think Batman won an Oscar way long ago and I'm sure that it wasn't for the Batman that is the best from that franchise from Christopher Nolan but at least Heath Ledger got the award post/after his death so out of all of those from the list IMO Batman franchise does hold a bit more weight for me since it was a bit more serious at some point but I must admit I didn't even watch most of the rest, though it's almost easy to know what to expect, no offense to anybody.

All of those movies from the list are for a particular crowd, kids. No wonder they keep making superhero movies till this day it's where the money is.

Ignorant statement. The Marvel movies aren't just made for "kids", only one or two might be but that's not the reason why its so successful. It's successful because a lot of the Marvel films are so well written and appeal strongly with the older audience, which is obviously where the money is, not where kids are targeted...lol

Ignorant statement.

It's not really ignorant if you look at the list there is not a single serious movie there, Harry Potter books was the most popular among kids/teens, all the superhero movies are mostly the same ofc there are some old school comic book fans out there but you don't need to be that smart to realise for who are those movies full of cgi and action and a basic story/plot. They even say it's a family movie parents + kids they would like that everyone watches them but we know why mostly watch them it's not any secret.
It's a big market you can't really argue how all of these from the list are serious movies when they are obviously made for a younger audience, I can maybe see that Star Wars does have an older fanbase that is bigger than the rest but it's not like the Godfather that people mentioned.

One of the single biggest movies of all time was Avatar and it was just like these from the list, a lot of action, cgi or animation and a basic story aimed at a younger audience and a family movie, sure adults could enjoy it, same with Finding Dory or Beauty and the beast but it's still not as "serious".

I mean someone like Pewdiepie that was basically acting like a clown on youtube while playing games has earned over 150 million dollars so don't tell me like you know where the money is, Justin Bieber got the most money from his targeted audience which was kids/early teens there are many examples...

But, regardless of all that and my personal taste for movies, as we all have our own view of things it's still important to understand how hard it is to bring someone's book into the big screen that the writer would agree with and that in result is loved by the fans of that story, Harry Potter is a perfect example where it all went great.
I have seen people after watching for example LOTR arguing "Why Gandalf didn't send the Griffins with Frodo from the start" and the typical response was "you didn't read the books shut up" and I think that as soon as you NEED something prior to the movie itself it shows that some parts were presented poorly.

For example I had big expectations for the movie Warcraft because I know about Blizzards game franchise and Warcraft Frozen Throne was to me one of the best storylines/plots in PC gaming overall and the movie in my eyes failed to deliver from the world that was presented in a game a long time ago.

Marvel has clearly stormed into the lead.

This is a triumph, ultimately, for the comic book nerds and their hobby, despite all the decades of scorn, mockery and abuse that society rained on them. Who would have thought that those geeky, smelly, marginalized males would form the sub-culture which has created the biggest franchise in the world in just 10 years?

Also, don't forget things like Alien and Terminator. It may be that only the first couple of each are truly great, but you can say that for the Godfather too, and I do agree that the Godfather is probably the best movie franchise.

@Lodatz Smelly? Now, thats insulting, why would comic book nerd be smelly? From what I know, the guy doing sport smell a lot more. :P

Watched Godfather II, it's still amazing. Honestly, everyone who didn't see Godfather should. Couldn't keep my eyes off TV, part II has less violence than part I (or it didn't shook me as much). And parallel storytelling was big plus IMO. Aswell as De Niro's perfomance, he was able to keep don Vito's charisma in different, younger character.