The Transformers are back in theaters this week with Transformers One, the first animated movie in the franchise in nearly four decades. It’s also a big step up from many of the live-action Transformers movies, which were box office successes even when they weren’t very good films.
Now that Transformers One has arrived, we’ve decided to look back at all of the previous films to determine the best Transformers movies ever. And it shouldn’t be too surprising to see which movie landed on top and which one crashed to the bottom of the list.
9. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)
It’s hard to know where to begin with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, considering that Michael Bay and the screenwriters have all kind of apologized for it over the years. There are some truly awful Transformers movies on this list, but none worse than this one. A lot of the responsibility has to come down to Bay and the screenwriters Ehren Kruger, Roberto Orci, and Alex Kurtzman. They’re the ones who couldn’t even write the human characters convincingly, much less the giant robots. Someone in this group also thought it would be hilarious for Devastator to seemingly have robot genitals.
But the big reason why Revenge of the Fallen has landed with a thud at the bottom of this list is because of the twins, Mudflap and Skids. Picture every Black stereotype ramped up to 11 and it still wouldn’t come close to conveying how these two characters came off as racist caricatures in the film. Bay has said that wasn’t his intention. Regardless, it’s almost impossible not to see those characters as some very ugly racial jokes. There’s a reason why the films never showed them again.
Watch Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on Paramount+.
8. Transformers: The Last Knight (2017)
One of the problems that comes up in Bay’s Transformers films is that he and his collaborators keep trying to rewrite the mythology behind the franchise. But instead of streamlining things, they turned it into an incomprehensible mess. Transformers: The Last Knight tries to shoehorn Arthurian myth into the backstory, and it’s unconvincing at best.
It is actually kind of cool to see Optimus Prime temporarily go bad in this one as Nemesis Prime, even though the film’s actual villain, Quintessa (Gemma Chan), is pretty lifeless. This was Bay’s final Transformers movie and he tried to go out with a bang. But instead the film closes on a bizarre reveal that doesn’t make any sense. That’s one of the many reasons why the subsequent Transformers movies have basically ignored Bay’s continuity.
Watch Transformers: The Last Knight on Paramount+.
7. Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)
For his fourth movie in the franchise, Michael Bay kind of did a soft reset with Transformers: Age of Extinction. After Dark of the Moon, all Transformers on Earth are hunted by armed forces, and the Autobots’ human allies are gone. In their place, Bay introduces inventor Cade Yeager, as unconvincingly played by the alleged human Mark Wahlberg.
The story is all over the place, as another Transformer, Lockdown, comes to Earth to capture the survivors while the franchise’s most consistent villain, Megatron, becomes Galvatron in perhaps the most boring way ever. The thing that got fans excited about the film was the introduction of the Dinobots. But in true Bay fashion, he spoiled the reveal of Optimus riding a Dinobot in the trailer and poster, and then didn’t depict the Dinobots with any personality at all.
Watch Transformers: Age of Extinction on Paramount+.
6. Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)
The idea behind Transformers: Dark of the Moon is that everything we knew about the moon landing was a lie, and no less than the real Buzz Aldrin (seriously, it really is him) confirms that something powerful from the Transformers’ home world, Cybertron, was on the moon. Leonard Nimoy also makes his return to the franchise as the voice of Sentinel Prime, and he promptly betrays the Autobots in favor of a full-scale Decepticon invasion of Earth.
Unfortunately, you won’t really care about the human characters, and this is the last time that Shia LaBeouf appeared as the Autobots’ friend and ally, Sam Witwicky. The subsequent films don’t even really bother to directly mention what happened to him.
Watch Transformers: Dark of the Moon on Paramount+.
5. Transformers (2007)
Michael Bay’s first Transformers movie was his best one, but it’s far from the pinnacle of the franchise. There are parts of this movie that work really well, especially the more serious tone it has at times before the Transformers reveal themselves. And then it suddenly gets whacky as Jazz can’t help but breakdance while introducing himself.
One of the reasons why this film works better than Bay’s sequels is that it was still loosely based on the comics and animated series that came before it. The action is often incomprehensible when the Autobots and Decepticons are fighting each other, but they look good when standing still. Out of all of Bay’s Transformers movies, this might be the only one with any heart as Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) befriends Bumblebee and tries to court Mikaela Banes, as played by Megan Fox in her first major starring role.
Watch Transformers on Paramount+.
4. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (2023)
The most recent Transformers live-action movie, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, seems to have learned the lesson that was never absorbed by Bay’s films. Namely that we only care about the bond between the human characters and the Transformers when we’re given a reason to care. The film goes out of its way to establish Noah Diaz (Anthony Ramos) as a guy who is just trying to do right by his family before he stumbles upon the Autobots. Mirage (Pete Davidson) makes some really endearing attempts to befriend Noah, while Optimus Prime is disdainful of humanity.
The film doesn’t quite get around to convincingly justifying Elena Wallace (Dominique Fishback) as the second human sidekick of the Autobots. But the debut of the Maximals clicked in a way that the Dinobots didn’t largely because they got to keep their personalities intact. This film also did a much better job at teasing the ultimate villain, Unicron, than Bay did in The Last Knight.
Watch Transformers: Rise of the Beasts on Paramount+.
3. Bumblebee (2018)
Bumblebee is the gold standard of live-action Transformers movies, and it all comes down to the script and the cast. Setting this movie in the ’80s was the right call, and Hailee Steinfeld is terrific as Charlie Watson, a teenager who deals with her grief for her late father by putting together an old damaged car that turns out to be Bumblebee. Compare the bond that Charlie and Bumblebee form to the superficial connection that Bumblebee had to Sam in the previous films. This one succeeds because Steinfeld convincingly emotes when sharing the scene with a robot who isn’t really there.
The highlight of the film is the prologue on Cybertron, where the Autobots and the Decepticons have never looked better. John Cena also stars in this film as Jack Burns, a federal agent who distrusts both Bumblebee and the Decepticons who came to Earth to find and destroy him. This is an exciting and heartfelt film, which is exactly what it needed to be as the first reboot for the live-action movies.
Watch Bumblebee on Paramount+.
2. Transformers One (2024)
The stroke of genius behind Transformers One is that it didn’t need to be in live action to tell the story of Optimus Prime and Megatron before they were mortal enemies. Instead, Orion Pax (Furiosa‘s Chris Hemsworth) and D-16 (Eternals star Brian Tyree Henry) are like brothers at the beginning of this film, even if they’re not always on the same page.
This is a re-imagining of the previous origin stories used in other Transformers mediums like comics, TV shows, and video games. But what really makes it shine is the way that it gives Orion and D-16 distinct points of view throughout the movie. The script makes us understand where both of them are coming from before their bond is irreparably broken by the choices they have to make.
Transformers One is now playing in theaters.
1. The Transformers: The Movie (1986)
The Transformers: The Movie may be the most magnificent toy commercial ever made. The creative team behind the original Transformers animated series used the film to usher out the first set of characters while introducing all-new heroes and villains that were coming to toy stores shortly thereafter. The filmmakers weren’t trying to make a classic, but this is by far the best of the Transformers movies because it has legitimate emotional stakes as well as an apocalyptic threat in the form of Unicron.
The late Orson Welles may not have thought much about his final role, but even in his weakened state Welles’ voice conveyed Unicron’s sense of menace and grandeur. Leonard Nimoy also lent his voice to the upgraded form of Megatron, who was renamed and remade as Galvatron in one of the film’s most visually arresting scenes. But perhaps the most impressive aspect of the film’s animation are the small details, especially when Unicron eats his first world during the opening minutes. It’s just as astonishing as any anime from the era, and The Transformers: The Movie holds up exceedingly well after nearly four decades. It may be the nostalgia pick, but this is still the Transformers film to beat.
The Transformers: The Movie is not available to stream.
