Tim Burton Movies Ranked

15. Mars Attacks! (1996)

Starring: Jack Nicholson, Pierce Brosnan, Sarah Jessica Parker, Glenn Close, Natalie Portman

Plot: Mars invades Earth and the president of the United States, along with a group of lonely American outsiders, mount an ineffectual effort to fight back or make peace.

This one is a lot funnier when you’re under the age of ten. It hasn’t aged well.

The calibre of cast Burton managed to assemble only impresses more with time (three Oscar winners and six nominees for those counting). It may seem like a lot of stunt-casting, but that only subverts your expectations – Jack Nicholson plays two characters and gets killed off twice, and Pierce Brosnan and Sarah Jessica Parker, two of the biggest stars of the 90s, spend much of the runtime as detached heads.

It’s too broad to be taken in any way seriously, and a few good gags aside (like the “No applause” and “No birds” public warning signs after the disastrous first contact) it’s not quite sharp enough as a comedy either.

Recommended for you: So Bad It’s Good: Mars Attacks!

14. Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1985)

Starring: Paul Reubens, Elizabeth Dailey, Mark Holten, Diane Salinger, Damon Martin

Plot: An eternally happy man-child, seen as a weird and lonely outsider by the world, goes on a road trip across the USA to retrieve his stolen bike.

Following a distinctively-dressed weirdo on a quest to belong couldn’t be more in Burton’s wheelhouse.

Have you ever seen an episode ‘Pee-wee’s Playhouse’? It’s a thing to behold – a bubble-gummy mischievous stream of consciousness.

Burton takes a character he clearly loves and identifies with, gives him a state-spanning adventure and then cuts Paul Reubens loose to do his thing. It’s a colourful romp and worth seeing for how everyone Pee-wee meets on his travels reacts to him and how he deals with challenging situations in his own unique way, though it does still feel like a bloated TV episode. Also, your mileage on this one is almost entirely dependent on your tolerance of Pee-wee’s antics. Be warned.

13. Frankenweenie (2012)

Starring: Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara, Martin Short, Martin Landau, Charlie Tahan

Plot: Victor, a lonely outsider and boy genius brings his recently departed dog back to life with disastrous consequences for his suburban town.

Despite being a well-intentioned and loving remake of his own short film, the feature length 2012 animated feature Frankenweenie doesn’t quite live up to expectations.

The characters are wonderfully modelled, especially the undead pooch formally known as Sparky who must be the most adorable thing to ever come from beyond the grave, and there’s also a skewed heart to the feature that runs deep with references of Universal horror movies and monster movies in general (let’s play a game of spot-what-classic-monster-that-pet-is), but there was never enough here to satisfactorily fill a feature runtime.

It’s pretty shallow thematically speaking and strangely aloof and unemotional for all the professed feelings, though you do have to admire the craft.

12. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (2016)

Starring: Eva Green, Asa Butterfield, Samuel L Jackson, Judi Dench, Terence Stamp

Plot: A lonely outcast boy, on a quest from his grandfather, finds his way to a time-locked mansion home to children with special powers, but dark forces are seeking the mansion and their peculiar inhabitants for sinister purposes.

The final battle in this Hollywood fantasy movie takes place on Blackpool Pier. As laughably ordinary as that seems to a British viewer, this is unquestionably a VFX high point of Burton’s career, gleefully referencing Ray Harryhausen as an army of skeletons scrap with creepy Slender-Man-looking monsters on the aforementioned tourist attraction. This is Burton revelling in producing something really gruesome and macabre for young audiences – after all, the baddies eat the eyes of children to keep themselves from turning into monsters.

It retains its impact in a magical-realist way, setting out to “separate fantasy from reality” in terms of the plot but doing quite the opposite by the end. Eva Green is a highlight as a kind of mad goth Mary Poppins and the kids are all given distinct moments to shine.

11. Big Eyes (2014)

Starring: Amy Adams, Christoph Waltz, Danny Huston, Krysten Ritter, Terence Stamp

Plot: In the 1960s, “Keane” became a household name from mass-produced kitsch artworks depicting big-eyed waifish children, but the wrong person received the credit. This is the story of lonely outsider artist Margaret Keane and her charlatan husband Walter.

Amy Adams is wonderful at playing the artist (Margaret) ruled by her heart for better or worse, her emotional vulnerability exacerbated by her psychology growing increasingly fractured as her work is taken from her. Margaret’s sense of reality starts to warp and Burton’s style breaks through the otherwise low-key realism in surrealist flashes. Unfortunately, in comparison to Adams’ nuance and restraint, Waltz plays her plagiarising husband increasingly as a cartoon character.

When Burton forces quirky humour on proceedings, or doesn’t direct his cast to pick a consistent performance style, the film loses you, especially in the final act where every effort seems to be aiming towards making what actually happened seem less believable.

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