Zack Snyder Movies Ranked
8. Sucker Punch (2011)
Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch was filled with all types of issues during its production, but none reared their ugly head more than the ongoing rumoured confrontations between Snyder and distributors Warner Bros over the film’s age rating.
Recently confirming the rumours and revealing the existence of an R-rated Snyder Cut, Zack Snyder’s vision of a more brutal and violent release was ultimately scaled down in order for Warner Bros to reach a larger target market by making the movie PG-13 – a decision that clearly wasn’t in-keeping with the film’s themes of mental, physical and sexual abuse. This led many, including lead cast member Emily Browning, to speak out against the film and openly criticise the decision that she felt took something away from Snyder’s original vision.
Despite this, Sucker Punch oozed the visual trademarks Snyder has made himself famous for, all the while centring the story around a group of women who straight-up kicked ass; an aspect of the film that Snyder delivered in spades but was never enough to shake off the stench of its convoluted plot and apparently difficult to decipher thematic explorations.
7. Man Of Steel (2013)
Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel is the type of movie that leaves many a fan of the alien superhero wondering what could have been. The ideas were promising and some of the visuals were standouts of the genre, but the film really didn’t live up to its billing in many ways, including its overly long run-time – a criticism levelled at a lot of the director’s work.
Although it was a success at the box office, negative word of mouth and a number of reviews that criticised the film for seemingly everything but its “most Snyder moments”, made for a less fruitful financial return than DC expected and did little to kick-off the DC Extended Universe in the manner the studio had hoped for. Coming out of Man of Steel, it seemed audiences had become distracted by the movie’s insistence upon other-worldly damage to its host city Metropolis and saw the film as too desperately trying to capture the dark and thrilling magic of the Dark Knight Trilogy.
Whilst time and a removal from the context of this film’s release has been somewhat favourable to its reception, the years have only highlighted its many deficiencies, making it the worst of Snyder’s central DCEU trilogy (Justice League 2017 not included).
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6. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)
Dawn of Justice was probably the most divisive of Snyder’s collection of hugely divisive pictures at the time of its release, with many an audience member being dismayed at the nonsensical editing of the action scenes and the rather limited explorations of many of the film’s secondary characters and themes.
Snyder did successfully oversee the rebirth of the Batman character in a post-Dark-Knight landscape however, and the director managed to present the caped crusader as a viable opponent to the almost overly powerful Superman character. Zack Snyder also successfully inserted a number of Easter eggs that gifted the movie a rewatchability and even brought about a fair degree of interest for his reportedly more adult-themed cut of the movie that was released on DVD and Blu-ray.
Featuring an epic score from Hans Zimmer and a top performance from Ben Affleck, and being the first time key figures in the Justice League had been featured in a live-action film together, Batman v Superman offered more than the initial reactions suggested and is looked back on with kinder eyes in the post-Zack Snyder’s Justice League world than it was at the time, its tension, action and characterisation all much easier to stomach away from the expectation of being like an MCU movie or replicating the success of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy.
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