Every Final Fantasy Movie, Ranked

The Final Fantasy franchise has been through its fair share of ups and downs, and this doesn’t apply to just the games themselves. After the huge boom in popularity for the series following the release of Final Fantasy 7, Square decided to go all out in making this series a household name, even for the people who didn’t play video games. However, unlike the track record of the video games that only had a few speedbumps early on before the modern era led to later games having more of a mixed reception, their first attempt to break into the realm of movies was a huge failure.

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Still, credit must be given to the company for not giving up after the first failed attempt, especially given how catastrophic this foray was. Over time, Square Enix released two more films that have seen varying levels of success. The list of Final Fantasy movies may not be expansive, but each film has a tantalizing backstory that fans of this long-running JRPG franchise would love to know, with some of this trivia being fascinating to behold.

4 Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

IMDb Rating: 6.4/10

Director: Hironobu Sakaguchi
Release Date: July 2, 2001
Total Runtime: 106 Minutes

After Final Fantasy was enjoying a string of successes, Squaresoft took a gamble and let Hironobu Sakaguchi direct a movie in the series using their state-of-the-art CGI expertise. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is a visual spectacle for the ages, with its quality still looking downright mesmerizing in every way. Unfortunately, the movie fell flat in pretty much every other department, with its story and characters being lambasted by the masses for being subpar at best.

The fallout of this movie’s financial failure was spectacular. Squaresoft had put all their eggs in this basket, and no one could’ve predicted just how much of a box office bomb Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within could be. This failure set off a chain reaction that led to Sakaguchi parting ways with Square, with the company settling on a merger with Enix to remain financially stable. In hindsight, trying to break into the realm of movies with a CGI film that was all show and no substance may not have been the worst idea, but a combination of poor marketing and bad critical scores ultimately sealed Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within‘s fate as one of the worst things to have this illustrious IP’s name attached to it.

3 Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy 15

IMDb Rating: 6.7/10

Director: Takeshi Nozue
Release Date: July 9, 2016
Total Runtime: 110 Minutes

The development of Final Fantasy 15 is infamously legendary, with the game being announced as Final Fantasy: Versus 13 before the company did a U-turn following the complaints fans had about the studio focusing on a mainline entry that is considered by many to be one of the worst Final Fantasy games ever made. Eventually, the game was rebranded as Final Fantasy 15 with Tetsuya Nomura at the helm of things, but the ship was yet to be steady. After a lengthy development process, Hajime Tabata took over from Nomura and helped Final Fantasy 15 ship out as a near-complete product.

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The fragmented story of Final Fantasy 15 was split between a short anime and a movie. While Final Fantasy 15: Brotherhood was fun to watch, the same can’t be said for Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy 15. For some reason, big-budget actors were employed to lend their voices to characters who already had people assigned to the roles in the game, and the movie itself featured a half-baked story that barely made sense half the time. While the visuals and action sequences were in a class of their own, everything else was a mess and proves why Final Fantasy 15 should’ve shipped with a complete story instead of what fans got.

2 Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children Complete

IMDb Rating: 6.8/10

Director: Tetsuya Nomura
Release Date: June 2, 2009
Total Runtime: 132 Minutes

Despite the Complete edition of Advent Children ranking lower than the original release of the film, most people consider this movie to be the superior product in every way. With grittier and more violent visuals that made the action scenes come alive, this update release was a huge step forward in every way.

Fight scenes are expanded to make them look more awe-inspiring, plot points are explained in a better fashion, and the music is re-scored to make it sound more similar to that of the original game. All these changes are something fans will welcome in a product that serves as a fitting sequel to the events of Final Fantasy 7.

1 Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children

IMDb Rating: 7.2/10

Director: Tetsuya Nomura
Release Date: September 14, 2005
Total Runtime: 101 Minutes

After failing to make a mark with Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, Square Enix decided to go back to the drawing board and see how they could interest fans with a movie set in this franchise. The obvious answer was to make a sequel to one of their most profitable video games ever made, Final Fantasy 7.

Despite some questionable additions here and there, Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children turned out to be a notable success and compelled Square Enix to focus on developing the Compilation of Final Fantasy 7. The action sequences were amazing and the quality of animation was off the charts. It helped that Sephiroth’s final fight against Cloud was mind-blowing in every way and let fans witness a battle between two legendary characters in its entirety.