Every Robert Rodriguez movie, ranked

After the early aughts success of Spy Kids, Rodriguez hit a visual and narrative low with The Adventures Of Shark Boy And Lava Girl In 3-D. This story about the titular young superheroes—future Twilight star Taylor Lautner and Taylor Dooley—battling a variety of aliens and bullies on Planet Drool is dull and rudderless. The only thing that has aged worse than Shark Boy’s contrived origin story are the extremely 2005 (read: cheap) CG effects.

You can feel that there’s a good (or at least mildly entertaining) movie vying for our attention at the edges of Spy Kids: All The Time In The World, but Rodriguez seems unable to execute it, save for a few inventive beats within the hard-to-care-about set pieces and Joel McHale’s “just go with it” performance. Everything else feels watered down or phoned in. And yes, that is Jeremy Piven as the villainous Timekeeper (*in Vin Diesel meme voice* The movies!).

Well, Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over is a movie, alright. Cameras were used. Lights were turned on. Just not in a way that feels worth watching outside of the curio factor of seeing a very, very hammy Sylvester Stallone play a baddie called The Toymaker. The film’s only saving grace? Alexa PenaVega’s spy kid Carmen, whose effortless on-screen presence deserves a better movie than whatever this is.

Machete Kills exhausts whatever B-movie goodwill was left over from 2010’s Machete, the first installment of Danny Trejo’s unlikely franchise. In this messy sequel, Machete (Trejo) is forced to deal with a world where an actual border wall between Mexico and the U.S. exists—but this unfocused and aimless movie doesn’t do anything with that plot element other than largely waste it. But hey, at least we get appearances from Lady Gaga, Sofia Vergara, Oscar-winner Cuba Gooding, Jr., and a very unhinged Demián Bichir as a cartel boss with both a split personality and a potential nuke aimed at America.

You gotta hand it to Rodriguez for milking this franchise (and Netflix’s coffers) for all he can. The latest sequel—the first in 12 years—at least feels like a movie, one that brings back some of the classic Rodriguez visual flourishes and wit that made the first film so watchable. Spy Kids: Armageddon isn’t as good as Spy Kids, but it’s better than all the other sequels. With a timely-ish story about a powerful game developer unleashing a computer virus that gives him violent control of the world’s tech, Armageddon allows for a somewhat inspired team-up of the prodigy of the world’s greatest secret agents that makes for a decent, second-screen diversion.

Two thumbs up for the core conceit behind Hypnotic—it’s Scanners meets Inception, and is about people possessing the ability to manipulate how our minds perceive events and reality. But two thumbs way, way down for the execution. It feels like anyone could have directed this movie, as Rodriguez’s usual visual vigor is dulled.

This heavily sci-fi’d take on The Little Rascals is a movie whose reach far exceeds its grasp. The plot, which is broken up into confusing non-chronological sections that feel like Rodriguez is scratching a Memento-y itch, centers on magic rocks and aliens. Trying to ground this all on the shoulders of a group of too-dumb-to-be-alive parents (one played by William H. Macy!) only makes Shorts harder to appreciate outside of it being an original idea with an ambitious set-up that the director feels out of his depth to pay off.

Since Marvel movies were blowing up at the box office following the release of his first Sin City, Rodriguez and Dimension Films decided to get in on the comic book movie boom with a sequel to one of the genre’s most notable early success stories. But in the nine years since that landmark film’s release, mass audience interest in more gritty black-and-white noir had significantly faded, making A Dame To Kill For one of Rodriguez’s biggest box office disappointments. But the movie isn’t a total dud—the return of Mickey Rourke’s Marv in the “Just Another Saturday Night” vignette is another thrilling punch-fest featuring one of Rourke’s best characters. Outside of that, and despite the abundance of bare breasts and bare knuckle fights on display, you can’t help but wish you just watched the OG movie instead.

Red 11 is arguably Rodriguez’s most under-the-radar title. Based on the filmmaker’s personal experiences with donating his body to medical science in exchange for money to make his movies, Red 11 takes that idea and puts it through a very science-fiction lens. The intentionally low-fi production allows Rodriguez to return to his roots, but without the cinematic feel or narrative momentum of the movies that launched his career. It’s a cool concept, but it needs someone more comfortable with sci-fi to pull off.

Released a year after the first Spy Kids became a box office hit, Spy Kids 2: The Island Of Lost Dreams expands upon the kiddie super spy concept with more wit and heart than its predecessor. The parents Cortez, played by Carla Gugino and Antonio Banderas, are given considerably more to do here, as Lost Dreams develops the core relationship between them and their children in a refreshingly organic way. Their dynamic is the beating heart of the film, providing Rodriguez with one of his best, most fully realized emotional storylines. And the film scores bonus points for adding a matinee friendly version of Danny Trejo’s Machete to the mix.

Netflix’s We Can Be Heroes is surprisingly superior to Rodriguez’s “sequel adjacent” Shark Boy And Lava Girl. The director’s kid friendly take on The X-Men with a dash of Marvel’s Avengers feels like his “mea culpa” for whatever Shark Boy was; We Can Be Heroes is a lean and colorful action flick for the 10-and-under crowd, but it packs just enough stakes and CG-enhanced set pieces to make the target audience’s parents feel like it’s worth their time.

Based on a popular manga, Alita: Battle Angel is an interesting and mostly successful experiment that combines the sensibilities of Rodriguez and producer and co-writer James Cameron to create an impressive VFX spectacle about love, class warfare, and cyborgs. With Alita, Rodriguez has his biggest budget ever, telling a story Cameron once earmarked to direct himself between Titanic and Avatar. The intimate and at times clunky sci-fi epic centers on a young cyborg (Rosa Salazar, in an all-timer motion capture performance) struggling to find her place in a post-apocalyptic world. The ensuing spectacle provides very Cameron-y action scenes and beautifully rendered vistas, but it also draws attention to two of Rodriguez’s biggest pain points as a filmmaker: character and emotional storytelling.

With a rewrite by Scream’s Kevin Williamson, the underrated (and somewhat undercooked) The Faculty marked Robert Rodriguez’s first foray into teen horror. It’s Invasion Of The Body Snatchers with a strong dose of Breakfast Club-like high school angst. While it doesn’t achieve the full potential of either comp, it’s fun (and chilling) to watch the movie try. Rodriguez seems to struggle with the story’s slow-burn tension (especially with a career fueled by stories trafficking largely in zero subtlety) as our high school heroes try to figure out who among their classmates hasn’t been taken over by alien parasites. But where Rodriguez thrives is in the various foot chases and in the third act finale, where our unlikely heroes confront the Big Bad alien queen in their school gym.  

Once Upon A Time in Mexico caps off Rodriguez’s El Mariachi trilogy with a deranged plot that hinges on a CIA Black Op, a drug dealer (Willem Dafoe) seeking plastic surgery and, of course, the legendary El Mariachi (Antonio Banderas). Banderas gets swept up into one “top that!” shootout or double-cross after another, trying to stay one step ahead of trigger-happy bad guys and a blinded CIA specialist played by Johnny Depp. It’s an all-caps guilty pleasure—Rodriguez knows that—and all the director cares about is making sure you have a good time watching it.

The feature-length adaptation of Robert Rodriguez’s much-loved trailer from Grindhouse may be the best real movie ever based on a fake trailer. Danny Trejo (in his finest role) plays Machete, a former Mexican Federale forced to go all hack-and-stab on some bad hombres when he is double-crossed by a corrupt senator. With that set up, Machete doubles-down on the trailer’s gratuitous sex and violence, gleefully careening into the surreal in between some of the best action scenes Rodriguez has ever filmed. (Our favorite? When our hero uses a bad guy’s freshly sliced intestine to make his escape out of a window.)

Planet Terror, the first half of Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s Grindhouse experiment, comes closest to delivering on the B-movie gore and thrills that the filmmakers set out to achieve. Rodriguez’s homage to bargain-bin zombie movies is one of his most exciting and well-structured films. The tongue-in-cheek body horror comedy almost perfectly aligns with Rodriguez’s sly sense of humor and ballistic aesthetic. Oh, and there’s the iconic heroine with a machine gun for a leg played by Rose McGowan.

With Spy Kids, the filmmaker stepped away from R-rated action movie fare for his first family film—and his first legit big hit. With access to a larger budget than he was used to, Rodriguez created The Incredibles, but with spies—mixing tropes from various spy thrillers to produce a singular fun-for-all-ages experience. Newcomers Daryl Sabara and Alexa Vega play the very likable (and capable) children of spies forced to take on their parents’ profession to save the world. Rodriguez mines their sibling rivalry for laughs and tension, infusing both into Spy Kids’ set pieces for maximum enjoyment and rewatchability.

For his first comic book adaptation, Rodriguez co-directed Sin City with writer Frank Miller and the two crafted a pulpy, black-and-white noir that ranks among the best films based on a graphic novel. Rodriguez’s indie sensibilities allowed for Sin City to be shot mostly on green screen, in Texas, with the anthology’s stark black-and-white palette rendered through very faithful-to-the-comic CG. It’s a striking and visceral approach and the ensemble cast—headlined by Bruce Willis, Jessica Alba and Mickey Rourke—are more than game for it.

Rodriguez’ first studio film is almost a “rebootquel” of his first film, El Mariachi. This time, Antonio Banderas (in a star-making turn) plays the brooding guitar player with a case full of weapons using his mini-arsenal to cut a bloody swath through Mexico in this inventive (if, at times, repetitive) action flick. Salma Hayek brings considerable screen presence and charm to her first big Hollywood film, and their two performances further cement Rodriguez’s commitment to casting Hispanic and Latinx actors in his films.

The best script Rodriguez ever shot was written, of course, by Quentin Tarantino, his friend and fellow ’90s breakout filmmaker. The duo’s then-meteroric rise—coupled with star George Clooney achieving red-hot status, thanks to his hit show, ER—made From Dusk Till Dawn unturndownable. At least in Hollywood’s eyes. In the eyes of mainstream audiences, though, the hard-R crime thriller/vampire massacre genre mashup proved to be a bridge too far. While critics gave the film mixed reviews, it steadily found enough fans to eventually be elevated to cult-film status. Still, the movie deserves better. The first act is pure tension, mixed with some of Tarantino’s best dialogue (see Clooney’s one-on-one scene with the tearful bank teller he just kidnapped and pretty much everything that comes out of God-doubting pastor Harvey Keitel’s mouth). If what you want is kinetic gunplay, black comedy, and practical vampire creature effects from the minds of two filmmakers near the peak of their Hollywood powers, then From Dusk Till Dawn has got you plenty covered.

If one could distill the essence of indie filmmaking and its endearing “can do” spirit into one movie, it would be El Mariachi. What Rodriguez pulls off with unknown Mexican actors and $7,000 in his feature-directorial debut, shot in Mexico, is an impressive and inspiring combination of gritty, DIY action scenes, editing and pyrotechnics. Rodriguez’s go-for-broke, “what cool shit can we do with a camera?” vibe gives El Mariachi’s mistaken identity plot an endless supply of adrenaline, tension and fun. A musician with a guitar case full of guns is turned into a violence-dealing folk hero of sorts. In the process, this iconic character from ’90s indie cinema would help solidify El Mariachi as the foundation of its director’s considerable filmography.