Lucky number 7? When a series hits its 7th movie

Ash Walker • 10 Jul 2025 Features

7th time’s the charm. Sometimes.

There aren’t that many movie franchises that make it to seven films… but considering the declining quality of a lot of long-running series, maybe that’s a good thing?

With the Jurassic films roaring into a seventh installment this summer - and still proving as popular as ever - we thought we’d take a look at the seventh films in a few other series, to see how they compare. And to rate them out of seven, of course.

It’s all very scientific.

Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015)

Credit: Star Wars: The Force Awakens Trailer (Official) (Star Wars, YouTube)

As with Jurassic World: Rebirth and last year’s Alien: Romulus, a sept-quel can often be used as something of a restart for a long-running franchise. A fresh start. And that’s perhaps most evident in the seventh Star Wars film.

A reboot, a legacy sequel and a celebration of everything that’s come before, The Force Awakens tried to cover a lot of bases. The amazing thing is that it was largely successful, introducing compelling new characters and conflicts to the franchise while still including everything long-time fans wanted to see.

Most importantly, it’s just a fun movie. It’s a shame the same can’t really be said for the rest of the sequel trilogy…

Verdict: 6/7 

Police Academy: Mission to Moscow (1994)

Credit: Police Academy: Mission to Moscow - Trailer 1 (Warner Bros. Rewind, YouTube)

On the other hand, a seventh movie, rather than beckoning in a brand new era of storytelling, can sound the death knell for a series. Case in point - Police Academy: Mission to Moscow.

The mega-popular comedy series had always relied heavily on innuendo, gross-out humour, and Michael Winslow making funny noises with his mouth, but by the seventh entry - which sees the team sent on a diplomatic mission to Russia - it was all getting a bit old.

It has the distinction of being one of the first American movies to be allowed to film in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union, but otherwise Mission to Moscow is pretty crap. And it served as a lacklustre, so far pretty definitive end to a long-running series.

*SAD HELICOPTER NOISES*

Verdict: 1/7

Furious 7 (2015)

Credit: Furious 7 - Official Trailer (HD) (The Fast Saga, YouTube)

It’s pretty rare, but every so often it’ll take a franchise a couple of movies to really hit its stride. In the case of the Fast & Furious movies, it wasn’t until the seventh movie that the action saga reached its peak.

As with all of these movies, the plot doesn’t really matter: there’s a bad guy who wants a thing, and Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) and the family are, for some reason, tasked with stopping him. There are cars being driven through the Burj Khalifa and being fired at helicopters.

It’s all very silly, but that’s sort of the point. And Furious 7 manages to strike the perfect balance between fun and ludicrous (no pun intended) - something that the earlier and later films never quite get right.

In its surprisingly classy handling of star Paul Walker’s tragic death during filming, it’s also actually pretty emotional, and might even have you shedding a few tears by the end…

Verdict: 5/7

Diamonds Are Forever (1971)

Credit: Diamonds Are Forever (1971) Official Trailer - Sean Connery James Bond Movie HD (Rotten Tomatoes Classic Trailers, YouTube)

It’s tough to maintain a consistent level of quality over seven films - just look at the Friday the 13th series - and after a few duds it can start to seem like a great idea to reverse course a little bit, to take things back to when the franchise was firing on all cylinders.

So it was with the seventh James Bond film, Diamonds Are Forever. After a failed attempt to recast the super spy with George Lazenby, producers Eon lured original star Sean Connery back into the fold with a then-record payout of $1.25 million.

They also took inspiration from Goldfinger - the highlight of the series so far - hiring the same director and even getting Shirley Bassey to sing the theme song. Unfortunately, the end result turned out to be pretty dull, and probably one of the most forgettable Bond movies ever made.

Afterwards, it was back to the drawing board once again, as Roger Moore took the reins.

Verdict: 2/7

Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)

Credit: Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers (Rotten Tomatoes Classic Trailers, YouTube)

Sometimes, a little reinvention proves to be exactly what a series needs, and with so many previous movies to build on, you have the opportunity to get pretty creative with a seventh installment.

Just take a look at New Nightmare, in which writer/director Wes Craven - who originated the series - returns to the world of Nightmare on Elm Street… with a twist.

The meta masterstroke here is that it’s a film about a film. All the actors, including returning star Heather Langenkamp, are playing themselves, making a new Nightmare movie, and soon find themselves targeted by a real-life Freddie Krueger.

Genius.

Verdict: 5/7

Bring It On: Cheer or Die (2022)

Credit: Bring It On: Cheer Or Die | Official Trailer | Horror Brains (Horror Brains, YouTube)

Although, reinvention isn’t always a good thing.

Just take a look at this cheap, made-for-TV sequel to 2000’s cheerleader comedy classic, which - randomly - decided to pivot into full-on slasher movie territory.

You can sort of see what they were thinking, trading on the resurgent popularity in the teen slasher genre thanks to movies like Fear Street and Scream 5. You could argue that the series was ripe for an overhaul, and its snarky cheerleader characters would make great foils for a masked killer.

Unfortunately, the end result isn’t very funny or very scary. Give me a B! Give me an A! Give me a D! What’s that spell?

Verdict: 1/7

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning (2023)

Credit: Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning | Official Teaser Trailer (2023 Movie) - Tom Cruise (Paramount Pictures, YouTube)

Imagine you’re the studio behind a popular, long-running franchise. You’ve just released the sixth movie in the series to critical and commercial acclaim, and you’re riding high on success.

So what’s next? What is going to get people hyped - and, more importantly, in the cinema on opening weekend - for movie number 7? The answer, a lot of the time, seems to be to give the audience MORE.

In the case of the seventh Mission: Impossible movie, creators Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise decided to make it almost three hours long and  - surprise! - only the first part of a mammoth two-part extravaganza.

On paper it seems like a no-brainer to give fans more of what they love, but more often than not these movies just end up feeling bloated and sluggish. Not what you want in a full-throttle action movie.

See also the Harry Potter and Hunger Games series.

Verdict: 3/7

The seventh Jurassic film, Jurassic World: Rebirth, is now in cinemas. Check it out for free with a Sky Cinema subscription!