It’s always frustrating to watch a movie without knowing about the characters and the world they inhabit, but some franchise movies are welcoming to newcomers. Even sprawling multimedia franchises like Pokémon and Dungeons and Dragons can create good entry points for the uninitiated while simultaneously appeasing the hardcore fans.

Some movies are much more enjoyable when audiences have already seen everything else in the franchise, even if this includes TV shows and other forms of media too. While these movies can be extremely rewarding to a certain group of people, they can fall flat for viewers who haven’t done their homework. It’s harder to make a movie which appeals to everyone, no matter how much information they have about a certain franchise.

8

Pokémon: Detective Pikachu (2019)

Detective Pikachu Ignores A Lot Of Pokémon Concepts

From the outside looking in, the Pokémon games can seem pretty complicated. Detective Pikachu simplifies things by ignoring some concepts like evolution, gym badges, the Elite Four and more. The story is loosely based on a spinoff game, but it’s mostly an original narrative that conforms to the shape of a detective story. This makes it much more accessible to newcomers.

There’s a glut of Pokémon lore from games, TV shows and movies that could be distracting to the uninitiated. Detective Pikachu does a good job of boiling things down until it reaches the basic appeal of the franchise. The movie is filled with creative monsters living alongside humans, which gives it a child-friendly fantasy vibe. There are Easter eggs for the true fans, but nothing which is necessary to the plot. Unfortunately, Detective Pikachu 2 seems to be trapped in development hell.

7

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)

Honor Among Thieves Is A Great Intro To D&D

Dungeons and Dragons can be a very intimidating game to try and get into, because there are so many different starting points, and the best way to learn is by finding a group of people who are already well versed in the mechanics of the game. D&D has a rich mythology surrounding it, but it can essentially be whatever the players and the dungeon master want it to be. Fortunately, none of this information is necessary for newcomers to enjoy Honor Among Thieves.

Part of what makes D&D seem so complex is that the game’s evolution has been driven by the community. Honor Among Thieves has a lot of source material to sift through, therefore, but it extracts the essence of the game without getting bogged down in the specifics. Honor Among Thieves has the same sense of unpredictability, adventure and humor that can come from any game of D&D with friends.

6

The Dark Knight (2008)

Fans Can Skip Batman Begins And Any Other Batman Movie

It’s hard to know where to start with Batman. The character has been in comics since the 1930s, and movies since not long after that. He has subtly changed in different versions of the story, but The Dark Knight is usually considered a great Batman movie among hardcore fans and first-timers. Audiences don’t even need to watch Batman Begins, which shows his origin story.

The Dark Knight is one of Christopher Nolan’s best movies, showing off his flair for cinematic spectacle driven by practical effects. However, Nolan understands that he has to tell a good story first and foremost. The Dark Knight has an intriguing moral center, focused on the philosophical struggle between Batman and the Joker. There can’t be many better places to get into Batman than one of the franchise’s best movies with its most iconic villain.

5

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit (2005)

The First Feature Film Isn’t The First Film

Wallace and Gromit had already appeared in several award-winning short films by the time they debuted in their first feature-length outing, but The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is accessible to anyone. This is mostly because the story is so тιԍнтly written that it’s easy to get a perfect sense of who the two characters are within the first few minutes. Audiences quickly understand their dynamic just as well as if they had watched every Wallace and Gromit movie.

The charming claymation style of Wallace and Gromit changed a lot between the time of their debut in A Grand Day Out and The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, becoming a little more refined. It’s arguably better for new fans to start with The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and then go back. Their latest movie, Vengeance Most Fowl, is definitely more enjoyable if the audience already has some backstory.

4

Uncharted (2022)

The Video Game Adaptation Is Its Own Thing

As well as the four main series Uncharted games and the closely-related The Lost Legacy, there are a few lesser-known spinoffs made for web browsers, mobile phones and the PlayStation Vita. When factoring in the comics and other media, there’s a lot of source material to get through. The 2022 Uncharted movie cherry-picks a few iconic scenes from Nathan Drake’s adventures in the games, but it’s also original enough to stand on its own two feet.

Tom Holland’s casting as Nathan Drake was rather divisive among the game’s fan base, since he’s a lot younger than Nathan is in any of the games. This was the first indication that Uncharted wasn’t going to be too fixated on accurately recreating the stories from the games. It maintains the same swashbuckling sense of adventure, with a healthy dose of wry humor too. A prospective Uncharted sequel seems to have stalled, but the movie certainly seems like it could set up a whole franchise.

3

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (2010)

Edgar Wright’s Comedy Perfectly Suits Scott Pilgrim

The Scott Pilgrim franchise now includes a video game and an animated series on top of the graphic novels by Bryan Lee O’Malley which started it all. Fortunately, fans don’t need to know about any of this in order to enjoy Edgar Wright’s 2010 movie adaptation. Each Scott Pilgrim story slightly alters the same overarching narrative, so Scott Pilgrim vs. the World can actually be used as a gateway into understanding everything else.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was a notorious box office bomb, but this doesn’t reflect the quality of Edgar Wright’s movie. It might have more to do with its idiosyncratic style, which has garnered a pᴀssionate cult following even if it excludes the movie from finding broad appeal. Wright adds some comic book flourishes to the visuals, but there are also plenty of references to arcade games and manga.

2

A Haunting In Venice (2023)

Agatha Christie Published So Many Stories That It’s Hard To Know When To Start

Most people will be aware of Agatha Christie’s work in some sense, since she has impacted the mystery genre more than any other writer. There have been countless movies adapted from Christie’s books, and even more which attempt to mimic her style. Kenneth Branagh is the latest director to take on Christie’s work, and any of his three movies so far are a warm welcome to the author’s style. A Haunting in Venice is particularly well-suited to this.

Although it’s the third movie in Branagh’s series, A Haunting in Venice doesn’t require its audience to know anything about Hercule Poirot. It’s clear from the outset that he’s a brilliant, famous detective who has shut himself away to avoid the outside world. A Haunting in Venice is also a good entry-point for newcomers because it isn’t as well known as some of Christie’s other works, which have already been spoiled many times over.

1

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

The New Era Of The Franchise Provides A Clean Slate

The first three Mad Max movies introduce the character of Max Rockatansky, showing his evolution into a battle-hardened nomad as the world crumbles all around him. However, 30 years pᴀssed between the last of these movies and Fury Road, which kicked off a new era for the franchise with Tom Hardy taking over from Mel Gibson in the тιтle role. George Miller ensured that Fury Road would be just as enticing to people who had never seen any Mad Max movies.

There isn’t much about Fury Road that carries over from the original movies, since Max’s lifestyle often sees him drifting across the wasteland without staying anywhere for too long. The intelligent worldbuilding of Fury Road often takes place in the background, painting a picture of a complex world without going into too many tedious details. In this way, it feels like a brand new experience even for fans of the original trilogy.