Every Tim Burton & Johnny Depp Movie, Ranked Worst To Best

Since the beginning of both their careers, Johnny Depp and Tim Burton have been prolific collaborators, but the quality of their pairings has varied, which calls for a ranking of their movies from worst to best. From Edward Scissorhands in 1990 to Dark Shadows in 2012, Depp has appeared in eight of Tim Burton’s movies, more than any other actor. However, the two haven’t worked together for the last decade, despite recent rumors that Depp was going to play Uncle Fester on Burton’s Netflix series Wednesday.

Johnny Depp was still in the early stages of his career when he began working with Tim Burton, having been predominantly known for his 1984 debut film A Nightmare on Elm Street and the 1987 TV series 21 Jump Street at the time. Their first collaboration came with Edward Scissorhands in 1990, which was Tim Burton’s fourth feature, following Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, Beetlejuice, and Batman. Their continuing collaborations over the next two decades would make Tim Burton and Johnny Depp synonymous with each other. Here are all eight of their movies together, ranked.

Related: Why Tim Burton Casts Johnny Depp In So Many Of His Movies

8/8 Dark Shadows (2012)

By the time of their most recent collaboration, Dark Shadows, based on the supernatural soap opera from the 1960s, the working relationship between Tim Burton and Johnny Depp had already worn thin. It was almost expected that any project Tim Burton directed would somehow have the involvement of Depp, and the actor wearing garish white make-up and playing unusual characters had become a cliché.

While the door is always open for them to reunite in the future, Dark Shadows can be seen as the endpoint in Tim Burton’s career where he relied on casting Johnny Depp in most of his films. Dark Shadows also marked the end of Tim Burton’s work with Helena Bonham Carter, from whom he separated romantically in 2014. However, one major positive from Dark Shadows was the start of Tim Burton’s collaborations with Eva Green, who played not only the best character in Dark Shadows but would return in his subsequent films Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children and Dumbo.

7/8 Alice in Wonderland (2010)

The problem with Alice in Wonderland is not the movie itself but how it highlighted Tim Burton’s growing over-reliance on casting Johnny Depp. As the Mad Hatter, Depp is at a supporting character to Mia Wasikowska’s titular Alice. However, since he was a more recognizable name than Wasikowska, he got top billing, with the Mad Hatter’s clownish make-up spread across the film’s marketing.

Alice in Wonderland still ended up being one of Tim Burton’s last big box office hits, thanks in no small part to its coming out three months after Avatar and riding the 3D movie craze. While Mia Wasikowska and Johnny Depp returned six years later for the sequel Alice Through the Looking Glass, Tim Burton opted to return only in a producer capacity. Instead, the 2016 film was directed by James Bobin.

Related: Every Johnny Depp & Helena Bonham Carter Movie Ranked

6/8 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)

Johnny Depp was cast as Willy Wonka in Tim Burton’s re-adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate factory after a six-year hiatus of the two working with each other. That was the longest gap between their collaborations until their current lapse. By this point, Depp had become a superstar after appearing in the first of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, giving him much more box office cache than he had with his previous collaborations with Burton. However, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory had the added baggage of inevitable comparisons to Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory and the still-beloved performance by Gene Wilder in the titular role.

The decision to make Johnny Depp’s Willy Wonka an unusual manchild was a choice. While this was enough to separate Depp’s performance from Gene Wilder’s, this characterization received unflattering comparisons to Michael Jackson upon the remake’s release. While Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is far from the worst collaboration between Johnny Depp and Tim Burton, it did mark the point where Depp’s characters began to be highlighted solely for their weirdness.

5/8 Corpse Bride (2005)

The stop-motion film Corpse Bride was released only three months after Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Loosely based on a Jewish folktale, Corpse Bride ended up being the better of Johnny Depp’s two collaborations with Tim Burton in 2005. Part of this is because the animation allowed Depp to disappear into the character of Victor Van Dort.

Corpse Bride marked the first and only time Johnny Depp participated in one of Tim Burton’s stop-motion projects. Corpse Bride was also the first such film directed by Burton, who was previously wrongfully attributed to Henry Selick’s A Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach, with both those films only having Burton’s involvement as a producer. By the time of Burton’s next stop-motion film, Frankenweenie, in late 2012, Burton and Depp had already gone their separate ways following the release of Dark Shadows. It remains to be seen whether there will be any future stop-motion Tim Burton movies or if Johnny Depp will be a part of them.

Relate: Casting A Tim Burton Live-Action Corpse Bride Movie

4/8 Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)

Of the later collaborations between Johnny Depp and Tim Burton, 2007’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is the best. The movie is based on the 1979 Stephen Sondheim musical of the same name, and Depp goes all out in his performance as the vengeful barber turned serial killer of the title. The movie also allowed both Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter to show off their singing skills, to mixed results.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street was the culmination of Johnny Depp and Tim Burton’s collaborations up until that point. The horror-musical aesthetic matched incredibly with Burton’s gothic visuals, and Depp was the best man to take on the lead role. Sweeney Todd is also notable for being the film debut for Jamie Campbell Bower, better known as Vecna on Stranger Things, as Sweeney Todd‘s true protagonist, Anthony Hope.

3/8 Sleepy Hollow (1999)

The argument from this point forward is that Johnny Depp’s collaborations with Tim Burton from the 1990s are their best. Part of the reasoning for this comes from how each of their collaborations this decade had a multi-year hiatus in between. Burton’s reimagining of Sleepy Hollow was the last of these 1990s collaborations, arriving five years after Ed Wood. However, the gap would’ve been shorter if Johnny Depp had been cast, as intended, as Jason Stone in 1996’s Mars Attacks!, a role that instead went to Michael J. Fox.

Johnny Depp was willing to have himself made up to appear as Ichabod Crane as described in Washington Irving’s original 1820 short story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” However, Tim Burton’s film changes Crane from a schoolteacher to an unconventional police constable who travels to the town of Sleepy Hollow to investigate the supernatural beheadings by the Headless Horseman. As such, instead of being physically meek, Depp’s acting portrays Crane as a highly squeamish individual.

Related: Every Tim Burton Horror Movie Ranked

2/8 Ed Wood (1994)

Johnny Depp’s second collaboration with Tim Burton was also his most straightforward. A biopic of the notorious B-movie filmmaker of the same name, Ed Wood sees Burton and Depp treat their subject with much reverence. Depp portrays Ed Wood with much wide-eyed wonder as someone proud to be considered the worst filmmaker of all time.

Ed Wood is a movie that can be viewed as interchangeable with the top pick on this list. Many consider Ed Wood to be Tim Burton’s best movie, mainly because it still stands out from the rest of his filmography. However, it is ultimately up to personal opinion whether this one ranks ahead of the next on the list of all of Tim Burton’s movies.

1/8 Edward Scissorhands (1990)

To put things in context, when Johnny Depp was cast as the titular character in Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands, he was still in the middle of his breakthrough role on the television series 21 Jump Street. Playing the very unusual titular lead of Edward Scissorhands helped Depp escape the teen heartthrob status that 21 Jump Street had given him. Tim Burton also had a level of creative freedom afforded to him on Edward Scissorhands after the success of Batman the year prior.

While Edward Scissorhands had Johnny Depp go through the extensive make-up that would become a regular part of his collaborations with Tim Burton, the movie is notable for how the actor gives a primarily silent performance. Left unfinished in a mansion after the death of the inventor who made him (a great cameo by Vincent Price in his final film role), the childlike Edward Scissorhands speaks 150 words. As such, Johnny Depp’s performance is based heavily on his movements and facial expressions. This helps make the first collaboration between Johnny Depp and Tim Burton their best.

More: The Batman Proved Tim Burton Was Right About His Movies