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All Despicable Me & Minions Movies Ranked from Worst to Best
- Joao Nsita
- Jul 3
- 15 min read
If you've ever tried to explain to someone which Despicable Me movie to watch first — or whether they should bother with the Minions spinoffs at all — you know the franchise is more complicated than it looks.
Six films. One franchise. Over $5.4 billion in global box office. The most profitable animated franchise in cinema history. And yet the quality gap between the best and worst films in this series is significant enough that watching them in the wrong order can genuinely change your relationship with the whole thing.
This list ranks all six Despicable Me and Minions films from worst to best — with full reviews, box office facts, Rotten Tomatoes scores, audience reception, and the honest verdict on what makes each film worth watching or worth skipping.
We cover Despicable Me (2010), Despicable Me 2 (2013), Minions (2015), Despicable Me 3 (2017), Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022), and Despicable Me 4 (2024) — in order from the least to the most essential.
Whether you're a parent planning a family movie weekend, a longtime fan settling the ranking debate, or someone who wants to know where to start — this guide gives you everything you need.
One number comes first. One number sits at the top. Let's find out which is which.
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6. Minions (2015) 🍌
Director: Kyle Balda, Pierre Coffin Cast (Voices): Pierre Coffin, Sandra Bullock, Jon Hamm, Michael Keaton, Allison Janney Runtime: 1 hr 31 min | Rating: PG Budget: $74M | Box Office: $1.159 billion worldwide Rotten Tomatoes: 55% Critics | 66% Audience | CinemaScore: A- Where to Watch: Peacock, Amazon Prime Video, available to rent/buy
The most commercially successful Minions film is also the worst-reviewed entry in the entire franchise — a paradox that tells you everything you need to know about the gap between what critics value and what families with young children will happily watch on a Saturday afternoon.
Minions (2015) was the first film to give the franchise's most beloved supporting characters — the yellow, goggle-wearing, gibberish-speaking chaos agents who surround Gru in the main films — their own standalone story. The premise is a prequel origin story: before Gru, before their famous loyalty was established, the Minions spent history searching for the most despicable supervillain they could find to serve. After accidentally eliminating a succession of impressively bad bosses (a T-Rex, Dracula, Napoleon), three Minions — Stuart, Kevin, and Bob — travel to 1968 New York to find the world's current greatest villain: Scarlet Overkill, voiced with impressive energy by Sandra Bullock.
The problems are structural and creative simultaneously. The Minions are magnificent in supporting roles — as comedy relief, as background chaos, as the physical embodiment of anarchic energy that serves as contrast to Gru's controlled villainy. As protagonists, they are significantly less effective. They do not carry emotional arcs. Their motivations are not complex. Their comedy, charming in twenty-minute doses, becomes exhausting across ninety minutes of centre-stage commitment.
Sandra Bullock as Scarlet Overkill is a genuinely promising addition that the film underuses. Jon Hamm as her suave husband Herb provides most of the film's best adult-audience jokes. But neither is given enough to do.
The RT Critics Consensus reads: "The Minions brightly colored brand of gibberish-fueled insanity stretches to feature length in their self-titled spinoff, with uneven but often hilarious results." That "uneven" is doing a lot of work.
The $1.159 billion box office — the highest of any Minions-franchise film internationally — tells the story of brand recognition outperforming creative quality. Children adored it. Critics didn't. Both are right.
The Verdict: The weakest film in the franchise, but one with genuine comedic moments and excellent animation. A skip for adults watching alone; entirely acceptable for family movie night.
Where to Watch: Peacock (US), Amazon Prime Video. Available to rent or buy digitally.
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5. Despicable Me 4 (2024) 🤵
Director: Chris Renaud, Patrick Delage Cast (Voices): Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, Will Ferrell, Pierre Coffin, Joey King, Miranda Cosgrove Runtime: 1 hr 34 min | Rating: PG Budget: ~$100M | Box Office: $940+ million worldwide Rotten Tomatoes: 56% Critics | 89% Audience | CinemaScore: A Where to Watch: Peacock, Amazon Prime Video
Despicable Me 4 returned the franchise to cinemas after a seven-year gap since Despicable Me 3, and its arrival was one of summer 2024's biggest box office events — opening to $122 million across the July 4th holiday weekend and ultimately crossing $940 million globally.
The film introduces Gru Jr., a baby whose relationship with his father drives the movie's emotional core, while the central villain is Maxime Le Mal — a butterfly-themed French villain voiced by Will Ferrell with his characteristic heightened theatrical energy. When Maxime escapes from prison to seek revenge against Gru, the family goes into witness protection, moving to a new suburb where a fresh set of comedy situations unfolds alongside a Minions subplot involving experimental transformation.
The critical consensus — "fast paced and teeming with slapstick gags, as overstuffed as a piñata but full of enough candy to give audiences an enjoyable sugar rush" — captures the film's genuine strengths and its primary weaknesses simultaneously. There is enough happening in every frame to keep young audiences completely engaged. There is not enough thematic or emotional depth to give adult viewers anything that lingers.
Will Ferrell as Maxime Le Mal is the film's most original element — a villain with a specific comedic register that differs from the franchise's previous antagonists. Joey King as Poppy, a local teenager who discovers the family's secret, adds a fresh energy to the supporting cast.
The significant gap between the 56% critics score and the 89% audience score — the second-highest in franchise history — perfectly encapsulates Despicable Me 4: something critics found derivative and emotionally shallow that family audiences, entirely reasonably, found enormously enjoyable.
The Verdict: Better than Minions (2015) in terms of emotional investment, but the weakest of the Despicable Me numbered entries. A comfortable, funny, very watchable family film that doesn't try to be anything more.
Where to Watch: Peacock (US), Amazon Prime Video, available to rent/buy digitally.
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4. Despicable Me 3 (2017) 💎
Director: Kyle Balda, Pierre Coffin, Eric Guillon Cast (Voices): Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, Trey Parker, Miranda Cosgrove, Dana Gaier, Nev Scharrel, Pierre Coffin Runtime: 1 hr 36 min | Rating: PG Budget: ~$80M | Box Office: $1.034 billion worldwide Rotten Tomatoes: 59% Critics | 67% Audience | CinemaScore: A- Where to Watch: Peacock, Amazon Prime Video
Despicable Me 3 is the franchise's most structurally ambitious entry — and its most uneven one. The film splits its attention across three simultaneous plotlines: Gru discovering a twin brother (Dru, also voiced by Steve Carell), the Minions going on their own independent adventure after quitting when Gru refuses to return to villainy, and Lucy's struggles adjusting to stepmother life with the three girls. The problem is that no single plotline receives enough sustained attention to fully develop, and the three threads feel more like three half-movies than one cohesive story.
The introduction of Dru is the film's most interesting creative choice. The twin brother concept — Dru is wealthy, charming, blond, and essentially everything Gru is not — produces genuinely funny character contrasts and the best Steve Carell vocal performance in the franchise. The comedy of two Carells in the same frame, operating in completely different registers, is consistently rewarding.
The villain, Balthazar Bratt (Trey Parker), is one of the franchise's most original antagonists — a former child actor from the 1980s who became a real villain when his show was cancelled, and who fights primarily through power of synth-pop nostalgia. The 1980s pop culture references are enjoyably specific, and Parker's voice work is committed and funny.
The CinemaScore of A- (the only film in the franchise to score below A) reflects what audiences also noticed: the film is charming and frequently funny, but less emotionally satisfying than its predecessors. The Minions subplot, while clearly designed as a franchise audience-service, dilutes the main story's momentum.
The Verdict: Worth watching for Dru and Bratt specifically, and for Steve Carell's dual performance. Not the place to start if you're new to the franchise.
Where to Watch: Peacock (US), Amazon Prime Video, available to rent/buy digitally.
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3. Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022) 🌟
Director: Kyle Balda Cast (Voices): Steve Carell, Pierre Coffin, Taraji P. Henson, Michelle Yeoh, RZA, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Lucy Lawless Runtime: 1 hr 27 min | Rating: PG Budget: ~$80M | Box Office: $939 million worldwide Rotten Tomatoes: 70% Critics | 89% Audience | CinemaScore: A Where to Watch: Peacock, Amazon Prime Video
Minions: The Rise of Gru is one of the most unlikely viral cultural phenomena of recent cinema history — and it is also genuinely the best Minions-led film in the franchise.
Released in July 2022 after multiple COVID-19 delays, Rise of Gru generated the viral #GentleMinions trend on TikTok, in which young adults and teenagers dressed in formal suits to attend screenings as a group. The trend drove the film to the biggest Independence Day opening weekend in box office history at that point — $123 million across the four-day holiday window — and made it a genuine cultural moment in a way that no Illumination film had been since the original Minions hysteria of 2015.
Beyond the viral phenomenon, the film itself is a meaningful improvement on the first Minions film. The prequel premise — following a young Gru (voiced by Steve Carell deploying the character's accent at an entertainingly earlier developmental stage) as he attempts to join the supervillain collective the Vicious 6 — gives the story an emotional throughline that the first Minions film lacks. Young Gru is a genuinely compelling protagonist: a small, determined, magnificently confident child who has decided he is going to be the world's greatest villain and is pursuing this ambition with complete seriousness despite being about nine years old.
The Vicious 6 — featuring voice work from Taraji P. Henson, Michelle Yeoh, RZA, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Lucy Lawless — is the franchise's most creatively assembled villain ensemble, and the film's martial arts subplot, in which the Minions study kung fu from a master played by Michelle Yeoh, produces some of the franchise's most inventive action sequences.
The series has collectively grossed $5.4 billion, making it the most profitable animated franchise of all time — and Rise of Gru is a significant reason why those numbers remain strong with newer generations.
The Verdict: The best Minions-centred film by a meaningful margin, and the most culturally significant film in the franchise in recent years. Essential for fans; a good starting point for the prequel strand.
Where to Watch: Peacock (US), Amazon Prime Video, available to rent/buy digitally.
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2. Despicable Me 2 (2013) 🏆
Director: Pierre Coffin, Chris Renaud Cast (Voices): Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, Benjamin Bratt, Miranda Cosgrove, Dana Gaier, Elsie Fisher, Russell Brand, Pierre Coffin Runtime: 1 hr 38 min | Rating: PG Budget: ~$76M | Box Office: $970 million worldwide Rotten Tomatoes: 74% Critics | 82% Audience | CinemaScore: A Where to
Watch: Peacock, Amazon Prime Video
Despicable Me 2 is the franchise's most commercially successful and most consistently enjoyable sequel — a film that understood exactly what audiences loved about the original and built on those elements with genuine confidence and creative intelligence.
The central creative decision that makes Despicable Me 2 work is Lucy Wilde, the Anti-Villain League agent voiced by Kristen Wiig. Wiig brings to Lucy an energy and a comedic specificity that gives the film a new lead-level character rather than simply expanding the existing ensemble. Her dynamic with Steve Carell's Gru — she is his professional partner before she becomes his romantic interest — is one of the franchise's most naturally charming relationship arcs, and their eventual romance is handled with warmth and genuine chemistry that gives the film an emotional through-line the first film used its daughters to provide.
The villain, El Macho (initially voiced by Al Pacino before his departure led to Benjamin Bratt taking the role), is one of the franchise's better antagonists — an over-the-top Mexican villain whose backstory (died by riding a shark strapped to dynamite into a volcano, only to apparently survive) perfectly calibrates the film's comedic tone.
The Minions have more to do here than in almost any other film, and the sequences in which they are transformed into purple PX-41 monster-minions provide the franchise's most genuinely tense action sequences while also being extremely funny.
Despicable Me 2 offers plenty of eye-popping visual inventiveness and a number of big laughs — the RT Critics Consensus that captures both the film's ambition and its primary pleasure: it is a spectacularly animated, frequently hilarious, emotionally satisfying sequel.
The Verdict: The best sequel in the franchise and the most complete entertainment package outside of the original. If you can only watch one Despicable Me sequel, this is it.
Where to Watch: Peacock (US), Amazon Prime Video, available to rent/buy digitally.
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1. Despicable Me (2010) 🌟
Director: Pierre Coffin, Chris Renaud Cast (Voices): Steve Carell, Jason Segel, Russell Brand, Julie Andrews, Will Arnett, Kristen Wiig, Pierre Coffin Runtime: 1 hr 35 min | Rating: PG Budget: ~$69M | Box Office: $543 million worldwide Rotten Tomatoes: 81% Critics | 70% Audience | CinemaScore: A Where to Watch: Peacock, Amazon Prime Video
The original Despicable Me is not merely the best film in the franchise. It is one of the finest animated films of its era — a movie that took a genuinely unusual premise (make a supervillain the hero, give him three daughters, let the daughters change him) and executed it with the emotional intelligence, comedic precision, and visual invention of a filmmaking team operating at full creative commitment.
Borrowing heavily (and intelligently) from Pixar and Looney Tunes, Despicable Me is a surprisingly thoughtful, family-friendly treat with a few surprises of its own — the RT Critics Consensus that accurately identifies both the film's creative influences and what distinguishes it from them.
The film's central gambit is to make Gru genuinely villainous at the outset — not in a watered-down way, not in a way that signals immediately how he will change, but in a way that establishes him as a real antagonist with real plans and real capabilities. Gru is, in the film's first act, authentically menacing within the heightened register of the genre: a man who turns away Girl Scout cookie sellers with shrink rays, who has an army of loyal yellow agents, who is planning to steal the moon with complete cold-blooded seriousness.
Into this world arrive Margo, Edith, and Agnes — three orphan girls who accidentally become Gru's tool in his rivalry with Vector (Jason Segel, having enormous fun), and who gradually, inevitably, completely change the man who adopted them as a scheme and kept them because he couldn't help it.
The emotional arc is the film's most impressive achievement. It does not rush the transformation. Gru's movement from treating the girls as assets to treating them as his children is gradual, specific, and earned in every scene. The moment when Gru reads the girls their bedtime story — a book he wrote himself called "One Big Unicorn," which is, once you look at it carefully, a barely concealed letter to the girls about who they are to him — is the franchise's single most affecting scene. Agnes asking for the unicorn at the fair. Gru winning it against the rigged game with a laser. The look on his face.
This is a film made with genuine love for its characters and genuine respect for its audience — children and adults both — and the result is the kind of animated film that parents watch with their children and feel something completely unexpected.
The Verdict: An animation classic. Start here. Always start here.
Where to Watch: Peacock (US), Amazon Prime Video, available to rent/buy digitally.
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Conclusion
The Despicable Me and Minions franchise is simultaneously the most commercially successful animated franchise in history and one of the most unevenly reviewed. The gap between what critics say and what audiences feel has never been wider than here — and neither side is wrong.
Critics value emotional depth, creative ambition, and the willingness to do something genuinely new. On all three of those measures, the original Despicable Me is head and shoulders above every subsequent entry. Audiences value the familiar pleasure of beloved characters doing what they do, children being genuinely delighted, and the specific comfort of knowing exactly what you're going to get from the next hour and a half. On all three of those measures, every film in the franchise delivers.
The ranking holds: Despicable Me 1 at the top for its genuine emotional achievement. Despicable Me 2 for building beautifully on what came before. Rise of Gru for being the best Minions-led film and the most culturally significant recent entry. Despicable Me 3 and 4 for being perfectly acceptable films that happen to follow extraordinary ones. And Minions (2015) at the bottom — not because it is terrible, but because it is the most significant example of franchise extension over creative necessity in this series.
Start with the original. It's always the right call.
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10 Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is the best Despicable Me movie? The original Despicable Me (2010) is the best film in the franchise by critical consensus and by the quality of its emotional storytelling. It holds an 81% on Rotten Tomatoes — the highest in the franchise — and is consistently ranked first in fan polls and critical rankings. Despicable Me 2 (2013) is the best sequel, with 74% on RT and the most satisfying emotional arc after the original.
2. What order should I watch the Despicable Me and Minions movies? For the best experience, watch in release order: Despicable Me (2010), Despicable Me 2 (2013), Minions (2015), Despicable Me 3 (2017), Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022), and Despicable Me 4 (2024). Alternatively, watch the Minions films in chronological story order: Minions (1968 setting), Minions: The Rise of Gru (1970s), then Despicable Me 1 through 4 (present day).
3. What is the worst Despicable Me movie? Minions (2015) holds the lowest Rotten Tomatoes critics score in the franchise at 55% and is generally considered the weakest entry. However, it earned $1.159 billion worldwide — the highest international gross of any film in the franchise — and received an A- CinemaScore from audiences, demonstrating the significant gap between critical and audience reception.
4. Where can I watch all the Despicable Me and Minions movies? All six films are available on Peacock (US) and Amazon Prime Video. Individual films can also be rented or purchased digitally on Amazon, Apple TV, Vudu, and Google Play. The complete collection is available as a Blu-Ray box set on Amazon.
5. What is the #GentleMinions trend? The GentleMinions trend went viral in July 2022 when young adults and teenagers began attending Minions: The Rise of Gru screenings dressed in formal suits — blazers, ties, and dress shoes — as a group activity and social media phenomenon. The trend, which originated on TikTok, drove the film to the biggest Independence Day opening weekend in box office history at the time ($123 million over four days) and turned the film into one of the most culturally discussed animated movies of the year.
6. Is Despicable Me 4 worth watching? Yes, for family audiences and franchise fans. Despicable Me 4 received a 56% critics score but an 89% audience score and an A CinemaScore — indicating that audiences found it genuinely enjoyable despite mixed critical reception. It introduces strong new characters including Gru Jr. and Will Ferrell's villain Maxime Le Mal, and delivers the franchise's signature slapstick comedy effectively. It is not the franchise at its best, but it is a comfortable, funny family watch.
7. How much money has the Despicable Me franchise made in total? The Despicable Me and Minions franchise has collectively grossed over $5.4 billion worldwide across all six theatrical films, making it the most profitable animated franchise of all time. The films have also generated billions more in merchandise revenue, theme park attractions, and licensing.
8. What is the Rotten Tomatoes score for each Despicable Me movie? Despicable Me (2010): 81%; Despicable Me 2 (2013): 74%; Minions (2015): 55%; Despicable Me 3 (2017): 59%; Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022): 70%; Despicable Me 4 (2024): 56%. The original film remains the only Certified Fresh entry with a score above 70%, with Rise of Gru coming closest at 70%.
9. Is there a Despicable Me 5 or Minions 3? Yes — both have been confirmed. A fifth Despicable Me film and a third Minions film have been announced by Illumination and Universal. No release dates have been officially confirmed as of mid-2026, but the commercial performance of Despicable Me 4 ($940M worldwide) ensures both projects will proceed.
10. Who voices Gru in the Despicable Me movies? Gru is voiced by Steve Carell in all four Despicable Me films and in Minions: The Rise of Gru, which depicts a young Gru in the 1970s. Carell uses a distinctive Eastern European accent that has become one of the most recognisable voice performances in animated film history. Pierre Coffin voices the Minions in all six films, creating the iconic gibberish language known as "Minionese."
For more animated film rankings: All Cars Movies Ranked from Best to Worst
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