All of the Saw movies, ranked
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In 2004, the talk of Sundance was a nasty little indie horror, shot in 18 days on a budget of just $1.2 million. Saw, the first feature for both director James Wan (The Conjuring, Aquaman), and writer/star Leigh Whannell (who would eventually direct The Invisible Man), was a twisty-turny psychothriller about a killer named Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) who, diagnosed with terminal cancer, spends his last days trapping victims, whom he feels have not been properly grateful for their lives, in grisly scenarios that often involve dismemberment.
Saw cleaned up at the box office over Halloween weekend in 2004 and quickly spawned a succession of sequels (each year, on the same weekend, for six years) that upped both the torture and the convoluted plotting. (The series has also launched two video games, and even a cruise.) Saw also birthed the controversial horror sub-genre known as "torture porn," which brought us such perennials as Hostel (2006), Captivity (2007) and the Lindsay Lohan torture-thriller I Know Who Killed Me (also 2007). The movement went on to influence even mainstream studio horror (like Rob Zombie's Halloween remake and its sequel) for many years to come, but Saw is where it all began, and nothing can top the series in Grand Guignol spectacle.
Read on for our ranking of all nine installments, from worst to best.
9. <i>Saw V</i> (2008)
Between the traps: A dogged FBI agent (Scott Patterson, better known as Luke from Gilmore Girls) begins to unravel the twisted web of Jigsaw's apprentice-cum-successor Detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor), who has selected a group of five unfortunates to compete for their lives in an underground catacomb.
With the fourth sequel in the series, "the production values have become so horror-movie shoddy that Saw V has more in common with kitsch like Friday the 13th Part V than the original Saw," writes Gregory Kirschling in his review for EW. That is unfair, only in that Friday Part V looks like Se7en when placed next to Saw V, which commits the one and only unforgivable sin a movie can commit: it's dreadfully boring.
Miring itself in backstory that no one was clamoring for, the film looks as if it were made on a shoestring for the Syfy channel and is seemingly rather embarrassed to even be a Saw sequel. Two elements of interest pierce the tedium: The character of a British tabloid journalist (Carlo Rota) briefly hints at a more fun and subversive chapter in the series, before he is quickly blown apart in an explosion (dullsville); and Julie Benz (of Dexter), playing a character targeted by Jigsaw, presumably due to her regrettable choice in wigs.
Ick Factor: 2/10 — You've seen worse on Murder, She Wrote.
8. <i>Spiral: From the Book of Saw</i> (2021)
Between the traps: Detective Zeke Banks (Chris Rock) works with his rookie partner (Max Minghella) to uncover the mastermind behind a series of Jigsaw-inspired murders targeting a group of crooked cops, all of whom are connected to a controversial case from Zeke's past.
Chris Rock starring in a Saw film and doing it in the style of 48 Hours with a slasher is incredibly tantalizing. Throw in Samuel L. Jackson as Rock's father, plus returning series director Darren Lynn Bousman (who helmed Saw II-IV), and, well, it may have been too tantalizing to succeed. This is the second sorta-sequel, sorta-soft reboot for the franchise in just four years (after the financial disappointment of Jigsaw, see below) that pitched itself as taking the series in new directions but then didn't follow through on that promise.
As with its predecessor, Spiral is too indebted to the tropes of the original series to move forward in any substantive way. The entire cast — Rock, Jackson, Marisol Nichols, and especially Minghella — give committed performances, and some credit is due for being one of rare July 4th-set horrors, but Spiral is ultimately undone by a slap-dash script, inconsistent pacing, and an incredibly silly ending that provokes gales of laughter, but no dread.
Ick Factor: 3/10 — That clamped tongue is nasty, but copious CGI renders the effects weightless.
7. <i>Jigsaw</i> (2017)
Between the traps: 10 years after the death of the Jigsaw Killer, Detectives Halloran (Callum Keith Rennie) and Hunt (Clé Bennett) investigate a series of murders that seem to fit the deceased killer's pattern while a group of five contestants atone for past misdeeds at a rural pig farm.
A film that provides more questions than it does answers, Jigsaw feels stubbornly reluctant to make any matterful departure from the original series, to which it is a prequel, sequel, and soft reboot. It's a shame, because this is a pretty fun entry that succeeds in setting itself apart with a warmer color palette and a more jocular tone than the previous films, though how well that suits the franchise is up for debate. (In a particularly unforgivable flourish, one character continues to make Joss Whedon-style quips long after his compatriots have been hung, sawed, and melted.) By the third act, though, the film ties itself up in knots to relate back to the original series, and the twist is utterly predictable to those even passingly familiar with the series' time-jumping antics.
Ick Factor: 5/10 — Would a leg really dice that cleanly, even with piano wire?
6. <i>Saw: The Final Chapter</i> (2010)
Between the traps: Jigsaw's widow (Betsy Russell) works with Internal Affairs officers to apprehend Hoffman. Meanwhile, a self-help author (Sean Patrick Flanery), having committed the ultimate act of hubris in lying about surviving a Jigsaw trap and then writing a book about it, is put to the test for real this time.
Produced at the height of 3-D hysteria after the release of Avatar in 2009, Saw 3D (as it's titled onscreen) is more or less the nadir of the series in terms of traditionally recognized standards of quality. The lighting here is solely fluorescent, presumably to counteract the darkening effect the 3-D would have had in cinemas, but also allows audiences to see every gorgeous detail in the trio of exploding heads the film has on display. (Just look at those teeth comin' at ya!)
Intermittently fun and tedious in equal measure, Saw 3D more or less functions as a parody of the series, with everything (the acting, the gore, the dubious morality) turned up to 11 and faring all the better for it. After settling a profit dispute over his role in the first film, Cary Elwes is finally able to return to the series as Dr. Lawrence Gordon. The Final Chapter culminates in Elwes tossing the titular hacksaw at the audience in a moment of 3-D "wizardry" that is the most 2010-looking thing you'll ever see — and a good indication of how far the series has strayed from its roots.
Of note to genre fans: Sean Patrick Flanery, the supposed trap-master here, directed 2022's Frank and Penelope, a remarkably off-the-rocker cross between True Romance and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre that is certainly worth seeking out.
Ick Factor: 7.5/10 — Credit is due for the payoff of the reverse bear trap after seven films. Spoiler alert: It's super gross!
5. <i>Saw VI</i> (2009)
Between the traps: FBI agents uncover evidence that threatens to expose Hoffman once and for all, while a ruthless health insurance executive (Peter Outerbridge) is forced to take part in a sadistic game wherein he must sacrifice bits of himself to save his co-workers.
Admittedly, it's quite satisfying to see Jigsaw go after cold-blooded health insurance executives. If Saw VI doesn't entirely nail its intended cultural commentary, you can forgive the movie for making an effort to be topical where the previous films have not. Tobin Bell returns briefly as Jigsaw, as does Shawnee Smith as Amanda, one of his serial murder apprentices. Their sparring briefly reinvigorates the drama during a couple of flashbacks, reminding one of the days when the series more successfully balanced its sequences of mayhem with talented actors enacting fairly compelling drama.
The rest of the film is suitably bonkers enough to be breezy entertainment. A few particularly gnarly special effects stand out as utterly repulsive, and the pacing is right on the money. Most importantly, the finale (and set of twists) is quite strong here, all of it intercut rather brilliantly with the health exec being slowly dissolved via dozens of simultaneous hydrofluoric acid injections. Bravo!
Ick Factor: 9.5/10 — This was the first non-pornographic film to be issued an X rating in Spain, and it's easy to understand why.
4. <i>Saw II</i> (2005)
Between the traps: During a raid of Jigsaw's lair, Detective Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg) comes face-to-face with the killer himself. In order to save his son (Erik Knudsen), who is in a deadly situation with a group of strangers in an abandoned house, Detective Matthews must set aside his instincts and follow the killer's rules exactly.
Darren Lynn Bousman was just 26 years old when he succeeded James Wan as director for this first sequel, having booked the gig off of a spec script that the producers enjoyed so much it was rewritten to become Saw II. This installment finds the series getting its sea legs, expanding off of events in Saw while also embracing the torture devices audiences demanded more of.
Saw II rests much closer to the implied violence of the first film than the romping viscera of the coming entries, with late producer Greg Hoffman rather ironically remarking to EW, "I don't think you need to add buckets of blood to what's already an edgy concept." In its last act, the movie becomes an unexpectedly successful variation on the well-trodden maniac-in-the-house formula, showing the franchise still had a few surprises up its sleeve.
Ick Factor: 5/10 — Pretty squeamish, but noticeably restrained considering where the series would go.
3. <i>Saw</i> (2004)
Between the traps: Well, it's not really about the traps. The movie that started it all is practically a chamber piece, with family man Dr. Gordon and young photographer Adam (Whannell) squaring off in a dank, filthy bathroom in which they have both awoken, shackled to opposite sides of the room. Between them lies an apparently dead man, and two rusty hacksaws that are not (hint hint) sharp enough to cut through their chains…
Contrary to its fearsome reputation as the elder statesman of torture porn, the first installment favors psychological terrors rather than overt yucks, turning the camera away for most of its worst offenses. While the budget undoubtedly constricts the film's aspirations, particularly in the bizarre performance given by Elwes, which EW's Owen Gleiberman rightfully asserted "ought to be featured in a seminar on the perils of overacting," the finished product is a taut thriller that was one of the first movies to take horror seriously again after the post-modern fad initiated by Scream in 1996. Its twists are well-parceled out, and there are a few moments of genuine fright that will leave you reconsidering that mood lighting in your bedroom.
Ick Factor: 3.5/10 — Much worse on your mind than it is on your eyes.
2. <i>Saw IV</i> (2007)
Between the traps: SWAT officer Rigg (Lyriq Bent) is kidnapped by a pig-masked Jigsaw apprentice and put through a nightmarish series of traps in order to save his colleagues, Matthews and Hoffman, who are (quite literally) trapped in an electrified pool between two ice cubes. (Knowing what Hoffman is up to, though, everything may not be as it seems.) In flashbacks, we see the event that led Jigsaw to his first victim and a future of murderous moralizing.
If Lucio Fulci ever made a Saw sequel, it would look a lot like Saw IV. This is a resolutely filthy film, a vulgar installment that is so genuinely queasy-making in its collection of disgusts that by the end you can only applaud. It is undoubtedly the most fun, and most rewatchable, film in the series; a brilliantly prolonged horror house of popped eyeballs, ripped scalps, and medically-accurate autopsies. "Hopefully, I've found new and offensive ways to upset people," director Bousman told EW of the film. And how! Saw IV possesses a gleefully nasty spirit, harking back to old school Video Nasties like Joe D'Amato's Absurd (1981) or Fulci's own New York Ripper (1982), where the intent was nothing more than to give you and your friends something to puke about.
Ick Factor: 278/10 — Truly off the charts.
1. <i>Saw III</i> (2006)
Between the traps: Amanda (Smith) kidnaps brain surgeon Lynn Denlon (Bahar Soomekh) and outfits her with an explosive necklace that will detonate if Lynn does not perform brain surgery on a seriously-ill Jigsaw. Simultaneously, Lynn's husband Jeff (Angus Macfadyen) is trapped in a game that forces him to confront his own anger over the accidental death of their young son.
In a perfect summation of this trilogy-capper, star Shawnee Smith told EW, "The whole movie hinges on [the audience] buying the truth about [Amanda and Jigsaw's] relationship. I mean, all serial killers are human beings." Saw III is the most character-driven and emotionally resonant chapter in the franchise, so airtight you would almost swear the creators knew there would be more than one film in the series. (Which, of course, they didn't.)
Saw III aptly fuses the twisty thriller elements that began the series with the baroque torture set pieces that the sequels became known for into a splendid mélange. This is a near-perfectly calibrated mix of medical thriller, pseudo-slasher, and chase flick anchored by strong central performances from Smith and Soomekh, two formidable actors who handle the soap opera theatrics with the weight of Shakespearean prose.
Ick Factor: 10/10 — Anyone up for brain surgery and maggot-infested pig carcass soup? Anyone…?
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