Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo Movies Ranked

The original plan was for there to only be one Rambo movie, with the titular character dying at the end. But Sylvester Stallone changed the end of 1982’s “First Blood” — and got sued over it — to have Rambo survive instead. This paved the way for “Rambo: First Blood Part II” three years later, and a franchise was born. Whether it should have ended after just one movie and not turned into a five-part action and gore extravaganza depends mostly on your taste for action and gore extravaganzas.

As the series’ star, co-creator, and co-writer, Stallone has always tried to frame the various “Rambo” sequels as being complex looks at the horrors of war and the psychological effects it has on people, with the extreme violence serving to send a message rather than just being for crowd-pleasing purposes. But from “Rambo: First Blood Part II” on, the majority of people tune in to see John Rambo blowing people up with grenades and mowing them down with mounted machine guns. 

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course, and people obviously like that sort of thing. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be five installments over a 37-year period to rank.

There are a few different ways to explain the ending of “Rambo: Last Blood,” particularly the final shots of him riding off on a horse. There is a strong case to be made that it depicts Rambo about to die, if he’s not already dead and in some kind of afterlife. Either way, the movie being called “Last Blood” seems to pretty definitively shut the book on the franchise as it stands, barring future reboots and the like. 

So does the original “Rambo” pentalogy end on a high note? Quite the opposite — it’s the worst “Rambo” movie to date, and it’s not even close. This time, Rambo takes on a Mexican cartel after they kidnap the granddaughter of an old friend. This being a “Rambo” movie, “take on” means brutally murder them one by one until the mission is accomplished. Stallone managed a surprisingly decent revival of the franchise with 2008’s “Rambo,” but things should have then taken the “Rocky” route and passed the torch if the “Rambo” franchise were to continue. 

Especially with calling the movie “Last Blood,” this would have been the perfect opportunity to bring the franchise full circle and have it be a complex character study about what decades of war, violence, and death does to a person. Instead, we get a 73-year-old Sylvester Stallone, playing a 73-year-old John Rambo, still exploding people and cutting off their heads while screaming and snarling. 

The second “Rambo” movie at least still attempted a connection to the original by being called “First Blood Part II.” But with 1988’s simply-named “Rambo III,” it was made clear right from the start what type of movie the third installment in the then-trilogy was going to be. This is where things went off the deep end into cartoonishly violent action territory, no longer even pretending to have nuance or subtext. The Rotten Tomatoes critical consensus sums it up pretty well, stating, “‘Rambo III’ finds its justice-dispensing hero far from the thoughtful drama that marked the franchise’s beginning.”

“Rambo III” also further severs ties to the previous films by moving the action to Afghanistan, and also presenting a much more shallow “these are the good guys, and those are the bad guys” view of the film’s two main sides. All that being said, the action is, admittedly, still satisfying from an ’80s machismo point of view. If that’s what you want from “Rambo III,” that’s what you’re going to get — but that’s all you’re going to get. Which makes it a slightly lesser installment than the ones that managed to balance entertaining action set pieces with at least a little bit of political and psychological context. 

Nobody really knew what to expect when it was announced that the “Rambo” series was coming back after a 20-year hiatus with the simply-titled “Rambo” in 2008. But given that Sylvester Stallone had ushered in an admirable “Rocky” revival two years prior with “Rocky Balboa,” there was reason to be optimistic. Well, “Rocky Balboa” this is not. While that movie provided a comeback for its title character while acknowledging his age and limitations, “Rambo” sees Stallone still playing the character like a superhero who can take on entire armies of soldiers with ease in the same way he did when he was a much younger man. 

Somewhat bafflingly, the movie is even more violent than “Rambo III” — significantly so, in fact. People literally explode into red goo, Rambo cuts at least one guy’s head clean off his body with a knife, and on and on. In fact, Stallone worried that the movie wouldn’t even get a theatrical release due to its high level of violence and gore. This might come as a surprise given how many fan-favorite films he has contributed to the genre’s pantheon, but Stallone considers the fourth “Rambo” entry to be his best action movie. Are the action set pieces well-staged? Yes. Do they have a level of polish that none of the previous installments had? Probably. But in 2008, and with a 60-something Stallone, it just doesn’t hit quite as well. 

It at least took a couple of “Rocky” movies before the series gave in to caricature. With “Rambo: First Blood Part II,” Sylvester Stallone had already allowed his Vietnam veteran to transform into a nearly-invincible superhero. It was a jarring and disappointing tonal shift from the first movie, but once audiences got over that, they were treated to an admittedly awesome ’80s action flick that remains a bona fide classic of the era.

The best thing to do is just mentally separate “First Blood” from the rest of the “Rambo” movies, and pretend it isn’t the same John Rambo. It’s not remotely difficult to do, given how little the films and the two versions of the character have in common. Again, Stallone himself might feel differently and would try to sell you on all sorts of reasons why “First Blood Part II” is actually much more layered and has a much deeper message than it might seem. But the movie knows what it is, and what it does, it does very, very well. Without having to live in the artistic shadow of its predecessor, “First Blood Part II” might actually have an even stronger legacy as an excellent war action movie than it already does. 

Your mileage may vary depending on your willingness to forgive the abandonment of the original’s themes and your tolerance for things and people going boom. But people who love fun, loud action movies tend to love “First Blood Part II.”

We’ve already noted how different “First Blood” is from all of the “Rambo” sequels that followed. But just what was “First Blood” all about, and why does it remain the best movie in the franchise? It’s a character-driven story of a Vietnam veteran who is struggling mightily with finding his place in the world after the war, while dealing with PTSD and other mental issues. In his travels, he finds himself in a small town where he’s unfairly picked on by the local law enforcement. 

This triggers flashbacks to what he endured in the war — in particular, while captured and being tortured — and he comes to believe he has to once again fight his way out and escape to safety. He does kill a police officer, though it’s entirely accidental and is his sole murder in the movie. That said, he does injure a few others and intentionally causes some serious property damage, but it’s all the result of him trying to survive a situation he was goaded into in the first place. In fact, Rambo even eventually surrenders to arrest in the end. 

“First Blood” is a tragedy on two fronts. One, for its protagonist, obviously. But two, because it’s one of those reminders that Sylvester Stallone truly is an extremely talented actor and screenwriter when he puts his mind to it. It’s too bad he so often couldn’t resist the allure of the huge fame and big paydays that come with shallow action movies. He could have easily had a career full of films like “First Blood,” but only occasionally dabbled in it — mostly preferring to make movies like “Rambo III” instead.