Every Movie in Ti West's 'X' Trilogy, Ranked (2024)

Horror movies lend themselves to sequels perhaps more consistently than pictures of any other genre, to the point it's almost a given any time a genre entry catches fire. The longest-running horror series are generally notable for how inconsistent they are, though—at least most of the time. From the jump with 2022's X, Ti West clearly aimed to shake up the slasher sub-genre to an extent that hadn't really even been attempted since Kevin Williamson wrote Scream. The innovation of Scream was that slasher movie characters had seen slasher movies; with X, the archetypal American slasher made a beeline for the arthouse. These are prestige pictures where heads get cut off, critical darlings with a fair amount of dismemberment throughout. The final, hyped installment, MaXXXine, released last week, and it's as good a time as any to go ahead and call this: Ti West's X trilogy is quite possibly the best horror trilogy of all time. What began with the revelatory, critically adored X in 2022 has remained consistently surprising, artful in a way that homages eclectically while feeling cutting-edge, and it's all just been damn fun, too.

The X trilogy rests upon the shoulders of Mia Goth, who plays two very different women: there's sinister farm girl Pearl, born at the dawn of the 20th century to German immigrant parents, and then there's Maxine Minx, a Texas preacher's daughter who boldly becomes an adult film sensation before attempting to break into Hollywood proper. The uniquely high stakes and mechanics of the slasher genre (many people die, and threat of death is constant) merge with themes about artistic expression, sexuality, and the very lives we choose to live. The X trilogy has been about as consistent as it is artistically striking—but which movie is the best of the three? This is the definitive ranking of all three movies in Ti West's X trilogy, from outstanding to bloody near perfect.

The following contains heavy, full spoilers for X, Pearl, and MaXXXine

3 'MaXXXine' (2024)

Starring Mia Goth, Michelle Monaghan, and Elizabeth Debicki

The neon-drenched '80s-centric final installment in West's vibrant slasher trilogy is all payoff, the most purely entertaining feature in a series that's admirably blended carnage candy and other slasher goodness with heady themes and artistic ambition, the kind that truly challenges and provokes. This is the best-directed of the three, with West firing on all cylinders (and, it would appear, having a lot of fun) alongside longtime cinematographer Eliot Rockett. It's set piece after set piece, an amalgamation to be sure but most clearly a Brian De Palma homage. Mia Goth is forever immortalized as one of the greatest final girls, and Maxine's evolution (she's tough and just flat-out impatient here) presents the biggest laughs of the movie. A sleazy private eye (Kevin Bacon) is hired by the big bad to spy on her, but before the menace can really escalate all that much, now-hardened Maxine is quick to beat him to a pulp with her keys. When he returns, she gets her agent (Giancarlo Esposito, playing a lovable inverse of his Gus from Breaking Bad) to straight-up murder the creep. It's funny.

This time around, Maxine Minx is a well-established and successful name in west coast adult film. Ever-ambitious, she lands a studio horror film lead; meanwhile a killer emulates the infamous Night Stalker, preying exclusively upon Maxine's friends and colleagues. MaXXXine only wobbles, and only so much at that, in act three. The reveal of Maxine's religious zealot father (Simon Prast) as the killer doesn't have the emotional kick and seamless tact of the X and Pearl finales. Intertwined with a killer who perhaps isn't as memorable as what could have been is an underwhelming thematic thread: MaXXXine's examination of religion only feels skin-deep, especially considering how thoroughly overarching themes have generally been explored in these movies. Still, everything leads to a maniacal set piece where Satanic panic meets weighty gun fight, like Russ Meyer and Michael Mann collaborated. Dammit, it is glorious.

For all that's been said, rightfully, about Mia Goth's extraordinary, career-making performance (performances?... she technically plays four very different people when you factor age into the equation) throughout the series, Elizabeth Debicki steals every scene she's in here, as icy, cutthroat studio director Liz Bender (in an interview with Collider, Debicki said the performance was inspired in part by West himself). She's always in sharp angles, she kind of is a sharp angle, and she is an effective red herring. Initially suspicious, Bender's toughness toward Maxine, blood-drawing as it is, proves to be a kind of maternal expression of caring, tough love, as well as simple professionalism. It's a glorious performance, a culmination of subversive female roles within this series.

MaXXXine

R

Horror

Crime

In 1980s Hollywood, adult film star and aspiring actress Maxine Minx finally secures her big break. As she navigates her path to stardom, a mysterious killer begins targeting Hollywood starlets, leaving a trail of blood that threatens to expose her sinister past.

Release Date

July 5, 2024

Director

Ti West

Cast

Mia Goth , Elizabeth Debicki , Moses Sumney , Michelle Monaghan , Bobby Cannavale , Lily Collins , Halsey , Giancarlo Esposito

Runtime

103 Minutes

Main Genre

Horror

Writers

Ti West

Franchise

X

Prequel

X

Production Company

A24

2 'Pearl' (2022)

Starring Mia Goth, David Corenswet, and Tandi Wright

Filmed in secret alongside X, the WWI-era prequel delves into the backstory of the original's mysterious, murderous villain whose name is in the title. Pearl is a plucky, disturbed young woman with dreams of stardom; her cruel reality is that she's barely surviving a punishing farm life with an aggressively overbearing mother (Tandi Wright) and paralyzed father (Matthew Sunderland). The X trilogy presents three very different stories: Pearl is a psychological historical drama as much as it is a horror movie, and it arguably lacks the kind of crossover appeal the other two pictures have. Honestly, that's a strength, though; it's a commitment to storytelling. Pearl is a fearless left turn tonally, inspired genre alchemy that works immaculately.

The period detail of Pearl (including production design by Thomas Hammock and costumes by Malgosia Turzanska) is about as immersive as you'd expect from, say, The Crown, and the small cast of well-drawn supporting characters are of great value. Wright is excellent as Pearl's rigid, complicated and not fully unloving mother, and pre-Superman David Corenswet is well cast as Pearl's handsome, naive admirer. The climax of Pearl isn't any kind of action; it's a now-infamous long take of Pearl in close-up, for eight minutes, spilling her guts to sister-in-law Mitsy (Emma Jenkins-Purro). This is a haunted headspace that West and Goth have taken great care in bringing to life, and the deaths here are genuinely sad in a way that's all but entirely unheard of in slashers.

In short, Pearl is heartbreaking. It's a frank and affecting look at broken dreams through the eyes of someone who's lacking the kind of humanity and empathy that prevents normal people from being murderers. In addition to the shared characters played by Goth, there are aforementioned themes that tie all three of these stories together; as none other than Martin Scorsese has noted, Pearl is pure cinema, most interested in making a statement about the human condition. The kills and pyrotechnics, terrifically executed though they are, are only a part of the equation. If this is undeniably the slowest-paced of the bunch, it's also the most dramatically affecting. Stylistically, tonally and in the most fundamental terms of how their narratives play out, it's how bloody different all three of these movies are that makes the X saga an unprecedented horror feat.

Pearl

R

Horror

Drama

Thriller

In 1918, a young woman on the brink of madness pursues stardom in a desperate attempt to escape the drudgery, isolation, and lovelessness of life on her parents' farm.

Director

Ti West

Cast

Mia Goth , David Corenswet , Tandi Wright , Matthew Sunderland

Runtime

103 minutes

Main Genre

Horror

Writers

Ti West , Mia Goth

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1 'X' (2022)

Starring Mia Goth, Brittany Snow, and Jenna Ortega

X remains the best of the series, and with every re-watch it only becomes easier to appreciate just how meticulous and inspired this labor of love truly is. Taking the majority of its stylistic cues from Tobe Hooper's epochal The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, West's sweltering '70s summer-set slasher sees a group of six (Goth, Brittany Snow, Martin Henderson, Jenna Ortega, Kid Cudi, and Owen Campbell) rent Pearl and Howard (Stephen Ure)'s guest house with the intention of shooting a revolutionary adult film. Their free thinking (admittedly, they're also being pretty sketchy) and sexually-charged youth earns the disdain of their curmudgeonly hosts. Then the bodies start piling up.

This is the one picture where we get Pearl and Maxine together; watching them share the screen (Mia Goth sharing the screen with Mia Goth, performance accentuated by some of the most convincing old-age makeup in memory) is even more compelling in a post-Pearl and MaXXXine world. Even on repeat viewings—and artful yet highly pleasurable X holds up to many repeat viewings—it's easy to forget it's the same actor. Pearl would desperately do anything to be a star; Goth makes it look easy.

The heart of X has a lot to say about how independent, low-budget filmmaking changed not only the entertainment industry, but culture and the world at large, so it's fitting to hang this on evocative visuals (fans of this trilogy should noteTexas Chain Saw's mad, ingenious guerrilla production was brilliantly documented in Gunnar Hansen's book Chain Saw Confidential). X also breaks many of the long-established rules and is consistently shocking. In any other slasher, Ortega's demure Lorraine (nicknamed "church mouse") would be the last one standing. Instead, she's presented as rather judgmental, ultimately victim to the film's most abrupt and startling kill. Meanwhile, the final girl is sexually emboldened, aggressive, on drugs, foul-mouthed, a lovable mess. X is every bit as gross and graphic as you want it to be, but it's full of haunting beauty, even stopping in its tracks for Snow's disarming rendition of "Landslide." Here's a slasher that is so unusual yet so familiar. It remains the best horror film of the 2020s so far.

X

R

Horror

Mystery

Thriller

In 1979, a group of young filmmakers set out to make an adult film in rural Texas, but when their reclusive, elderly hosts catch them in the act, the cast find themselves fighting for their lives.

Where to Watch

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Not available

*Availability in US

Release Date

March 18, 2022

Director

Ti West

Cast

Mia Goth , Jenna Ortega , Brittany Snow , Kid Cudi

Runtime

105 minutes

Main Genre

Horror

Writers

Ti West

Studio

A24

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