James Gunn is a prolific filmmaker who has risen to superstar status by staying true to himself and his roots, even in the world of big budget spectacle. Gunn got his first job at Troma Entertainment where he wrote the script for Tromeo and Juliet. Since then, Gunn has had a fascinating and rich career, having written both live-action Scooby-Doo films and the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead. He has lent his name to producing smaller projects like The Belko Experiment (which he also wrote) and Brightburn.
Gunn isn’t slowing down anytime soon, as he is currently shooting Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 as well as The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special which will air on Disney+ in 2022. After his work on the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy, which will wrap up after this final installment, James Gunn is set to write and direct all episodes of the recently announced Peacemaker season 2 and is developing a second DC television project.
Throughout Gunn’s career, a recurring theme across much of his work is the idea of broken people making amends. His characters are often deeply flawed and sometimes horrible people who have made mistakes, who are struggling to learn how to grow as human beings. Gunn’s work often looks at ethics, asking if people can become better, and how one good deed does not redeem a bad one, but that people can eventually find their way with love and compassion. Here are James Gunn’s movies and television series ranked.
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6 Super
Gunn’s second film Super follows Frank Darbo (Rainn Wilson), an ordinary man who makes himself into a superhero called the Crimson Bolt without having any superhuman ability to rescue his wife from a drug dealer. The movie is very much a prototype Gunn film, with a surprisingly bittersweet ending where the main character has to let his wife who he loves very much go because he truly wants her to be happy, something that seems to be reflective of Gunn’s own real-life marriage to Jenna Fisher ending. While still being an enjoyable deconstructive superhero movie, coming out shortly after Watchmen and Kick-Ass, Super is Gunn’s lowest reviewed project, and he was still working out how to balance his sincere emotions with his more Troma Films attitude of making it as edgy as possible.
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5 Slither
Brightlight Pictures
After working for years in Hollywood as a writer and producer, Gunn got to make his directorial debut with Slither. Released in 2006, the film features an alien parasite invading a small town in South Carolina. A throwback to alien invasion films of the earlier days with a modern flair for gore and gross-out visuals, the first James Gunn movie clearly establishes his style right off the bat and begins a process of long-term collaborations with stars like Michael Rooker and Nathan Fillion. Though a box office bomb at the time of its release, Slither developed a cult following, like any good horror film, and has become greatly appreciated over time.
4 Guardians of the Galaxy
Marvel Studios
Guardians of the Galaxy is one of the most important films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as it established a new group of heroes and proved that the company’s commitment to story and character could launch even the most obscure character into a massive box office hit. A great deal of the film’s success is because of James Gunn’s vision. When the movie was first announced at Comic-Con in 2012, the Guardians of the Galaxy were a property no one really cared for, and that obscurity and lack of expectations allowed Gunn to craft a unique film unlike anything audiences had seen at the time.
It was a rocking good-time party movie with an irrelevant sense of humor but a sincere heart. Combine that with an instantly iconic soundtrack contrasted with vast alien landscapes, and after 2014 The Guardians of the Galaxy became known the world over. This movie full of nobody superheroes outgrossed the likes of more established hero movies like Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and X-Men: Days of Future Past.
3 The Suicide Squad
Warner Bros. Pictures
The Suicide Squad is a movie that should not have existed, but by a miracle, it does. Gunn booked the project after an unfair firing by Disney on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and Warner Bros. quickly scooped him up and let him have a crack at whatever property he wanted. Gunn chose The Suicide Squad and saved the reputation of the franchise which had seen a rough go-around when the first film was released in 2016. The Suicide Squad still acts as a loose sequel to the original film but creates an entirely new tone and visual palette, and Gunn takes what he learned on the Guardians of the Galaxy films but also mixes in some of his more gruesome R-rated tendencies from his earlier films and Troma days.
James Gunn manages to take joke super-villains like Polka-Dot Man and Starro and make them as compelling as anyone in DC’s vast array of major villains. Despite all the violence, dirty jokes, and devil-may-care attitude, the film has a genuine heart to it, beautifully encapsulated in the flashback with Rat-Catcher II’s father: no matter how bad the world perceives a person, everyone has value, and it is never too late to be a slightly better person.
2 Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 picks up six months after the events of the first film and features Peter Quill coming into contact with his father Ego, while the family unit that came together in the first film is tested to see if they can stay together. The sequel to the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie was always going to have a slight uphill battle, as it was never going to be able to recapture that feeling of newness and novelty that the original film had.
However, the James Gunn uses that to his advantage in order to tell a much more earnest movie, one that really dissects the complex nature of family. Underneath this funny adventure is a character study about people who need to learn to stop self-sabotaging their relationships and open up to accepting love. The ending scene, a funeral set to Cat Stevens’ Father and Son, where people come to honor a dead friend despite their complicated past, shows that when people love one another, they never truly leave. The result is the most emotional film in the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe.
1 Peacemaker
WarnerMedia
Peacemaker picks up months after the events of The Suicide Squad, and follows Christopher Smith aka The Peacemaker as he is recruited into Project Butterfly by a government black ops’ agency to take down an alien invasion. Peacemaker is a revelation in terms of superhero series, DCEU projects, and John Cena as an actor. This series has single-handedly made a character like Peacemaker, most famous for being the inspiration for The Comedian in Watchmen, as iconic and fleshed-out as any member of the Justice League.
In many ways, Peacemaker feels like what James Gunn’s entire career has been building to. It is a spin-off film of his film The Suicide Squad, deals with a dysfunctional team becoming a surrogate family unit like Guardians of the Galaxy, has the complicated parental roles between children and parents found in Guardians of the Galaxy 2, features colorful superhero costumes contrasted with everyday life like Super, and has the team fighting a parasitic alien invasion like Slither; even the way the butterflies invade a person’s body is similar to Gunn’s monster in his Scooby-Doo script. Peacemaker is hilarious but also incredibly moving, as one man questions his very nature and if he can be better than what everyone tells him he is. Plus, it’s opening theme song Do You Really Wanna Taste It by Wig Wam has helped cement the series as having one of the greatest TV openings of all time.
