(Photo by Warner Bros./courtesy Everett Collection)

All John Carpenter Movies Ranked by Tomatometer

John Carpenter was still a student at USC when he started piecing together what would become his first feature: 1974’s Dark Star, a sci-fi comedy about intrepid goofballs in deep space. Carpenter not only directed, but also wrote, produced, and scored the music — a DIY approach that would characterize his most legendary work.

Indeed, it’s Carpenter’s relentless synth theme that opens 1978’s Halloween, his third feature (made after the claustrophobic Assault on Precinct 13) that would go on to shock audiences with its violation of suburban idyll, break box office records, and change the face of horror for decades to come. Though Michael Myers quickly grew up in the hands of other producers, Carpenter was never too far from his baby in the genre/horror world. 1980’s The Fog was icily efficient, while Escape From New York gave us sardonic action icon Snake Plissken and a blueprint of infiltration-and-rescue movies for plenty of low-budget directors to copy. Carpenter followed that up with his paranoid masterpiece, The Thing, in 1982, a year that gave us a bonanza of other sci-fi influencers like Blade Runner, E.T., and Tron.

Still, Carpenter showed no sign of slowing down in the ’80s, with the release Stephen King adaptation Christine, softening his image with Starman, and putting out beloved goofy lark Big Trouble in Little China. 1988’s They Live, the action/horror hybrid satire that body checked consumerism and media propaganda, would mark his last Fresh movie to date.

Some of his work in the ’90s certainly has its legions of fans — the Lovecraftian In the Mouth of Madness and Escape From L.A. especially — but critics and audiences were losing patience with his cobbled-together filmmaking style. 2001’s Ghosts of Mars was a bomb that effectively sent him to Hollywood jail, insomuch as it would be 10 years before his next (and perhaps final) feature, The Ward. Carpenter has since focused on his moody synth music, putting out albums and performing live. Thus, he was able to return to the Halloween franchise with the Certified Fresh 2018 sequel as composer and executive producer.

And now we look at his directorial work as we rank all John Carpenter movies by Tomatometer. —Alex Vo