There have been 14 Star Trek movies from 1979-2025, but which one is the best of them all? The original Star Trek TV series ran from 1966-1969 but found new popularity in syndication. When Star Wars became a blockbuster in 1977, a planned TV sequel called Star Trek: Phase II was scrapped in favor of a feature film, which became Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The original cast starring William Shatner as iral James T. Kirk, Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock, and DeForrest Kelley as Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy headlined six Star Trek movies from 1979-1991, which was followed by four films starring the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation, led by Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard, from 1994-2002.

After seven years of the franchise laying dormant, director J.J. Abrams successfully revived Star Trek in 2009 with a younger cast led by Chris Pine as Captain Kirk, Zachary Quinto as Spock, and Karl Urban as Dr. McCoy. Abrams produced three reboot films from 2009-2016. With so many films across four decades made with varying budgets and levels of special effects, Star Trek is a challenging movie series to place in context; the long-held fan belief involving the first six films that the odd-numbered ones are "bad" and the even-numbered ones are "good" certainly no longer applied once Star Trek: The Next Generation's cast took over the film franchise. Here is our ranking of all 14 Star Trek movies, from worst to best.

14 Star Trek: Section 31 (2025)

Directed By Olatunde Osunsanmi

Star Trek: Section 31 was the first original Star Trek movie created for Paramount+ and, unfortunately for the streaming platform, most fans and critics seem to agree that it was a flop. Written by Craig Sweeny (known for his work on The 4400 and Elementary) and directed by Olutunde Osunsanmi, Star Trek: Section 31 focuses on Michelle Yeoh's Emperor Phillipa Georgiou from Star Trek: Discovery. Section 31's plot sees Georgiou re the secretive Starfleet branch called Section 31 to protect the Federation from a threat linked to the Emperor's past sins in the Mirror Universe.

The initial reviews for Star Trek: Section 31 saw it land a mere 24% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with the audience score being not that much better at 23%. While Michelle Yeoh enjoyed herself reprising Emperor Georgiou and there were some innovative visuals, Section 31's convoluted plot and limited character development were uninvolving. Originally planned as a TV series, Section 31 attempts to add a Star Trek sheen to a cross between Guardians of the Galaxy and Mission: Impossible. However, the final result came across as a generic sci-fi action film. Ultimately, Section 31 didn't really feel like a Star Trek movie.

13 Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)

Directed by Stuart Baird

Star Trek: Nemesis was the fourth and final film starring the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It was released in Christmas 2002, received poor reviews, and ranks as the lowest-grossing Star Trek movie ever. Although it stars a young Tom Hardy as the evil Shinzon, the screenplay by John Logan, who was nominated for an Oscar for Gladiator, is a blatant rehashing of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan with a virtually identical climax and Data dying just like Spock did.

Moreover, Star Trek: Nemesis is a grim and dreary affair, with ill-conceived moments like Captain Picard leading a dune buggy chase on an alien planet and Troi being sexually assaulted by Shinzon. The failure of Nemesis tanked Star Trek as a viable film franchise until J.J. Abrams' successful reboot in 2009. Many of the canon implications of the events of Star Trek: Nemesis weren't received well by fans either, and this may have been why Star Trek: Picard seasons 1 and 3 essentially reversed most of the events of the 2002 movie.

12 Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)

Directed by William Shatner

The folly of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier's plot can be summed up with the immortal line uttered by Kirk: "What does God need with a starship?" The only directorial effort by William Shatner, who also conceived the story of the crew of the USS Enterprise meeting "God", Star Trek V was released in the hugely-competitive summer of 1989 and ranked the lowest-grossing Star Trek film until Star Trek: Nemesis came along.

Star Trek V introduced Spock's half-brother Sybok, played by a game Lawrence Luckinbill, but Shatner's film is peppered with cornball slapstick comedy and B-movie-level visual effects. However, the campfire scenes of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy on vacation together that bookend the film deliver a welcome warmth and charm that help smooth over Star Trek V being the worst of the original cast's films.

11 Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

Directed by Robert Wise

Star Trek: The Motion Picture reunited the original crew of the Starship Enterprise on the big screen after a decade, and was intended as Paramount's answer to the massive success of Star Wars. The first Star Trek film ended up costing a staggering (for the late-1970s) $46 million to produce, thanks to its many elaborate special effects sequences showing off the rebuilt Starship Enterprise. The story by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry is more of a ponderous science-fiction tone poem than a stirring space adventure, resulting in Star Trek: The Motion Picture moving at a glacial pace.

Lacking the wit, charm, and colorful action fans of the canceled TV series were accustomed to, Star Trek: The Motion Picture does debut the classic orchestral score by Jerry Goldsmith that later became the theme of Star Trek: The Next Generation. While much of it feels tedious to sit through, Star Trek: The Motion Picture boasts big sci-fi ideas and was successful enough to revive Star Trek as a viable film franchise, setting the stage for better movies to come.

10 Star Trek III: The Search For Spock (1984)

Directed by Leonard Nimoy

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock marks the directorial debut of Leonard Nimoy and is a direct continuation of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Overall, Star Trek III is an efficient and serviceable sequel that suffers from building to a foregone conclusion - although Spock's climactic reunion with Kirk is touching.

Christopher Lloyd hams it up as the evil Klingon Kruge but Kirstie Alley, unfortunately, refused to reprise her role as Saavik, with Robin Curtis doing a thankless job where Saavik's only real function in the movie was to engage in pon farr with the young Spock. With a crowd-pleasing ending, Star Trek III reverses the death of Spock, sets everything back to normal, and serves as a necessary pendulum swing back to the next high point of the franchise: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.

9 Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)

Directed by Jonathan Frakes

The second film directed by Jonathan Frakes, Star Trek: Insurrection followed up his action-packed and well-received Star Trek: First with a film that more closely resembles an extended episode of the Star Trek: The Next Generation TV series. Star Trek: Insurrection has a lighter tone and gives the cast comedic (and musical) moments, as well as featuring a romantic subplot between Picard and a Ba'ku woman named Anij (Donna Murphy) and the resumption of Will Riker and Deanna Troi's relationship.

Unfortunately, the ethical conflict involving the forced relocation of the Ba'ku is questionable; Picard rebels with moral authority according to the principles of the Prime Directive but the film also argues that the fate of 600 Ba'ku may not compare to the benefits for billions of people if the Federation possessed the Ba'ku's secret to long life. Either way, Star Trek: Insurrection marked the downturn of The Next Generation's film franchise.

8 Star Trek Generations (1994)

Directed By David Carson

Star Trek Generations marks the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation's graduation to feature films but Paramount originally wanted it to be a crossover event film with the original Star Trek cast. After Leonard Nimoy and DeForrest Kelley declined, William Shatner's Kirk meeting Patrick Stewart's Picard became Star Trek Generations' main draw, which ended with Kirk's rather underwhelming demise (Jim's famous last words: "Oh my").

The Nexus, the extradimensional space ribbon Star Trek Generations introduced as a device to bring Picard and Kirk together, hasn't been seen since.

Written by Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga and directed by David Carson, Star Trek Generations feels like a glorified TV episode, even though it featured the destruction of the USS Enterprise-D, Data installing his emotion chip to deliver awkward comedy, and walk-on cameos by Star Trek: The Original Series' Scotty (James Doohan) and Chekov (Walter Koenig). Thankfully, the best Star Trek: Next Generation movie would be just around the corner.

7 Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

Directed by J.J. Abrams

The second Star Trek film directed by J.J. Abrams, Star Trek Into Darkness is a blatant remake of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, only 11 years after Star Trek: Nemesis also essentially did the same thing. Star Trek Into Darkness was made worse by the director's denials and attempts at subterfuge to hide the film's big twist. The other controversies surrounding Star Trek Into Darkness, including a scene where Alice Eve's Dr. Carol Marcus stripped to her underwear just because and killing Captain Kirk in place of Spock (Zachary Quinto) only to have the captain instantly revived by Khan's (Benedict Cumberbatch) "magic blood", overshadows its virtues as a stunningly shot and thrilling roller coaster ride.

Benedict Cumberbatch was billed as "John Harrison," an alias created for him by Section 31, before he was revealed as Khan Noonien Singh.

Peter Weller plays Star Trek Into Darkness' other primary villain, the diabolical Starfleet iral Alexander Marcus. Leonard Nimoy also cameos as the older Spock for the final time, giving his younger self the information the Enterprise crew needs to beat Khan. Star Trek Into Darkness underperformed in North America compared to its 2009 predecessor Star Trek, but, with $467 million worldwide, Star Trek Into Darkness actually ranks as the highest-grossing Star Trek film ever worldwide.

6 Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)

Directed by Nicholas Meyer

The final film starring Star Trek's original cast, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is a rousing sendoff triumphantly celebrating the 25th anniversary of Star Trek in 1991. Originally intended to be a reboot called Starfleet Academy starring a younger cast (a plan ironically similar to J.J. Abrams' reboot 18 years later), Paramount insisted instead that the original crew get a final movie after the dismal returns of Star Trek V. The timely story of "the wall coming down in outer space" was hatched by Leonard Nimoy and Star Trek II's director Nicholas Meyer returned to helm Star Trek VI.

Replacing the character of Lt. Saavik, Kim Cattrall shines as the duplicitous Lt. Valeris while Christopher Plummer chews the scenery as the sinister General Chang, Star Trek's first bald Klingon. Peppered with witty dialogue and featuring a stunning and controversial climactic mind meld sequence between Spock and Valeris, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country was a glorious final bow for the crew that started it all.

5 Star Trek Beyond (2016)

Directed by Justin Lin

With Justin Lin taking over the director's chair from J.J. Abrams, who served as producer, Sofia Boutella steals scenes as Jaylah, the best new female character introduced in a Star Trek film in decades, although an unrecognizable Idris Elba gets lost in his elaborate makeup as the villainous Krall.

In Star Trek Beyond, Chris Pine's Kirk is more seasoned and closer to William Shatner's interpretation than he was in J.J. Abrams' films, and Star Trek Beyond also ended the controversial love story between Spock and Uhura (Zoe Saldana). Sadly, along with commemorating Leonard Nimoy's 2015 death, Star Trek Beyond is also the final appearance of Pavel Chekov actor Anton Yelchin, who tragically died months before the film premiered in the summer of 2016. As the film celebrating the 50th anniversary of Star Trek, Star Trek Beyond is a thrilling adventure about unity and finding hope in the impossible, and it even managed to make the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage" an integral part of its climax.