All 5 Spy Kids movies ranked from worst to best
By Bryce Olin
Spy Kids: Armageddon premiered on Netflix on Sept. 22, 2023, and it’s one of the most-watched movies on Netflix during the month. Fans from all over the world are tuning in to watch the fifth Spy Kids movie on the streaming service.
To celebrate the release of Spy Kids: Armageddon, we ranked all five Spy Kids movies from worst to best. The good news is that Spy Kids: Armageddon is not the worst movie of the franchise! It’s not the best, but it’s definitely not the worst.
I was just a kid when the first Spy Kids movies came out, but I remember watching them in theaters and being hooked. They are kids, and they’re spies? That’s all I needed to know, and I was all in. It’s crazy to see how the movies have evolved over the years. It’s a testament to Robert Rodriguez, who wrote and directed all five movies, and his passion for this project that’s kept it alive and fresh over the course of two decades.
Spy Kids movies in order
The Spy Kids movies were some of the most popular kids movies of the early 2000s. Like The Lord of the Rings movies, three Spy Kids movies were released over a period of three years starting in 2001 and ending in 2003.
The franchise was rebooted in 2011 for a fourth film, Spy Kids: All the Time in the World. And in 2023, Netflix released the fifth movie of the franchise, Spy Kids: Armageddon.
- Spy Kids (2001)
- Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams (2002)
- Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over (2003)
- Spy Kids: All the Time in the World (2011)
- Spy Kids: Armageddon (2023)
Unfortunately, Spy Kids: Armageddon is the only movie of the franchise available to stream on Netflix right now.
You can watch Spy Kids and Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams on YouTube for free right now, while Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over is now streaming on Paramount+.
The fourth movie is not available to stream right now on a subscription service, but you can rent or buy it on SVOD services.
For this list, we only focused on the live-action Spy Kids movies. There’s also Spy Kids: Mission Critical, and it’s also streaming on Netflix, but it’s animated.
Spy Kids movies, ranked
We ranked all five of the Spy Kids movies from worst to best. Let’s get the ranking started with the worst of the Spy Kids movies, and that’s Spy Kids: All the Time in the World, also known as Spy Kids 4D.
5. Spy Kids: All the Time in the World
Spy Kids: All the Time in the World premiered in theaters in 2011, eight years after the third movie. It features a whole new cast, including Jessica Alba and Joel McHale. Overall, Spy Kids: All the Time in the World has arguably the best cast of any of the five Spy Kids movies, but it just doesn’t have the story there to carry this movie. It’s, unfortunately, the worst of the Spy Kids movies.
In Spy Kids 4, the Wilson family, led by agent and stepmom, Marissa (Jessica Alba), must stop the Timekeeper, a supervillain, from controlling time.
It’s an interesting premise that just, as mentioned, doesn’t live up to the hype of the first three movies. Oh, and it was a flop at the box office, especially compared to the first three movies of the franchise.
- Release Year: 2011
- Directed by Robert Rodriguez
- Cast: Jessica Alba, Joel McHale, Alexa Vega, Daryl Sabara, Rowan Blanchard, Mason Cook, Ricky Gervais, and Jeremy Piven