All 5 of The Hunger Games movies ranked from worst to best (including The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes)

3. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

Cast: Tom Blyth, Rachel Zegler, Peter Dinklage, Jason Schwartzman, Hunter Schafer, Josh Andrés Rivera, Viola Davis, and more

Directed by Francis Lawrence, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is based on Suzanne Collins’ bestselling prequel to The Hunger Games trilogy, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, which was published in 2020. It’s early, but so far, the movie seems like a huge hit, especially among Hunger Games fans!

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes delves deeper into the story of Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth), the man who would become known as the villain of The Hunger Games trilogy, President Snow, but it’s so much more than that. It explores the origins of Panem, and what the landscape, political and otherwise, looked like around the time of the 10th Annual Hunger Games. Rachel Zegler steals the show as Lucy Gray Baird, a tribute from District 12. Hmmm, sounds familiar, right?

It’s interesting because I enjoyed The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, the book, the least of the four Hunger Games books, but I enjoyed the movie much more than both Mockingjay movies. Overall, there’s no doubt that The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is the third-best of the Hunger Games movies so far. It will be very interesting to see where the story goes from here. Collins has many directions that this story could go, and there seems to be quite the appetite to revisit Panem. In terms of story, though, the first two Hunger Games movies are better. I don’t think that’s much of a debate.

Up next is the first film of The Hunger Games franchise.