Today marks the 45th anniversary of 1980’s Friday the 13th, perhaps the most important movies in the history of cinema. Without it, the slasher genre simply wouldn’t exist. Halloween built the dynamite, based off designs from Psycho, Texas Chain Saw, and Black Christmas, but Friday the 13th lit the fuse.

I have many things to thank that movie for, but another one of the most important is the fact that, while I love it, it is not a stone-cold masterpiece. This makes anyone’s rankings of the franchise (and especially the movie that earns the #1 spot) much more malleable and personal. In a ranking of the Halloween franchise, for instance, basically everyone is obligated to put the John Carpenter original up top, even if they kinda don’t want to. But here, anything goes, and that results in much more interesting and idiosyncratic lists, from top to bottom. In that spirit, I’m going to throw caution to the wind and embrace my truth.

Brace yourselves.

A Ranking of The Friday the 13th Franchise

#12 Jason X (2002)

Yes, it has the liquid nitrogen kill. Yes, it has the VR Crystal Lake scene. But two scenes do not a movie make. The ambition of Jason X far exceeds its budget, and the pacing is all wonky. Thus we are forced to spend time watching altogether too many characters just kind of mill around tacky sets that wouldn’t pass muster in a Canadian sci-fi TV series. It’s the only Friday the 13th movie that is actively boring, and that is the cardinal sin of cinema.

#11 Friday the 13th Part III (1982)

Between the goofy 3-D gags, the disco theme, Jason getting his hockey mask, and the shirtless handstand guy, this movie should be more appealing to me as both a lover of camp classics and a slasher historian, but I find the majority of the movie to just be so inert and lifeless.

#10 Freddy vs. Jason (2003)

Even though Jason gets most of the kills in this crossover epic, it’s still primarily a Nightmare on Elm Street movie in both its setting and story construction, which is why it’s placed so low on the list. It just doesn’t have that Friday the 13th vibe, save for a few of the more radical kills.

#9 Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)

At 100 minutes, Jason Takes Manhattan is the longest installment in the franchise. That is a sin that I will forgive much less easily than the fact that the movie mostly takes place on a boat and that when said boat arrives in Manhattan, it is mostly played by Vancouver. The boat stuff is totally fine meat-and-potatoes slashing, even if it’s relatively uninspired, and everything perks up in that deliriously bonkers finale, so it ain’t all bad.

#8 Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993)

I have a soft spot for Jason Goes to Hell. Sure, we don’t get a lot of Jason, but the body-hopping demon worm angle is compellingly bizarre and results in some tremendously good special effects moments. Plus, bounty hunter Creighton Duke is one of the greatest characters in the history of Western storytelling. But a soft spot can only do so much to propel a movie this clunky and awkward up the list. Like its New Line follow-up, Jason X, there are too many characters, and they are poorly integrated into a story that coughs and sputters its way toward nowhere in particular.

#7 Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985)

I think I’ve proven that I don’t mind when they futz with the formula, so the lack of a “real” Jason doesn’t bother me. A dude in a hockey mask is killing people in this movie. It’s not like it would have played out any differently if it was Jason. I love the guy, but I don’t watch these movies for his indelible personality. The real problem is its wet blanket of a final girl, who constantly sidelines iconic returning character Tommy Jarvis so she can take center stage and whimper uselessly.

#6 Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988)

The New Blood lives and dies on being the first (and best) of the Kane Hodder Jason movies and having that excellent Jason square off against a worthy opponent for the first (and only) time in the form of the telekinetic Tina. However, the preceding hour is so ravaged by the MPAA that it is basically just empty. A solid third act cannot be supported by a foundation made of tissue paper. It all just collapses when you get right down to it.

#5 Friday the 13th (2009)

As with most divisive movies, the remake is neither the dire pit of despair the haters would have you believe nor the beacon of quality that its proponents describe it as. It is a perfectly functional Friday the 13th movie with a Jason who perhaps has a bit more useless backstory than I prefer but is nevertheless well-performed. And it has a vein of sleaziness that hearkens back to its prurient 1980s origins more than most remakes of its era.

#4 Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI (1986)

Jason Lives is charming, it’s funny, it features the hottest Tommy Jarvis in a denim jacket. I’m all in on this movie. But my last watch really highlighted the fact that the plot just involves characters going in circles between like three locations, which knocked it down a peg in my overall ranking.

#3 Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)

If every kill in this movie was as good as Mark’s, it would be even higher on the list. But regardless, this movie boasts one of the franchise’s surest directorial hands (Steve Miner accomplishes some truly remarkable shot design here), perhaps its best final girl (Ginny’s only character flaw is caring about what happens to Paul), and plenty of memorable supporting characters (all the way down to Muffin the dog).

#2 Friday the 13th (1980)

I probably rank the original movie higher than most. Although it has those inimitable Tom Savini effects, its shaggy late-70s vibe is very different from the rest of the 1980s entries, and I think maybe people who love the franchise as a whole don’t respond to that well. But there is something primordial in the simplicity of the story and the filmmaking that I find endlessly compelling as a sordid campfire story that is worth constantly revisiting.

#1 Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)

Now, this is the platonic ideal of a 1980s slasher. It’s basically Jason crashing his way into a John Hughes movie, complete with splashy Savini effects, ample and joyous nudity, and Crispin Glover dancing his ass off. Truly, I have no notes.