Ranking The Kissing Booth Trilogy: Which Film Comes Out on Top?

Top-tier talent Jacob Elordi, famed for his role on “Euphoria,” is rapidly carving out a notable path in the film industry, highlighted by collaborations with luminaries like Sofia Coppola and Ridley Scott. Even with his career only taking off in 2018, he has already garnered an Oscar nomination and is set to feature in a Justin Kurzel miniseries in 2025. However, Elordi’s journey to respectability wasn’t free from early detours; much like Tom Hanks’ lesser-known days, Elordi’s pre-“Frankenstein” résumé is colored by the controversial “Kissing Booth” trilogy on Netflix.

The “Kissing Booth” series, starring Joey King, Joel Courtney, and Elordi, left audiences less than thrilled and far from impressed. Elordi himself doesn’t count these films among his favorites, a feeling echoed by the relentless negative feedback from the Letterboxd community. When ordered by their Letterboxd ratings, it becomes clear how underwhelming the creative direction was throughout these films. Criticisms extend beyond what viewers see on a Netflix screen.

Exploring what makes the trio of “Kissing Booth” films less than stellar provides insight into both the lulls and small thrills of this polarizing series. Though Elordi may wish to forget the era, these films serve as a milestone in his acting timeline that deserve analysis of their highs and lows.

Visionary director Lynne Ramsay once remarked on the kind of cinematic experience that lingers, suggesting greatness is an unrepeatable, indescribable marvel. Ironically, “The Kissing Booth 3” fits those labels, albeit for disappointing reasons, as its abysmal 1.4 Letterboxd rating suggests. A closing chapter, it solidified the trilogy’s legacy — a collection of films that never soared to greatness.

The frustration with “Kissing Booth 3” stems from errors that plagued its predecessors—disjointed dialogue, flat characters, and bizarre haircuts. Reviews depict the film, and the series as a whole, as off-key in capturing the charming vibe intended. The general relief felt upon Elordi’s exit from the franchise was noticeable. His association with the trilogy concluded, leaving room for rejoicing among audiences hopeful for his promising future in heavier endeavors.

Certainly nothing else in “The Kissing Booth 3” was remotely worth celebrating. This wayward romantic comedy (which, like its predecessor, also had a bloated runtime, albeit of “only” 112 minutes) concluded this brand name on a fittingly dismal note.

Seminal filmmaker Charles Burnett once declared “you’re either a storyteller or a liar.” Given the 1.6 average rating of “The Kissing Booth 2” and rampant criticisms of its storytelling capabilities, it looks like this Vince Marcello directorial effort is much better suited for the latter part of that quote. Two years after “The Kissing Booth” became a trainwreck spectacle that countless Netflix subscribers couldn’t turn away from, this universe returned with “The Kissing Booth 2.” In the interim period between installments, the “Kissing Booth” creative team struggled to refine their craft. With this outing, they delivered a follow-up as bad as the 10 worst movies sequels of the 2010s.

A common complaint about this project was that it was somehow egregiously 132 minutes long. Features like the best movies over four hours long prove that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with lengthy motion pictures. However, why was “The Kissing Booth 2” longer than “The Power of the Dog” and “Past Lives?” That was one of many complaints that Letterboxd reviewers had with this shabby sequel. The dismal dialogue from the original “Kissing Booth” only worsened, and rampant psychotic behavior across the various “Kissing Booth 2” characters is also a common punchline in these reviews.

“Every time you make a film, you learn something,” iconic filmmaker Agnès Varda once remarked about this medium. “You approach other people, other people’s work, some landscape you never noticed before. It’s like giving sudden life to what you see and capturing the beauty in it.” These words don’t just speak to the empathetic and richly human approach informing her works like “The Gleaners and I” and “Faces Places.” It could also be true for those watching movies. Experiencing new pieces of cinema can be an opportunity to discover new corners of the human experience. That’s even true of the original “Kissing Booth” installment, which debuted on Netflix in 2018.

This feature’s general reception was nowhere near strong enough to make it one of the 10 best Netflix original movies of all time, according to Letterboxd users. Still, the site’s 1.7 average rating for “The Kissing Booth” did put it above its two successors amongst Letterboxd denizens. What did these reviewers “learn” from “The Kissing Booth?” Mostly what happens when out-of-touch adults try to write “hip” late-2010s teenage dialogue… and that people will make the most bizarre decisions when it comes to Jacob Elordi’s hairdos. “[Can’t] believe that this movie came out in 2018 and not in 2006,” said one Letterboxd user.

The assorted “Kissing Booth” reviews are mostly a cornucopia of witty barbs and dark jokes rather than any in-depth analysis. Being the first in this series, though, seems to have made it moderately more tolerable for this site’s residents. Maybe this entry also taught more to its viewers than its sequels.