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James Gunn is one of the biggest filmmakers working today, as he’s currently working on Peacemaker season 2, Guardians vol. 3’s post-production, and has just become the CEO of DC studios. That’s a lot of projects in such a short timeframe for one person, but he’s at least put one major project behind him, as Guardians Holiday Special has just been released to critical acclaim.

The special is joyous, sentimental, and everything else fans could have wanted from a 40-minute Guardians one-off. However, it isn’t the first time Gunn has released a hilarious project about a group of over-the-top characters. Between writing and directing, the filmmaker’s filmography is full of them, but they aren’t always as acclaimed (as fans will be able to tell from their Rotten Tomatoes scores).

10 Scooby-Doo (2002) – 32%

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Scooby-Doo might have a “rotten” score, but there’s no doubt about it that it’s as faithful of a live-action adaption of the source material as it can possibly be. The main actors unapologetically play the characters over the top, the chemistry is great, and it has practical sets and costume designs that audiences just don’t see in movies today.

Ever since Gunn became more popular from his work in the MCU, the film has gotten something of a cult following. After all, given that he’s so great at writing material for ragtag groups of outcasts, the first example of that is Scooby-Doo. The only major problem that fans have with the film is that Gunn wrote Scrappy-Doo as the villain, but others thought it cleverly subverted expectations.

9 The Specials (2000) – 47%

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Gunn is a part of superhero movie royalty, as he made two of the most entertaining MCU movies, he saved the Suicide Squad franchise with the surprisingly entertaining sequel, and he’s now the CEO of DC studios. However, long before any of that, he wrote a much smaller superhero movie, The Specials.

The movie has an interesting premise, as it follows superheroes on their day off and focuses on their everyday lives. In a way, it was ahead of its time, as so many movies and series are more satirical and meta today, but the concept was much better on paper and The Specials didn’t stick the landing. It was criticized for being “too dumb” and having way “too many unfunny jokes” (via Horrornews.net), but given today’s landscape, a reboot could do well.

8 Super (2010) – 49%

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Following The Specials, Super was Gunn’s second attempt at writing a superhero movie, only this time he directed it too. The movie follows Frank Darbo, an ordinary guy who dresses in red spandex and calls himself the Crimson Bolt. While that premise is a hotbed for Gunn’s comedy, it’s pitch-black dark too, and it’s even emotionally exhausting in parts.

Most critics struggled to get on board with such a dark comedy, as it’s almost as if Kick-Ass had no limits and was made on a shoestring budget. However, regardless of its reception, it approaches the theme of superheroes that had never been done before, and Crimson Bolt may return, as he had a cameo in the Gunn-produced Brightburn, hinting at a larger universe.

7 The Belko Experiment (2016) – 55%

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Whether it’s as 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥-friendly as The Hunger Games or as bloody and violent as Squid Game, battle royale movies and series have been getting increasingly popular over the past decade. But one that went completely under the radar was the workplace-based The Belko Experiment.

Gunn wrote the battle royale movie, which is about a company that forces its employees to fight to the death until just one is left standing. It’s nothing audiences haven’t seen before, and there’s nothing for viewers to grab onto beyond the creative carnage. But the graphic and violent popcorn flick is still entertaining enough for most horror fans.

6 Dawn Of The Dead (2004) – 76%

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Even when it comes to movies that Gunn wrote but didn’t direct, his unique brand of storytelling and dialogue are clear, and they’re distinctively Gunn-written movies. But the fact that he wrote the 2004 horror remake Dawn of the Dead is less obvious. The film doesn’t have any humor, and it lacks any kind of edgy approach from a writing standpoint.

The film is more clearly a Zack Snyder-directed picture, as the 2004 release established his style-over-substance approach, and the use of CGI and use of green screen was revolutionary at the time. Despite being his directorial debut, Dawn of the Dead is still one of Snyder’s best movies, and it paid off for Gunn after the severe backlash he received after being hired as the screenwriter. According to Gunn, he got “actual hand-written death threats” because he was simply known as the guy who wrote Scooby-Doo.

5 Terror Firmer (1999) – 80%

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For the hardcore fans of Gunn, it wouldn’t have come as a surprise that he was hired to write Dawn of the Dead, as he’s much of a horror writer as he is a writer of irreverent comedy. The first example of that is the 1999 film Terror Firmer. Troma is a production company that makes low-budget, splatter-filled gorefests, and Terror Firmer is one of Troma’s best releases.

The movie follows a film crew working for an egotistical director, who soon run into problems when their shoots become disrupted by a serial 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁er, and the crew gets picked off one by one. The film is ridiculous, scandalous, offensive, and so entertaining, but it isn’t for the faint of heart.

4 Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) – 85%

Available To Stream On Disney+

While it isn’t considered as great as its predecessor, Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2 does a lot of things better than the first movie. For starters, Ego (Kurt Russell) is a much more interesting villain than Ronan (not to mention that Russell provides a great performance as a villain, which he doesn’t do often). It has one of the greatest cameos in the MCU, as Ego takes the form of David Hasselhoff for a split-second, and Volume 2 has one of the saddest endings (which is a bold move for an MCU release).

But the greatest thing Gunn does with the sequel is introduce the character Mantis, and her rapport with Drax is the most surprisingly welcoming friendship in the entire franchise. Fans have also gotten more of that in spades with the newly released Guardians Holiday Special, as the two work together to kidnap Kevin Bacon.

3 Slither (2006) – 87%

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Slither is another one of Gunn’s attempts to mix horror and comedy, and this time it worked wonders, and the 2006 movie deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as horror comedies like The Evil Dead. The movie is about a small town that gets invaded by alien parasites, and it pays homage to ’80s movies like The Blob and Brain Damage.

However, despite being a success with critics, the movie, unfortunately, bombed at the box office, making just over $12 million worldwide (via Box Office Mojo), which was even less than its budget. But it has since become a cult hit, and as Slither is endlessly rewatchable and is the last example of Gunn working in the horror comedy genre, it’s about time he returned to it.

2 The Suicide Squad (2021) – 90%

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After perfecting the rhythm of colorful superhero comedy movies on a spectacular, big-budget level, Gunn wanted to repeat that success, only in a more R-rated fashion. What was most impressive about The Suicide Squad is that it didn’t ignore its critically scathed predecessor, was unapologetically a sequel (even if it wasn’t marketed that way), and it improved on the original in every way.

Between Harley Quinn dropping F-bombs and King Shark tearing the limbs off henchmen, it was the event movie DC fans had waited to see for years. The director pulled comic book characters from the deepest crevices of the DC archives and somehow turned them all into fan-favorite DC Extended Universe superheroes, even if most of them didn’t last more than five minutes before getting 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁ed.

1 Guardians Of The Galaxy (2014) – 92%

Available To Stream On Disney+

It took Gunn close to two decades before he finally got a huge break, as it wasn’t until 2014 after he had written and directed several low-budget movies for niche audiences that he was given a golden ticket. It’s almost as if the filmmaker was 𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧 to write and direct Guardians of the Galaxy, as everything about plays to his strengths, whether it’s the group of outcasts, the high concept, the superheroes, or the comedy.

There was no better filmmaker than Gunn to helm the MCU movie about a talking tree and a trigger-happy raccoon, and Gunn totally pulled it off. The director turned the Marvel Cinematic Universe into a space odyssey, and in many ways, Guardians vol. 1 influenced all of the following movies in the franchise.