Vin Diesel‘s position in Hollywood is cemented, and even though his internet presence is undoubtedly goofy — from his bizarre tangents into making electronic music to inviting Russian President Vladimir Putin to a Father’s Day dinner on Instagram — if you dig deep into his antics, you’ll find his heart is always in the right place. Nothing made this clearer than when he declared plans to bring his Fast & Furious franchise back to LA for the presumptive final installment.

When The Fast and The Furious first debuted in summer 2001, it arrived with low expectations — a modest-budget film starring semi-established actors. The niche subject matter of street racing wasn’t considered Hollywood gold. Yet, Vin Diesel led a group of charismatic actors, winning fans over with a genuine portrayal of brotherhood and — of course — “family.” Over the years, the franchise has evolved from street racing to space travel, from Japan to Brazil, from stealing DVD players to stopping nuclear warfare. As the 24-year saga nears its conclusion, Diesel has flirted with the idea of returning the franchise to its roots. And it seems tragedy was fate’s way of ensuring he and his team finally return to LA.

Diesel recently took to Instagram, revealing that the devastating LA wildfires were what pushed him to make the decision to bring the final part of the Fast saga home. In his heartfelt post, Diesel shared that the idea originated from his on-screen sister, Jordana Brewster, who asked him to see if Universal could bring the final installment back to LA, as the city “needs it now more than ever.”

The cast’s relationships are almost as complicated as the numbering system of the sequels. Dwayne Johnson has had a falling out with Diesel, and Tyrese has had his own issues with Johnson. However, for the 11th installment (12th, if you count the Hobbs & Shaw spin-off), officially titled Fast X: Part 2, it seems that everyone is ready to put their feuds aside and focus on delivering a finale that fans who’ve stuck with them through thick and thin truly deserve.

Vin Diesel’s decision to return the franchise to LA, especially at a time when the city needs a much-needed injection of capital, is a testament to his character. It’s easy to dismiss this gesture or debate how the wildfire situation has been handled, but witnessing people do whatever they can in the face of tragedy will always be moving.

As for the franchise, if the goal is to return to basics, we can only hope to see some form of racing in the final installment — after all, they owe us that much. According to Diesel’s post, the film has already shot a significant portion of the final chapter, with only a small part left that he hopes will be shot in LA. This might end up being a more emotional send-off than anyone expected, and given how well they handled Paul Walker’s farewell, we have hope for this one.

Diesel has announced that Fast X: Part 2 is expected to hit theaters in March 2026.

On the face of it, Fast & Furious might seem like the least nerdy film franchise around, but take a closer look (or a look under the hood, if you prefer) and you’ll find that it has as tangled and complex a timeline as the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Come for the muscle cars and constant use of the word “family,” but stay for the unexpectedly convoluted, geek-appealing lore.

This is best shown through its constantly changing cast of characters, most of whom have been killed off and resurrected by this point, with their ever-evolving interconnected histories that require a Charlie Day-alike conspiracy board to keep track of. Case in point, when Gal Gadot was in these movies? Since the Wonder Woman icon left the Fast franchise back in 2013’s Fast & Furious 6, it’s easy to forget what happened to her… or why’s she now returned (more on that in a moment).

Why was Gal Gadot’s Gisele killed off in the Fast & Furious movies?

With commiserations to Vin Diesel’s Dominic Toretto and Michelle Rodriguez’s Letty Ortiz, Han and Gisele have to be the most fan-favorite of all Fast & Furious‘ couples. Sung Kang’s Han Lue and Gadot’s Gisele Yashar were both hits with audiences in their respective debuts of 2006’s Tokyo Drift and 2009’s Fast & Furious (the fourth one), so it only made sense to pair them off in 2011’s Fast Five. The only problem was that Han had a date with destiny.

See, this is what I was saying about F&F‘s complicated timeline. Tokyo Drift was the third film released, but it takes place after the sixth film because it features the death of Han. Han’s journey in the fourth through sixth movies acts as a prequel to explain how he ended up as a loner with a mysterious past living in Tokyo in Drift. In 6, we discover the answer: he broke away from Dom’s family out of depression after Gisele sacrificed herself to save him in the film’s climax.

All this is to say that the reason Gal Gadot was written out of Fast & Furious appears to have been purely in service of Han’s character arc. This franchise is many things, but on the cutting edge of cinematic feminism it ain’t. On the other hand, Gadot may well have requested an exit herself — perhaps to expand her career opportunities — as she certainly embraced the chance to take on bigger, better roles afterward. F&F 6 released in May 2013 and by the end of that year she had been cast as Diana Prince in the DCEU.

With the DCEU dying a death, however, Gadot is now free to get fast and furious once again. In 2023’s Fast X, she returned for a brief cameo which confirmed that Gisele (inexplicably) survived her earlier death. This precedes a bigger comeback in the intended eleventh instalment. And, don’t worry, Han and Gisele shippers, Han’s back from the dead himself these days so everything’s coming up roses for this couple.

2026’s Fast XI — also bringing back Dwayne Johnson’s Luke Hobbs, after his last appearance in spin-off Hobbs & Shaw (which is set between the eighth and ninth movies, timeline nerds) — is being talked about as a finale for the Fast saga, but we’ll believe that when we see it. In the meantime, Gal Gadot appears as the Evil Queen in Disney’s Snow White, releasing March 2025.

To say that singling out the most influential and popular works of a medium that’s over a century old is a nightmare would be an understatement. But we’re going to attempt to do it anyway.

How does one even go about picking the most popular movies of all time? Is it a matter of consistent popularity over a long span of time? Is it a matter of ticket sales and box office gross? Would you adjust that for inflation if you were to pick the most-watched movies in history? And does high-grossing necessarily correlate to popularity?

You see, the very thought raises an impossible conundrum. But if we decide that we’re not going to be particularly nitpicky, and try to include franchises as well as single features, then the list can be narrowed down considerably. That being said, even a trimmed-down list of the most popular movies is still quite extensive, so let’s first get some honorable mentions out of the way.

Honorable mentions

There are plenty of extremely popular movies that may not necessarily make a top 10 list based on one preference or another (and that is more often than not completely subjective) so here are the flicks that would’ve otherwise been included here: Fight Club, The Lion King, The Matrix, Pulp Fiction, The Shawshank Redemption, The Dark Knight trilogy, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Citizen Kane, Saving Private Ryan, Braveheart, Interstellar, the Fast & Furious franchise, Casablanca, the James Bond series, Schindler’s List, Jurassic Park, Seven Samurai, and Ben-Hur.

Now, let’s get into the list proper. Note that these movies are ranked in no particular order, as that would’ve constituted an unfeasible dissection process.

Gone with the Wind (1939)

Gone With the Wind is undoubtedly among the most popular movies in history. Sure, a lot of people from younger generations may have missed out on it, but this 1939 Victor Fleming pic is not only one of the most influential works of art in history, but remains to this day the highest-grossing movie of all time when adjusted for inflation.

Pirates of the Caribbean (2003–2017)

The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) remains the best pirate movie I’ve seen to date. Having grossed more than $4.5 billion, the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise is definitely up there with some of the big blockbusters, but that’s not the only reason we’re including it in our list.

Toy Story (1995–2019)

There are a lot of successful animation franchises from Disney and even other competitors like Dreamworks, but let’s face it; Toy Story just hits differently, whether it’s because of the nostalgic factor or its host of incredibly iconic and memorable characters.

Harry Potter (2001–2011)

The Harry Potter series consists of eight movies that have grossed $7.7 billion at the box office. It also goes without saying that the Wizarding World is one of the most popular and prized IPs currently out there, so the story of the Boy Who Lived deserves a spot on this list.

The Godfather (1972–1990)

Few stories in history have managed to give us the perfect trilogy, and The Godfather is one of them. Words can’t quite capture what the three Godfather movies mean to cinema. In a lot of ways, they are cinema itself, bearing a legacy that had been decades in the making and pushing it forward by showing just how potent films can truly be.

Avatar (2009–)

Avatar and its sequel The Way of Water are currently the first and third highest-grossing movies of all time, respectively. There’s something incredibly magnetic about James Cameron’s cinema, even when he’s delivering one of the most tired, cliche action stories a writer could come up with. Avatar has been watched by hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people all around the globe, so it’s safe to say that it’s one of the most popular movies in history.

The Avengers (2012–)

The Avengers offshoot should be the only testament to the true power Disney holds over the box office. The MCU is not just a popular movie franchise, but one of the most trendy things in the entire world right now. At one brief point, Avengers: Endgame even sured Avatar to become the highest-grossing movie in history, and together, the four movies have grossed a whopping $7.7 billion in theaters.

The Lord of the Rings (2001–2003)

Going down as one of the most acclaimed movie trilogies in history, The Lord of the Rings has managed to retain its relevance to this day, constantly attracting new audiences and new generations of audiences to share in J.R.R. Tolkien’s timeless story, adapted in all of its intricate grandeur by director Peter Jackson. So far as adaptations go, I think most of us would agree that it simply doesn’t get any better than this.

Titanic (1997)

Can you even find someone who hasn’t watched Titanic? That might be the best compliment with which to describe the movie’s implacable popularity even after all these years. It also goes to prove that James Cameron is the absolute no. 1 powerhouse of cinema so far as popularity and reach are concerned. As a cinephile, my biggest fear is that there’ll never be a movie again that can quite capture the magic of Titanic.

Star Wars (1977)

There’s a case to be made that Star Wars essentially kickstarted the genre, blockbuster filmmaking craze of the ’80s, and then went beyond that to influence other artistic mediums as well. Some works are ground zeroes of explosions that ripple across time and define human history, and no film or franchise is more worthy of such an acknowledgment than the galaxy far, far away.

With 10 mainline installments in the can, the core cast of the Fast & Furious franchise has swelled to a ridiculous levels, matters that aren’t helped by pretty much any major figure to have either been killed or presumed dead returning from beyond the grave.

If they don’t, then you can expect a family member that’s never been mentioned before to pop up in their stead as a surrogate of sorts, but producer and all-round figurehead Vin Diesel apparently draws the line somewhere when it comes to new recruits after Jean-Claude Van Damme claimed that he was actively blocked from boarding the series by its chrome-domed commander-in-chief.

Speaking to The Telegraph, the eccentric and often-controversial veteran that’s been sued for allegedly lying about his martial arts prowess, got into a fight for dating the estranged wife of his former bodyguard, and rescued a three-month old chihuahua from being euthanized as part of a dispute between Norway and Bulgaria at various points in his career was adamant he’d been offered a part before Diesel shut it down.

His side of the story extends to “They want me in Fast and Furious…But Vin Diesel said, ‘No, I don’t want him,'” but without either the actor who reportedly denied his request or studio Universal addressing the matter, it’s Van Damme’s word against Diesel’s. That being said, it’s not as if he hasn’t had any issues with heavyweights of the action genre before, even if those fences have been mended for the sake of making money.

Having spent the last seven years entrenched in the ongoing campaign to see his original cut of Suicide Squad released, David Ayer knows a thing or two about studio politics. That being said, his issues dealing with major entities goes back way further than that, because very rarely does he get credited for his key role in turning Fast & Furious into what it is today.

The filmmaker rewrote the original screenplay by Gary Scott Thompson and Erik Bergquist and implemented several elements that would become recurring motifs of the franchise for the next two decades, which helped transform the 2001 street racing thriller from a glorified B-movie into the launchpad for one of the biggest brands in the history of cinema.

Reflecting on his overlooked and unfairly ignored contributions during an appearance on Jon Bernthal’s Real Ones podcast, Ayer didn’t hold back when it came to airing his grievances.

“Biggest franchise in Hollywood, and I don’t have any of it. I got nothing to show for it, nothing, because of the way the business works. When I got that script, that sh*t was set in New York, it was all Italian kids, right? I’m like, ‘Bro, I’m not gonna take it unless I can set it in L.A. and make it look like the people I know in L.A., right?’ So then I started, like, writing in people of color, and writing in the street stuff, and writing in the culture, and no one knew sh*t about street racing at the time… The narrative is I didn’t do sh*t, right? It’s like people hijack narratives, control narratives, create narratives to empower themselves, right? F*ck all the middlemen, right? I get it.”

Looking at where The Fast Saga is now compared to its humble origins – and how embedded the DNA of Ayer’s rewrites remain entrenched in the formula – it’s completely understandable that he’s still feeling sidelined for playing such an unheralded yet important role in such a huge IP.

There’s a very specific joy in delving into the production history of certain franchises and imagining what Hollywood probably looks like in alternate dimensions; maybe there’s even a timeline out there where actors and writers are fairly compensated for their work, but perhaps we’re getting ahead of ourselves there.

Regardless, imagine a world where Al Pacino piloted the Millennium Falcon, or John Travolta’s mother told him that life was like a box of chocolates, or if the one and only Tom Hiddleston wound up wielding Mjölnir instead of Chris Hemsworth; because, believe it or not, all of those things almost happened.

And in one of those same universes, the one and only Timothy Olyphant‘s name is nearly synonymous with the word “family”; indeed, the Justified star was the original peg for the role of Fast & Furious‘ Dominic Toretto thanks to his role in Gone in 60 Seconds, but he ultimately declined, Vin Diesel stepped up shortly after, and the rest is history.

And now, with over 20 years, half as many movies, and a whole lot of cash under the Fast & Furious belt, one may wonder if Olyphant regrets his decision to not help initiate one of the most lucrative franchises today.

As it turns out, he’s none too bothered; in a recent interview with Josh Horowitz on Happy Sad Confused, Olyphant seemed more than happy that the role went to Diesel given what the leading man has helped turn the film series into, and was unsure if it would have blossomed in the same way if he had said yes.

“No, they would not. It feels like part of what makes that [Fast & Furious]… he’s [Vin Diesel] just unlike anything out there. I thinking, ‘I can’t make this work, why would I be in this?’ at the time, but yeah, it seems like they got the right guy.”

As happy as we are that Diesel helped balloon the audacious franchise into what it is today, part of us will be left permanently curious about what Olyphant may have brought to the table instead; here’s hoping that our many moviegoing variants are having a blast with that in whichever dimension that state of affairs came true for.

What a ride and a half Fast X was; sticking with the franchise’s uncanny ability to thread the needle with over-the-top, physics-defying stuntwork and the most subtle self-awareness for how ludicrous its state of affairs is, the beginning of the end for the Fast saga was quite the treat for fans.

A sizeable amount of the film’s strength laid in its newcomers, the most notable of which being Jason Momoa’s Dante Reyes, the flamboyant scene-stealer whose charisma may have led us to cheer for him had the circumstances been different. But Brie Larson, – who brought life to the character of Tess, one of Dom’s newest allies and the daughter of Mr. Nobody – was something of a lynchpin in her own right. Indeed, Tess’ cunning nature always made for a fun watch whenever she was onscreen, and Larson herself has the inside scoop on what makes her character such a formidable presence.

Now, under normal circumstances, one could file messing with the daughter of Mr. Nobody under “bad ideas,” but according to Larson, anyone who has the gumption to come at Tess while she’s wearing that stylish blue coat is in for a whole other world of hurt; not because it’s bulletproof or anything of the sort (as evidenced by Dante and his one-of-a-kind gumption, as it were), but simply because it makes her look as slick as they come.

With Tess recovering in the hospital, it’s hard to say how much of a role she’ll be playing in the follow-ups to Fast X, but we’re going to go out on a limb and say it will take much more than a gunshot to keep this cobalt-clad agent out of the picture.

He may have claimed that his long-running feud with Vin Diesel was over, but seeing as Dwayne Johnson was announced to be headlining another Fast & Furious spin-off instead of returning to the cast of Fast X: Part 2, that may not be entirely true.

After all, The Rock said he would never return to the franchise in the first place before going back on his word, so it’s not as if he doesn’t already have previous for telling little white lies in regards to The Fast Saga. One thing we can always rely on from the brand is nonsensical nomenclature, though, something the offshoot looks to be carrying on in style.

As uncovered in a listing on the Production Weekly website, the working title for Johnson’s grand comeback is reportedly going by Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Reyes. While you have to ire the desire on Universal’s part to stick with what worked on the $750 million hit Hobbs & Shaw, the moniker doesn’t make a lick of sense.

It was established in Fast Five – and then retconned into the mid-credits scene of Fast X – that Johnson’s Luke Hobbs was the one who fired the fatal shot that killed Joaquim de Almeida’s Hernan Reyes once and for all. That makes him the number one enemy of Jason Momoa’s Dante, so why would the title make it sound as though they’re gearing up for an odd couple adventure?

Hobbs vs. Reyes is equally stupid but at least more canonically accurate, unless of course there’s going to be a major twist that finds Dante doing what so many former Fast & Furious villains before him have done by turning to the side of good in spite of nefarious and often murderous actions. With this property, expect the unexpected, but don’t expect it to make sense.

Having collaborated several times already and evidently developed a friendship as a result – even if their onscreen partnerships didn’t extend to the DCU after Black Adam was denied the chance to interact with Wonder Woman – it seems as though Dwayne Johnson and Gal Gadot are whispering to each other about reuniting once more.

The Fast & Furious veterans are now both back in the blockbuster action franchise following their respective exits for very different reasons, while those back-to-back Red Notice sequels we haven’t heard anything about in a long time are still in development somewhere in the bowels of Netflix.

However, Gadot was giving nothing away when she was asked if there are machinations afoot to unite her with The Rock once again in either Fast X: Part 2 or his standalone Hobbs spin-off, playing it as coy as possible when speaking to Entertainment Tonight.

“Let me just say DJ and I had some conversations, but nothing is official. There’s a writers strike… who knows!”

Of course, Gadot could end up with yet another multi-film Netflix saga to call her own if Heart of Stone takes off in the way everyone’s expecting it to given the movie’s status as a big budget spy caper hailing from a streaming service that knows its way around an in-house hit, but beyond that? She sounds as if she knows exactly what The Rock is cooking, but the recipe is being kept close to the chest for the time being until it’s the right time to unveil the plans to the world.

The Fast and the Furious franchise is one of the most popular around, in no small part to its crazy, death-defying stunts. With such dangerous on-camera endeavors, someone was bound to get injured at one point or another. Producers are now itting that a lack of oversight was the reason for a recent debilitating stuntman injury.

During the filming of F9: The Fast Saga, an experienced stunt performer named Joe Watts was rehearsing a fight scene for the movie with a Vin Diesel stand-in. At one point, he was thrown off a balcony from 20 feet and was severely injured when he missed the mat on the floor.

However, his safety wire failed, and the stunt was performed differently than it was during rehearsal, so he ended up suffering a traumatic brain injury, a fractured skull, shoulder damage, and some psychiatric effects due to the accident. Watts is a stunt veteran, having previously appeared in movies like Solo: A Star Wars Story and Pokemon: Detective Pikachu.

Watts’ lawyers describe his injuries as “life changing,” per Variety. After the injury, Watts was in a coma for five days and still has to deal with “a series of cognitive and physical issues.” Watts sued FF9 Pictures Limited (a Universal Pictures subsidiary in England) for $1.2 million.

“He will not be able to return to his pre-accident employment as a stuntman,” he said in court filings. “If he is able to work, he will suffer a permanent handicap on the labour market.” After the accident, Universal Pictures shared a statement that said:

“Joe is a professional in every sense of the word and his commitment to his craft is inspiring to all of us. We know he’ll continue to inspire us throughout his recovery. Everyone in the Fast family sends our heartfelt wishes and we will continue to Joe and his family however we can.”

In Court, FF9 Limited itted its liability. “It is itted that the sole cause of the accident was the negligence of [FF9 Pictures Limited] its servants or agents or those for whom it is vicariously liable,” the company said in a court filing, adding that Watts did not contribute to the negligence. The company said it was rely on evidence to advise the court on how much compensation would be appropriate.

Watts said he’s been working incredibly hard on his recovery since the accident four years ago.

“I know I’ll never get back to performing, which still upsets me, but I’m determined to get my life back on track as best I can. I’m therefore grateful that FF9 Limited has itted liability and now call on the film industry to make their sets safer for those working on it.  I wouldn’t wish what I went through on anyone.”

We’ll keep you posted on what happens next, but hopefully it involves Watts getting rich and in a perfect world, no more Fast movies. Not going to hold my breath though, I have a feeling they’ll make Fast 69 the year after I die with CGI Vin Diesel talking about his AI family or whatever.

Very rarely does death hold any real stakes in any major blockbuster franchise, but Fast & Furious has taken things to a nonsensical new level with its refusal to let any remotely popular character die and stay that way.

The entire Fast Saga was completely retconned around Han’s apparent demise in Tokyo Drift so that he could be murdered again before being brought back to life, while even Michelle Rodriguez’s Letty was revealed to have survived her certain doom after amnesia of all things was used to explain her absence.

That brings us neatly onto Gal Gadot’s Gisele, who made the most ludicrous comeback of them all at the end of Fast X when she suddenly popped up from a goddamned submarine in the middle of nowhere a decade after falling out of a moving plane in the midst of takeoff on the longest runway there’s ever been in the sixth installment.

Naturally, the explanation won’t make a lick of sense, but Gadot justified her unexpected absorption back into the fold anyway in an interview with Total Film.

“Wow. I wish I could say something. If I’m going to say something to you, somebody is going to jump into my room and tie my mouth. But Fast was the first feature I’d ever done as an actress. They were the ones to give me my first opportunity, my first break in Hollywood. And I’m forever grateful for that. And they’re a community. They’re like family.

We still keep in touch. They have a special place in my heart and it’s very exciting. I think that the Fast Saga… they manage to create a huge, incredible, loyal fanbase like no one else. I’ve seen it nowhere else, you know? And my love to them, and the love from the fans, and my love to the fans, it just felt right this time. And it’s very exciting.”

We can’t wait to discover how she managed to survive, but all we can guarantee at this stage is that it’ll make perfect sense within the deranged context Dominic Toretto and the rest of the family live in.

Nobody in their right mind could have predicted 20 years ago that not only would the Fast & Furious franchise still be ongoing, but it would be one of the highest-grossing properties in the history of cinema having banked upwards of $7 billion. Of course, hindsight is always 20/20 for a reason, but Ja Rule claims he has no regrets in turning down a key role in the series.

The rapper, actor, and key player in the infamous Fyre Festival scandal revealed in an interview with Insider that he was offered a major part in 2 Fast 2 Furious, but he turned it down because he didn’t feel g on for the street racing sequel was a worthwhile financial investment on of the money he was making on tour.

“Everybody has become the Monday morning quarterback: ‘He missed out on doing 10 Fast & Furious movies. That’s okay. I’m fine with that. I’m Ja Rule, the amazing artist that has had an amazing career, an amazing songwriter. That’s who I am. That’s who people see me as. That’s who I want to be revered as.”

The part of Tej eventually went to Ludacris, who has been a key component of The Fast Saga for two decades and counting, whereas Ja Rule hasn’t released a studio album in over a decade after failing to sustain his early-to-mid 2000s fame in the long run. Even at that, he remains adamant he made the right call.

“I was probably the biggest artist in the rap game. I’ll propose this to you: I’m John Singleton. I’m gonna offer you $500,000 to shoot a movie for three months. Or I’m going on a tour and I’m gonna make close to $15 million in the span of less than two months. Well, what you doing? Who knew that there was going to be 10 of them? But even still, I would’ve had to do 10 movies to make that kind of money, or at least eight.”

Ja Rule’s loss proved to be Ludacris’ gain in a major way to undersell it somewhat, with at least one more Fast & Furious blockbuster still to come, and the promises of even more spin-offs beyond that.