All 4 Dan Trachtenberg Movies, Ranked

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Jeremy has more than 2200 published articles on Collider to his name, and has been writing for the site since February 2022. He's an omnivore when it comes to his movie-watching diet, so will gladly watch and write about almost anything, from old Godzilla films to gangster flicks to samurai movies to classic musicals to the French New Wave to the MCU... well, maybe not the Disney+ shows.
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For now, Dan Trachtenberg is the Predator guy. There were admittedly 35 years’ worth of Trachtenberg-free Predator movies, starting way back in 1987, but 2022 saw the release of his first movie in the overall series, and then in 2025, he did two more. Honestly, they’ve all been quite good, albeit in different ways, so it feels like the Predator series is in relatively safe hands going forward, even if there’s also an argument to be made that none of the three have been masterful, nor quite as good as the original Predator. Before then, Dan Trachtenberg had already been operating in the sci-fi/thriller realm, with his first movie kind of being part of another franchise not Predator-related. He also directed a fairly solid episode of Black Mirror: “Playtest.” And since Black Mirror episodes are self-contained and usually about an hour long (sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less), you could almost count it as a movie for present purposes, but not here; it’s not below.

If it were below, it would be hard to know where to rank it among four other movies that are good, but not quite perfect. Trachtenberg’s filmography to date has been consistent, and consistently good, which is worth something, but an all-out masterpiece – or a film that will definitely be a future classic – remains elusive. There are lots of directions for the Predator franchise to go, with all three recent entries being sequel-able (for lack of a better term), and so if one were to be even better than what we’ve got so far in the 2020s, that’d be cool, obviously. But yeah, this ranking is hard. All these movies are good, and close to equally good at that, so maybe the main takeaway is that you should watch these, if you dig thriller/sci-fi/horror movies and remain yet to check them out, for whatever reason.

4 'Predator: Badlands' (2025)

Putting Predator: Badlands near the bottom of this particular ranking should not be likened to calling Predator: Badlands bad, since all the movies here are pretty good. This just has the most issues of the bunch, but even then, those issues don’t really stop it from being a generally engaging watch. You just have to go with the fact that this one’s a bit milder than all the other movies in the Predator series. There was some mild concern when it was announced that Predator: Badlands would be PG-13, as opposed to all the other R-rated Predator movies (with the exception of Alien vs. Predator, if that even counts). This was partly mitigated by the fact that Predator: Badlands is a movie without human characters, and blood/gore seems to be okay when it’s creatures or robots who don’t bleed red blood, but even then, Predator: Badlands still feels a bit tame in other ways.

Like, it’s tonally lighter, as well as less intense on a violence front. Predator: Badlands doesn’t have much intensity outside the opening scene that sets the plot in motion, and it’s relatively light-hearted, at the end of the day, feeling a bit like a superhero movie at times, at least tonally, with the humor and focus on action and stuff. But if this is Disney Predator, or MCU-esque Predator, then at least it’s that kind of thing mostly done right. It’s an approachable and mostly entertaining film, and a fine starting point if you're somehow new to Predator, as a series. It’s also interesting for the way it makes a member of the Yautja (or Predator) species the protagonist, instead of occupying the more expected villainous role, and it feels a bit like an extra-terrestrial coming-of-age movie, in some ways, which is also fun and a different enough spin on the world and conventions of this series.

3 'Predator: Killer of Killers' (2025)

The same year as Predator: Badlands, there was also Predator: Killer of Killers, which could well be the most violent Predator movie, which immediately sets it apart from Badlands. Also, it’s an anthology film, and an animated movie, so all that also distinguishes it from the rest of the franchise. Actually, it’s an anthology movie at first, with three stories about three different people at three very different points in time coming into contact with a Predator, but then there is an ultimately interesting (if not too shocking) way the stories come together, by the end. Before then, it’s a neat way to see three ideas for Predator movies play out one after the other, all within 20 to 30 minutes, so nothing ends up droning on for too long.

Essentially, in Predator: Killer of Killers, you get Predator vs. Vikings, Predator vs. Samurai, and Predator vs. World War II Fighter Pilot, more or less, and then an extra sequence tying all the stories together while teasing a possible follow-up/sequel kind of thing, be it animated or live-action, in the future. It delivers more by way of action than it does horror, but that’s okay, and that criticism regarding the violence being tame in Predator: Badlands most certainly does not apply here. It could well be one of the most violent animated movies ever made, or at least one of the most violent (relatively) mainstream animated movies ever made. If you liked the way the Predator series went back in time in Prey, then you'll probably like the “Predator in the past” angle to all the stories found here. And speaking of Prey…

2 'Prey' (2022)

Naru hiding behind a tree from a Predator

It was unfortunate that Prey didn’t get a theatrical release (at least not at first), seeing as it might well be the best Predator movie that isn't the original Arnold Schwarzenegger one. It started a pattern of Dan Trachtenberg remixing elements from the Predator series with every new film of his, as before he did an animated one, and one that foregrounded an alien as the protagonist, Prey mixed things up by going way back in the past, and looking at how someone from history might fare against a Predator. As it turns out, better than you might expect, seeing as the protagonist in Prey is a very skilled Comanche warrior who wants to prove herself, and does so while clashing with an alien warrior who also wants to prove himself. There are a few other obstacles for the Predator to overcome, but it does feel reminiscent of the original movie in that it ultimately comes down to one human being vs. a single Predator.

Prey does what it has to and also benefits from not really messing around or getting too unexpected or subversive, outside of going back in time as far as it does.

And the novelty here, of having a story set during the early 1700s, but with all the science fiction and action-y stuff you'd expect, does sustain Prey for pretty much all of its runtime. It’s just very entertaining, and yeah, it’s also quite simple, but it does what it has to and also benefits from not really messing around or getting too unexpected or subversive, outside of going back in time as far as it does. Like the other two Predator movies from the 2020s, there are opportunities to keep going with the story told in Prey, in one way or another, but time will tell which ones (if any) do get continued in a typical sequel sort of way, or whether Trachtenberg, if he keeps making Predator movies, will continue doing something a little different with each new one.

1 '10 Cloverfield Lane' (2016)

Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Michele by a door, John Goodman as Howard on the other side, 10 Cloverfield Lane.

As mentioned before, there was a franchise that Dan Trachtenberg sort of made his feature-length directorial debut in, but only sort of, because that franchise is the Cloverfield one, and 10 Cloverfield Lane is far removed from the original Cloverfield narratively. That original movie was about a giant monster attacking New York City, done in a found footage style, while 10 Cloverfield Lane is like the horror movie equivalent of a bottle episode, taking place inside a bunker with the owner of said bunker holding two people there essentially captive, saying it’s for their own good. Lots of the horror comes from not knowing whether there is actually something terrible outside, or whether the man is making everything up and things are business as usual out there. Neither option is a particularly reassuring one, and so you’ve got all the ingredients for a pretty great – and undeniably intense – horror/thriller movie right there.

For the majority of its runtime, 10 Cloverfield Lane really is pretty awesome and effectively claustrophobic, and it’s only really the last scene or two that deflates things a bit. Still, even at its worst, it’s better than whatever the hell The Cloverfield Paradox was, which was about… something? Does anyone remember that one? Beyond remembering that it basically killed any interest in the continuation of this odd thematic/non-narrative series. Anyway, 10 Cloverfield Lane. It’s great. There aren’t any Predators in it, but it’s still the best thing Trachtenberg has directed to date, and it’s pretty close to perfect, for what it is, until you get to the end. It does a lot with a straightforward premise and, for the most part, only three characters, and the amount of suspense built up throughout (well, almost entirely throughout) really is admirable.