In the space of a decade, James Gunn went from a low-budget B-movie director to a renowned big-budget blockbuster filmmaker. He got his start with the cult classic creature feature Slither and he’s currently hard at work on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, the finale of his widely adored Marvel trilogy. The threequel is set to conclude the Guardians’ ongoing MCU arc with heart, humor, spectacle, and presumably a couple of character deaths. In the meantime, Gunn has a handful of movies that hold up to rewatches, ranging from small-scale genre spoofs to large-scale sci-fi adventures.
Some of Gunn’s films, like the airtight original Guardians movie and the action-packed, darkly comedic The Suicide Squad, warrant more revisits than others, like the slightly less pitch-perfect Guardians sequel and the sharp but slow-paced comic book satire Super.
Super (2010)
Gunn’s second movie (and last low-budget effort before he became a blockbuster director), Super, is a fun deconstruction of comic book tropes with a delightfully dark sense of humor. Rainn Wilson gives a hilarious performance as the anti-Batman, Frank Darbo, a short-order cook who becomes the masked vigilante “The Crimson Bolt” to save his wife from a drug dealer. He shares great chemistry with Elliot Page as his young ward, “Boltie.”
But the movie takes a while to get going. There’s a grisly novelty in seeing Frank brutally beat up criminals with a wrench, but Super doesn’t hold up to repeat viewings. The superhero origin story is slow-paced and the climactic action is too brisk and brief. Still, it has plenty of the morbid comic bite and no-holds-barred violence that Gunn’s fans have become accustomed to.
Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)
The first sequel of Gunn’s career, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, is nowhere near as tightly structured as the first movie. But, from a groovy soundtrack to a steady stream of hilarious gags, it still has all the elements that made the original such a breath of fresh air. Vol. 2 might have a slower first act than its predecessor, but once it gets going, it uses its intergalactic setting to tell a deeply moving father-son story.
Peter Quill finally meets his biological dad, Ego the Living Planet, only to find that he’s even more sadistic and amoral than the space pirate who raised him, Yondu. Yondu was far from a perfect parent, but the events of Guardians Vol. 2 – particularly his final sacrifice – make Quill realize that he had “a pretty cool dad” all along. That heartfelt arc is endlessly enjoyable.
Slither (2006)
Although it initially bombed at the box office, Gunn’s debut feature Slither has since garnered a cult following. A throwback to schlocky B-movies, Slither tells the story of a small town being invaded by malicious alien slugs. With these parasitic slugs taking control of the townspeople’s minds, Slither has a wonderfully quirky take on the familiar zombie movie setup. It doesn’t do much to subvert the audience’s expectations, but it provides genre fans with all the terror and excitement they’ve come to expect.
Inspired by the 1970s classics of David Cronenberg, Slither is a classic creature feature with a spot-on blend of horror and humor. The ensemble cast features both genre favorites, like Nathan Fillion, and actors who went on to become Gunn regulars, like Michael Rooker. At 95 minutes, it has a mercifully lean runtime that lends itself to rewatches.
The Suicide Squad (2021)
In between getting fired and rehired from the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise, Gunn was recruited by DC Films to salvage their own band-of-outsiders comic book franchise with The Suicide Squad. Pitched somewhere between a straightforward sequel and a refreshing reboot, The Suicide Squad was not only a vast improvement over its predecessor; it struck the same combination of action-packed spectacle, pitch-black comedy, and touching character drama that made the Guardians movies so much fun.
With the freedom of the R rating, Gunn was able to bring more of his traditional “body horror” sensibility to the table. The no-nonsense storytelling of The Suicide Squad sets up its premise nice and succinctly so Gunn can dive right into the popcorn entertainment of mismatched superhumans infiltrating a tropical island dictatorship to battle a starfish-shaped kaiju.
Guardians Of The Galaxy (2014)
The movie that put Gunn on the map and solidified Marvel Studios’ reputation as a hit factory, Guardians of the Galaxy, is an airtight action-adventure spectacle. The first Guardians film has the perfect blend of heart, humor, and superhero action. Courtesy of Star-Lord’s “Awesome Mix” tape, it also has a soundtrack to die for, full of pop, rock, and funk hits from the late ‘60s and early ‘70s like Redbone’s “Come and Get Your Love” and Elvin Bishop’s “Fooled Around and Fell in Love.”
The subversive banter between the characters is what caught audiences’ attention, but they stayed for the intimate, endearing “found family” dynamic shared by the cast of intergalactic outlaws. Guardians has plenty of laugh-out-loud comedic moments, but Gunn also takes the time for plenty of heartbreaking dramatic moments, like Quill flying out into space to save Gamora and Groot giving his life for his fellow Guardians.