You Need to Find 12 Hours to Watch This $3.3B Dystopian Franchise Before It Leaves Netflix in a Few Days

Based on the best-selling novels of Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games debuted in cinemas back in 2012, immediately making a star of lead Jennifer Lawrence thanks to her role of Katniss Everdeen. The first four movies covered Collins’ original trilogy which told the story of Katniss and her rebellion against the powers of the Capital, including the vindictive President Snow (Donald Sutherland). Almost a decade after the saga appeared to have come to an end, Collins returned with a new prequel novel, The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, and in 2023 the movie version delivered a reasonable box office and the best audience reviews of the franchise. On November 20, 2026, Sunrise on the Reaping will deliver a second prequel story, set during the 50th Hunger Games and around 24 years before the original movie, which looks set to be another popular entry in the documented history of Panem. You can see the success of the franchise so far below.

When The Hunger Games hit cinemas in 2012, the world had just witnessed the ending of the Harry Potter saga and other young adult franchises like Twilight were also heading to their conclusion. That paved the way for the start of a new long-term investment from audiences in a story that didn’t retread the themes of those other franchises but instead delivered a gritty, brutal fantasy movie with a female protagonist who was motivated by the love of her family and didn’t simply set out to be the hero of her story. Everything about Katniss spoke to modern teenagers, influenced fashion trends and set a new template for future female leads in the next generation of franchises. This just one of the reasons why The Hunger Games movies continue to be a popular franchise, and its connections with the real world are still as relevant as they were over a decade ago.

Collins took the idea for her novels from watching alternative footage of real-world wars and flashy reality TV shows while channel surfing. Together, these complete polar opposites became a dark vision of a future that the world sometimes seems determined to actually make a reality. That is the other reason why The Hunger Games deserves your time before it leaves Netflix. While dystopian fiction has been a prominent part of fantasy and sci-fi novels for decades, Collins took the grim futures foreseen by the likes of H.G. Wells and George Orwell, and modernized them to prove that stories combining politics, media manipulation, rebellion, and the of-the-time obsession with reality TV could be engaging and incredibly popular. The Hunger Games filled a hole in theaters that several others tried to emulate in other franchises such as The Maze Runner and Divergent, however, none of them have been able to take The Hunger Games‘ crown in that arena, and it seems unlikely that any franchise will for a long while.

Is The Hunger Games one of the best dystopian sagas in modern cinema, or do you have another favorite that you think is better? Let us know in the comments.