Every Clerks Movie, Ranked From Worst to Best

THE Clerks saga presents itself as a great trilogy, but some of its films are better than others. Over three decades, Kevin Smith made three Clerks films. He began his film career with the independent original, released in 1994, and then revisited the fan-favorite characters in 2006. Clerks II before concluding its story in 2022 with Clerks III. The heart of the trilogy is the loving friendship shared by Dante Hicks and Randal Graves. The first two films focus on his everyday antics at work, while the final chapter is about his efforts to immortalize these antics on film.

Clerks established Kevin Smith’s filmmaking style, and the film was met with universal praise. But its bigger-budget sequels received mixed reviews. Clerks deals with Dante and Randal’s aimless youth in their 20s, Clerks II concerns midlife crises and the relentless march of adulthood as the pair approaches their 40s, and Clerks III addresses mortality and creating a legacy after Randal faces a near-death experience. Happily, Smith never did his characters a disservice by putting them in a bad moviealthough not all sequels can live up to the original masterpiece.

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Clerks III (2022)

The end of Clerks Journey

After years of delays, Kevin Smith Clerks III finally ended the saga in 2022. In the third sequel, Randal suffers a heart attack (just as Smith suffered in real life) and emerges with a new lease on life. At Dante’s insistence, Randal begins working to turn his dull life at Quick Stop into a movie. Clerks III breaks away from the series’ day-to-day format to chart the time it takes Randal to recover from a heart attack, write a script, and film a feature film.

Clerks III It’s a touching end to the trilogy, but Dante’s death also broke fans’ hearts. Clerks III received more positive reviews than most of Smith’s later efforts, but reception was still mixed, with a 62% score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 6.3 rating on IMDb. Photographing the first Clerks film in the third Clerks the film was a wonderful way to bring the trilogy full circle, but it took away the relatable charm of the first two. Its appeal reflected everyday life; Clerks III lost that element.

The film’s plot also meant many callbacks to previous films and little new material. The entire second act is spent recreating familiar scenes so that Randal can include them in his film-within-a-film. The final chapters of trilogies are particularly difficult to pull off, especially after a big sequel. Clerks III struggles to balance its tragic elements with its comedic elements.

The opening montage undoes the happy ending of Clerks II with the revelation that Dante’s soulmate and unborn child were killed by a drunk driver. Dante’s character enters Clerks III shows that he couldn’t get over Becky’s death before joining her in death, and it makes for a decidedly bittersweet conclusion to the trilogy. Killing Dante might have been an unexpectedly dark way to end the Clerks series, but at least Smith handles it beautifully.

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Clerks II

The midlife employee crisis

Just like the first film, Clerks II revolves around a day in the lives of Dante and Randal. Since Quick Stop burned down, they have been working at Mooby’s, a fast food chain previously seen in Dogma and Jay and Silent Bob strike back. But they’re a decade older and face a lot of new issues. They are no longer the carefree young people they were in the original. Now, as they approach middle age, they have to figure out what they’re going to do with their lives..

Dante is engaged to the wrong woman and working for the right woman; Randal is still the quotable Clerks lazy who refuses to grow up. Comedy sequels rarely live up to their predecessors, but Clerks II deftly recaptures the mix of everyday mundanity and life-affirming depth that made the first film captivating. The film follows the same rhythm: in the 11th hour, Randal delivers tough love that inspires Dante to realize what he wants and put his life back together. Brian O’Halloran and Jeff Anderson haven’t lost an ounce of chemistry in the decade between films.

Its perfect on-screen dynamics ensure that Clerks II is an ode to friendship as touching and sincere as its precursor. It got a decent score of 63% on Rotten Tomatoes and 7.3 on IMDb. Unlike the original, which was independently produced on a shoestring budget, Smith had studio money for the sequel. He did Clerks II much more cinematic, with better production value, a ton of View Askewniverse cameos, and more elaborate staging.

When Dante realizes he loves Becky, there’s a full-scale dance number. Smith takes full advantage of the shift from black and white to color with the vibrant purples and yellows of Mooby’s corporate branding. Clerks IIThe perfect ending would also have been satisfying for the saga: Dante and Randal finally take control of their destiny, fix the Quick Stop and start running it themselves.

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Clerks

The one who started it all

Kevin Smith never got over the original comedy classic that launched his career. With a score of 90%, Clerks It’s still Smith’s highest-rated film on Rotten Tomatoes and has an impressive 7.7 rating on IMDb. Like many 90s films, Clerks It has a distinct grunge vibe. It starts with a mundane premise and turns it into a profound narrative. Dante is called to work on his day off.

He ends up reconnecting with his ex, breaking up with his girlfriend, incurring a huge fine, unwittingly sending a client to his death, desecrating the corpse at a funeral, and ruthlessly fighting Randal in the halls of the Quick Stop. Clerks it has the perfect style for its substance. The minimalist filmmaking – dialogue-based scenes shot in black and white, mostly in long, still shots – pairs brilliantly with the minimalist narrative of two worker bees counting down the hours of their shift.

The story of Clerks is presented as a series of vignettes, giving it a leisurely feel without wasting a single scene. From discussing the Death Star victims to the Chewlie’s gum representative’s anti-smoking speech to Randal listing obscene X-rated titles in front of a mother and son, Clerks is full of memorable jokes that never get old with repeated viewings.

Smith did Clerks when he had more to say before achieving success in Hollywood. It was when he was a young budding artist leading Dante’s life. Dante’s recurring phrase defines the film – “I shouldn’t even be here today!” – but Randal’s brutally honest rebuttal carries the true message of Clerks. When Dante recites this phrase one too many times, Randal finally calls him out and tells him that he has no one to blame but himself for the way his life turned out. This monologue ends a hilariously cynical film on a surprisingly uplifting and optimistic note.

The future of the Clerks franchise

There seems to be nowhere else to go in Clerks franchise. The entire series was based on the friendship and relationship of Dante Hicks and Randal Graves. Even with the end of Clerks III showing Randal continuing with a new friend, Elias Grover, making a movie with them, as the new leads would sorely miss the heart and soul that Brian O’Halloran brought to the franchise as Dante. It’s just not Clerks without Dante in the mix.

However, there is a chance that the Clerks world could continue in other forms. Although it doesn’t Clerks IVThere could always be a chance for Randal to appear in future Kevin Smith films, considering most of the View Askewniverse is connected. Jay and Silent Bob are always around and could easily find Randal, just as they do with characters like Brodie, Holden, and others floating around the film’s universe. THE Clerks the plot is over, but life in Kevin Smith’s world never disappears.