The 17 greatest crossover and team-up films

Robert Zemeckis’ seminal comedy is not merely a crossover of live-action and cartoons, though that is pretty awesome. Also, Roger Rabbit is a character that only existed in an unknown book before that. No, what was huge was that both Warner Bros. cartoon characters and Disney cartoon characters show up in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Disney and Bugs Bunny share a scene! It was remarkable. And the movie is really good, too.

Wreck-It Ralph is not unlike a Roger Rabbit for video games. A litany of characters from different games pop up in Wreck-It Ralph, and there are many fictional games and characters. Bowser, Q*bert, Pac-Man, the barkeep from Tapper — they are all there.

Here’s a prime example of the team-up where the whole selling point is, “Check out this team-up!” Now, Wolverine and Deadpool are Marvel characters, but they come from entirely different veins of Marvel movies. This is not just, say, The Avengers . For the third Deadpool movie, Hugh Jackman agreed to reprise the role of Wolverine, even after a fitting send-off in Logan. Of course, now that there is a multiverse, that means less (for better and for worse).

As you will see, a couple of movie monsters meeting up and crossing over is commonplace. We did not want to mention every instance of Universal monsters crossing paths. It happened a few times. The first of the bunch was Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man. Lon Chaney Jr. played the Wolf Man, but Bela Lugosi, not Boris Karloff, plays Frankenstein’s monster. While we’re at it, shout out to the low-budget horror Western duo of Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter and Billy the Kid Versus Dracula. Yes, those are both real.

Sure, the Justice League (aka the Superfriends) had joined forces in cartoons. This movie was setting up The Justice League movie. That said, they called it Batman v. Superman. Clearly, the whole selling point was watching Batman and Superman at odds. Then it pretty much sucked. Still, the excitement levels were high and reasonably so.

For some reason, Kevin Smith has built up a whole “View-Askewniverse.” His works tend to be polarizing, and his acolytes seem to drop off by the movie, but when Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back came out, Smith was still in the groove. The meta-comedy is rife with cameos, crossovers, and team-ups. In addition to a quasi Good Will Hunting sequel, Ben Affleck plays himself and his character from Chasing Amy . Alanis Morissette reprises the role of God from Dogma. We could go on.

Alright, the MCU earned another mention. How could we not, though? No Way Home , the third Spider-Man movie starring Tom Holland, was built on crossovers. The universes of three different Spider-Man franchises came together. That included Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield showing up. If you saw this one in theaters (and the box office returns indicate you did), you know how excited people were for that.

Godzilla and King Kong have crossed paths (and crossed over) multiple times. In 1962, Kong got top billing in the Toho kaiju film King Kong vs. Godzilla. It was a big hit, even if the men-in-monster suits didn’t look great. Then, Godzilla and Kong were rebooted, and they were able to join forces. They fought, and then they teamed up. And, of course, Kong bows to no one.

Do we need to draw you a road map? A Xenomorph from Alien fights a Predator from Predator. It was not good. That said, it delivered what it promised. Also, Alien vs. Predator did have a killer tagline: Whoever wins…we lose. The first film was successful enough to get a sequel, though one foray into this whole thing was enough.

Speaking of monsters facing off! Yes, Freddy Krueger and Jason Vorhees were both human, ostensibly, but the former could kill you in your dreams, and the latter definitely became supernatural. For two franchises that aren’t shy about sequels, it made sense to have them cross over. Sure, Jason doesn’t talk, but Freddy is chatty enough for two.

The cast of the original Star Trek got a few films. There were a couple of Star Trek: The Next Generation movies. In between, the torch was passed. Star Trek: Generations featured the casts of both television series, headlined by Captains James T. Kirk and Jean-Luc Picard. It was a huge moment for Star Trek fans, though the movie is pretty mediocre.

Abbott and Costello met a ton of Universal monsters, but we already shouted out the Wolfman and Frankenstein. However, the duo did not merely deal with mummies and invisible men. In 1955, well after the heyday of the Keystone Kops, these two comedy worlds were brought together. It’s not the most popular Abbott and Costello crossover movie, but who else would we mention? Captain Kidd (they also met Captain Kidd).

The ethos at the center of The Lego Movie is creative freedom. If you want things to be crazy, if you want to think outside the box, go for it! To that end, a ton of famous characters (in Lego form) show up in the movie. Yes, there’s Batman and other DC superheroes, but also C-3PO, Lando Calrissian, Gandalf, Dumbledore, Michelangelo (the mutant turtle), Milhouse from The Simpsons, and Abe Lincoln.

Patrick Stewart and Hugh Jackman are at it again! This was a crossover that got a lot of people hyped because the comics story it’s based on is super popular to this day. The X-Men reboot franchise only waited until the second film to bring back the old crew from the original trilogy. They all join forces through time and space to try and prevent an apocalyptic future. Alas, they did not prevent the movie X-Men: Apocalypse.

This was a direct-to-DVD movie, but it’s worth mentioning, even though it probably made a lot of Teen Titans fans mad. A school of people despise Teen Titans Go! for being irreverent and goofy compared to the more serious Teen Titans cartoon. Of course, the people from the show don’t care, and the voice artists carried over from Teen Titans to Teen Titans Go! In this film, they have to join forces (along with dozens of other versions of the Teen Titans) to defeat Raven’s dad(s) Trigon(s).

Scooby-Doo and Mystery Incorporated aren’t afraid of a crossover. There are many crossover movies of the direct-to-video variety. Batman, Kiss, Courage the Cowardly Dog, we could go on. There’s also the major motion picture Scoob! To the surprise of many (and chagrin of almost as many), Scoob! turned out to be a backdoor pilot of sorts for a Hanna-Barbera multiverse. Scooby and company are joined by Blue Falcon (voiced by Mark Wahlberg!), Dıck Dastardly, Captain Caveman, and more. However, it didn’t pan out as a prequel movie was canceled during production.