All Gremlins Movies in Order

Not a film, but an animated prequel series on Max. It tells the story of how a young Gizmo first comes into contact with humans in 1920s China. Beautiful animation, a fairy-tale tone and a good introduction for a new generation of fans, although it naturally lacks the magic of the original films.

A boy gets a strange little creature from his father as a Christmas gift: Gizmo, a mogwai. But there are three simple rules: no bright light, no water and absolutely no food after midnight. Of course, the rules get broken one by one. What follows is a mix of slapstick, horror and Christmas magic, with monsters destroying everything in their path. Joe Dante's film is creepy and hilarious at once, a classic for anyone who likes their Christmas a little less sweet.

In this sequel, director Joe Dante throws all the rules overboard. The gremlins return, this time in a high-tech New York skyscraper. The chaos is bigger and the humor even more absurd: think of a gremlin that mutates into a bat, a brainy gremlin who talks and a full-blown musical number. Less scary, but brilliant in its self-mockery and anarchy. A sequel that parodies its own genre, and gets away with it surprisingly well.

Warner Bros. is working on an official third film, directed by Chris Columbus, who wrote the 1984 original. Not a reboot, but a real sequel, with Columbus promising practical effects, puppets and animatronics rather than CGI. It's currently scheduled for late 2027. Let's hope they feed them responsibly.