The Clerks saga holds up as a great trilogy, but some of its movies are better than others. Across three decades, Kevin Smith made three Clerks movies. He started his filmmaking career with the indie original, released in 1994, then revisited the fan-favorite characters in 2006's Clerks II before concluding their story in 2022 with Clerks III. The heart of the trilogy is the endearing friendship shared by Dante Hicks and Randal Graves. The first two movies focus on their everyday antics at their jobs, while the final chapter is about their efforts to immortalize those antics on film.

Clerks established Kevin Smiths filmmaking style, and the movie was met with universal praise. But its bigger-budget sequels have been met with mixed reviews. Clerks deals with the aimless youth of Dante and Randal in their 20s, Clerks II concerns midlife crises and the relentless march of adulthood as the duo approach 40, and...