The Gilligan's Island TV Movies, Ranked By Reviews

In September of 1964, "Gilligan's Island' premiered on CBS. The show aired around the same time as other '60s classics like "The Andy Griffith Show," "The Beverly Hillbillies," and "Bewitched." Yet it aired for a much shorter time compared to those programs, originally running for just three seasons. Even so, the name "Gilligan's Island" is still often uttered in the same breath as its contemporaries during discussions of sitcoms that defined the era.

Besides, true fans of "Gilligan's Island" will know that the story didn't exactly end when the show aired its final regular episode on CBS in 1967. In addition to the animated spinoffs "The New Adventures of Gilligan" and "Gilligan's Planet," a trilogy of made-for-TV movies — "Rescue from Gilligan's Island," "The Castaways on Gilligan's Island," and "The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island" — aired on NBC from 1978 to 1981. Years later, in 2001, CBS itself put out a fourth movie in the form of "Surviving Gilligan's Island" — a documentary that both chronicles and dramatizes the making of the original series.

In other words, if you're in a bit of a '60s mood and planning a "Gilligan's Island" watch-through, you have quite a few options after finishing the original series. Of course, this begs the question: Which one of the "Gilligan" movies is most worth the feature-length investment? So, we decided to look at audience reviews for all four and rank them accordingly. After all, Gilligan and company may not have had access to a phone, lights, or a motor car, but you have the luxury of the internet at your disposal. Why not use it?

For 100 years and counting, the Harlem Globetrotters have made basketball fun to watch, from their early innovations to their world-famous barnstorming exhibition games. What's more, the Globetrotters have firmly embedded themselves in pop culture, from their eponymous 1951 film and 1970s cartoon, to their guest appearances on "Scooby-Doo" and "Futurama." In 1981, the Globetrotters co-headlined the third "Gilligan's Island" movie, aptly titled "The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island." In it, the Globetrotters' plane goes down near the resort founded by Gilligan and his fellow castaways, and they help save it from falling into the hands of an evil millionaire.

"The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island" seems to be the least well regarded among the four "Gilligan" movies. At the time of writing, it holds a weighted average user score of 4.4/10 on IMDb. Similarly, on Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 42% among audience members. It's fared slightly better on Letterboxd, where it currently holds a weighted average rating of 2.94/5 (though most reviews are on the lower end). So, across the three sites, reviews for "The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island" average out to roughly 4.8/10. The movie seems worth checking out if only for the sheer novelty and absurdity of it all.

The synopsis for the first "Gilligan's Island" TV movie, 1978's "Rescue from Gilligan's Island," reads like a satirical internet post about a potential "Lost" sequel. In it (as the title implies), Gilligan and his fellow castaways are finally rescued after 15 years on the island. After being away so long, however, they struggle to integrate back into society. Then, after a reunion cruise goes awry, they find themselves stranded on the exact same island all over again.

During a 2008 interview with the Television Academy Foundation, "Gilligan's Island" star Dawn Wells — who played '60s TV fashion icon Mary Ann Summers on the show — said that "Rescue" was made over a decade after the show was canceled. She felt no time had passed at all on set(Last-surviving cast member Tina Louise's non-reprisal as Ginger notwithstanding). "It was wonderful to come back. It was as if we'd stopped on a Friday and started on a Monday. You didn't know 12 years had gone in between," Wells shared.

On Letterboxd, "Rescue from Gilligan's Island" is almost neck and neck with "The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island," with a weighted average rating of 2.86/5. The same is true over on Rotten Tomatoes, where the 1978 feature has an audience approval rating of 45%. However, with a weighted average user rating of 5.4/10 on IMDb, "Rescue" decidedly pulls ahead of the 1981 crossover film. All told, its average rating across all three sites sits just north of 5.2/10.

The middle entry in the initial trilogy of "Gilligan's Island" TV movies was 1979's "The Castaways on Gilligan's Island." In this installment, Gilligan and company are once again rescued from the island, only to find their way back there for the third time. This time, though, their return is entirely voluntary as they're now helping to run a luxury resort that went up after the U.S. government annexed the island to prevent future shipwrecks.

"The Castaways on Gilligan's Island" does not currently have any audience (or critic) reviews displayed on Rotten Tomatoes, meaning no approval rating is available. Given its ratings on other sites, however, we feel fairly confident putting it in the number two spot. On IMDb, it has a weighted average user rating of 5.5/10. On Letterboxd, meanwhile, it has a weighted average rating of 3.05/5. In other words, "The Castaways" outperformed both its predecessor and its successor on both sites, with its average rating across the two sitting comfortably at about 5.8/10.

One interesting opinion shared by Letterboxd users is that this film feels more like an extended pilot for an unproduced "Gilligan's Island" sequel series than anything else. "The series, called 'The Castaways on Gilligan's Island' (like the name of this movie), would have the whole crew running a resort on the island. Each episode would have different guest star tourists [like] this film featured Tom Bosley, Marcia Wallace, and their shenanigans," one user imagined.

As we mentioned up top, the fourth and final "Gilligan's Island" movie — the full title of which is "Surviving Gilligan's Island: The Incredibly True Story of the Longest Three Hour Tour in History" — is a considerable departure from the first three. Rather than being yet another sequel, this 2001 docudrama tells how the original TV series was made. It features behind-the-scenes interviews with original cast members, as well as scripted dramatizations in which other actors play them.

Evidently, this change of pace worked for audiences, as "Surviving Gilligan's Island" is by far the best reviewed of the four "Gilligan" films across multiple online platforms. On IMDb, for example, the documentary holds a weighted average user rating of 7.4/10. Over on Rotten Tomatoes, the audience approval rating sits at a perfect 100% at the time of writing. 

Finally, while "Surviving Gilligan's Island" evidently doesn't have enough reviews on Letterboxd for a weighted average rating to be featured, we were able to calculate an unweighted average rating of about 3.09 from the 85 reviews that are available. Furthermore, Letterboxd users seem to agree that the doc, while flawed, is a must-watch for dedicated "Gilligan's Island" fans. "If you grew up watching Gilligan's Island, this will almost certainly make you smile," one wrote.

Additionally, the doc is the only "Gilligan's Island" movie where the reviews above 3/5 outweigh the reviews below 3/5 on Letterboxd. When averaging the movie's unweighted Letterboxd score with its weighted IMDb score and Rotten Tomatoes audience approval rating, we have a final figure of about 7.86/10. 

Now that we've finished ranking the four "Gilligan's Island" movies based on reviews, we wanted to peel back the curtain a bit and offer some additional details regarding our methodology for this countdown. As you've likely already surmised, we took the most visible ratings from IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, and Letterboxd, then averaged them together to get a final, definitive rating. Of course, given that the three sites use different scales, this required a little extra math.

"The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island," for example, has a weighted average user rating of 4.4/10 on IMDb. Its audience approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes is 42%, which can easily be converted to 4.2/10. Finally, its weighted average rating on Letterboxd is 2.94/5, which is equivalent to 5.88/10. 4.4 added to 4.2 and 5.88 comes out to 14.48. Divide that by three (the number of scores we're using), and you have an average rating of 4.8266. We then rounded that to 4.8 for simplicity's sake.

There are obviously some anomalies, like the fact that "The Castaways on Gilligan's Island" does not have a Rotten Tomatoes score. However, given that it was reviewed better than "The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island" and "Rescue from Gilligan's Island" on both IMDb and Letterboxd, we felt comfortable ranking it above them despite that missing figure.