1) Harry Potter Universe – Harry Potter is the perfect universe; it’s close enough to real life that kids can imagine themselves as the hero, to the point that many 11 year old kids wish for a letter from Hogwarts, but is based around a fantastical magical universe. The world building in the Harry Potter books and movie is marvellously well-crafted, probably due to the years of planning Rowling spent developing the history and world of HP. The universe is ever expanding too with the new Fantastic Beasts franchise, covering the history of Grindelwald from the books. These movies don’t have as much planning in them but the first movie at least still encapsulates the same imagination of the original franchise.

2) Conjuring universe – There’s terrific world building of horror films in this universe. We meet artefacts and ghosts in the main conjuring films, that then get their own solo films to explore the backstories, such as Annabelle and The Nun. This universe works so well because this franchise was written with the mindset of creating terror and exploring more history of the world, not with the mind set of let’s make some money. Things that put their passion first and money later fare better, and the Conjuring Universe was clearly made in that way. Whilst the quality of each movie is not consistent, there are some chilling moments and spectacular plot lines

3) Marvel Universe – The first franchise to create a cohesive connected universe that very few have managed to replicate, not in spite of trying. Over 19 films (with Ant-Man being the 20th in August in the UK), with about 25 main characters, all from different worlds, and some different times, different genres, and yet the story line is cohesive. Every character gets full arc with plenty of development, and there’s always room for tragic story lines glittered with comedic relief. It’s an incredible feat and I doubt any studio will be able to catch up to this critically and commercially successful universe.

4) Star Wars Universe – Say what you like about the prequels and the latest trilogy, the Star Wars universe is well-built and full of political discussion. To those expecting more action based sci-fi, this may be disappointment, but it’s amazing at exploring character motivations and shows how much influence their politics has over each story-line.

5) Avatar – Avatar is such a fascinating film. Despite being the highest grossing film of all time, there’s no strong fanbase supporting it. No one can really name any characters or many actors from this film, and not many people seem to remember watching it, or at least claim not to. Having said that, there is a reason it is highest grossing, that being the world it creates and its beauty. Avatar reintroduced 3D to us, and used it well in making certain areas or actions pop out, but it never felt overwhelming or 3D for the sake of 3D.