Zach Cregger’s ‘Resident Evil’ Earns a Franchise-Best Score From Cinemascore Audiences

Opening weekend numbers tell only part of a film’s actual success story, especially for horror movies that often live or die by whether audiences stick around to recommend them to friends. CinemaScore, the exit-polling service that has tracked opening-night audience reaction for decades, offers one of the clearer early signals of whether a film’s buzz will actually translate into staying power.

That polling data has taken on extra significance for Zach Cregger’s franchise reboot, given just how thoroughly it’s already been outperforming its predecessors across nearly every other metric. Fresh off record-breaking preview numbers and the best critical reception the series has ever received, “Resident Evil” now has its official audience grade in hand.

“Resident Evil” has received a B+ from opening-night audiences at CinemaScore, making it the highest-graded film in the franchise’s 24-year history. That result edges out every prior “Resident Evil” entry, including the original 2002 film and 2004’s “Apocalypse,” both of which received a B, while 2007’s “Extinction” and 2010’s “Afterlife” each landed at B-. The franchise’s lowest CinemaScore grades belong to 2012’s “Retribution” at C+ and 2021’s “Welcome to Raccoon City” at C, with 2017’s “The Final Chapter” polling at B.

Within Cregger’s own directing career, “Resident Evil’s” B+ lands in the middle of the pack. It falls below “Weapons,” which earned an A- grade from audiences, but comfortably above “Barbarian,” which polled at just C+ upon its 2022 release. That positioning suggests audiences responded warmly to the film without quite matching the enthusiasm generated by Cregger’s most recent hit.

Zach Cregger’s RESIDENT EVIL has received a B+ from audiences at @CinemaScore, the most well received film EVER in the RE franchise: 2️⃣Resident Evil (2002): B 3️⃣Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004): B 4️⃣Resident Evil: Extinction (2007): B– 5️⃣Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010): B– 6️⃣Resident Evil: Retribution (2012): C+ 7️⃣⁠Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2017): B 8️⃣Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021): C

— Global Box Office (@GlobalBoxOffice) September 19, 2026

Online discussion around the score has pointed to the film’s ending as a likely factor keeping it from climbing into A-range territory. Several fans reacting to the grade noted that while much of the audience loved the film throughout, the film’s conclusion appeared to divide reactions enough to cap the overall score at B+ rather than pushing it higher.

Some of that online conversation also pointed to a split between longtime “Resident Evil” game fans and general horror audiences as a possible explanation for the grade landing just short of an A-. That kind of tension isn’t unusual for franchise reboots that take creative liberties with established source material, and several commenters noted the mixed audience composition made the score somewhat difficult to fully interpret.

The first trailer for Zach Cregger's ‘RESIDENT EVIL’ has been released.

In theaters on September 18. pic.twitter.com/eeVCAGzy6M

— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) April 30, 2026

Despite falling short of the top grade, the B+ still represents a clear improvement over the franchise’s historical average, and several fans framed it as a meaningful win regardless of how close it came to an A-. Given how consistently the franchise struggled with both critics and audiences under its previous incarnation, even a solidly positive B+ marks genuine progress.

The CinemaScore result adds to a broader wave of strong reception for the film, which also holds a 96% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes and became the first video game adaptation to earn Metacritic’s “Universal Acclaim” distinction. Combined with Thursday preview numbers that shattered the franchise’s previous record, the film appears to be delivering across nearly every measurable benchmark studios use to gauge a release’s success.

With critics, general audiences, and now CinemaScore exit polling all pointing in a similarly positive direction, Cregger’s take on “Resident Evil” looks positioned to be remembered as the reboot that finally turned the franchise’s critical fortunes around.

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