Sad news today from the world of words: the Concise Oxford English Dictionary announced that its 12th edition would no longer include the word "threequel." (Also gone, "cassette player"; weep for the '80s.) In honor of the dearly departed "threequel" -- defined as "the third film, book, event, etc. in a series; a second sequel," it will still appear in the less concise Oxford Dictionary of English -- Movieline has assembled a list of nine great third films. Click ahead to disagree with the list!
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, 1966 (dir. Sergio Leone)
Not necessarily a direct sequel to A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More, but The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is Sergio Leone's final entry in his Dollars Trilogy with Clint Eastwood as the Man with No Name. Thank goodness Hollywood fears anything with a cowboy hat now, otherwise there's a good chance this all-time classic would get the remake treatment -- probably with Katy Perry sampling the famed Ennio Morricone theme song for the soundtrack.
Rocky III, 1982 (dir. Sylvester Stallone)
Thunderlips. Clubber Lang. The death of Mickey. "Eye of the Tiger." That absurd training montage. "What's your prediction for the fight?" "Pain." Perhaps not the best threequel ever, but certainly the most fun.
Star Wars: Episode VI -- Return of the Jedi, 1983 (dir. Richard Marquand)
Mock the Ewoks all you want, but the fact remains that Return of the Jedi is actually an incredibly watchable bit of sci-fi adventure fun -- especially in its final act, when the battle for Luke's soul is cross-cut with the Rebel uprising and Han and Leia's attempts to bring the Death Star shields down. Note: this one may have aged so well because compared to the excruciating Star Wars prequels it's like Citizen Kane. Also: Jabba the Hutt!
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, 1989 (dir. Steven Spielberg)
Featuring the last great Harrison Ford performance -- or at least the last role where he seemed to be enjoying himself (sorry, but Dr. Richard Kimble was too determined to have fun) -- The Last Crusade is geek nirvana. Indiana Jones and James Bond against Nazis in a race for the Holy Grail? You have chosen wisely.
Die Hard With a Vengeance, 1995 (dir. John McTiernan)
After Renny Harlin exploded the Die Hard formula with Die Hard 2: Die Harder (still can't believe that's the subtitle), original Die Hard director John McTiernan returned for a very worthy follow-up to his beloved first film. As the downtrodden and hungover John McClane in Die Hard With a Vengeance, Bruce Willis is perfection, and he gets fun, scenery-chewing support from Samuel L. Jackson (at the height of his screaming prowess) and Jeremy Irons (basically twirling an invisible mustache). The cat-and-mouse plot is a hoot, the New York City setting is a goldmine for action set pieces, and the "yippy ki-yay, motherfucker!" comes right when you want it to come. A winner.
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, 2003 (dir. Peter Jackson)
An obvious entry on any list of threequels, but in an era of blockbuster threequel busts (see Revenge of the Sith, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, and -- for some -- Transformers: Dark of the Moon), an outstanding achievement of finality. It could probably do with one or three less endings, but Jackson's work here is undeniable. Also, when pushing for Andy Serkis to get an Oscar nomination for Rise of the Planet of the Apes, remember he was never better than as Gollum in King.
Pusher III, 2005 (dir. Nicolas Winding Refn)
From Movieline's "7 Masterpieces of the '00s You've Likely Never Seen" by S.T. VanAirsdale: "As the son of one of Denmark's most legendary filmmakers, you probably could have foreseen at least a few of the rebellion issues plaguing Nicolas Winding Refn's first two violent, haphazard entries in his Pusher trilogy. Yet when he reached the second film's exhausting denouement in 2004, one could also sense Refn was exorcising whatever had held back his kinetic portraits of life in Copenhagen's criminal underworld (as well as his grueling English-language debut Fear X). Closing the series in 2005 with Pusher III (cheerily subtitled I'm the Angel of Death), Refn checks back in with the earlier films' drug baron Milo (Zlatko Buric). A junkie aging for the worse every day, and stuck with the added responsibility of organizing his spoiled daughter's birthday party, Milo decides against his better judgment to sell a huge load of mistakenly acquired ecstasy. That requires the intersection of some of Copenhagen's least savory gangsters, a troublesome epidemic of food poisoning, a few hundred consumed cigarettes and an unspeakably nasty final act that makes Refn's 2009 prison fable Bronson look like an afterschool special on deliquency. It also redeems the first two Pusher films, which was no small feat. (Trailer very NSFW.)"
The Bourne Ultimatum, 2007 (dir. Paul Greengrass)
Real talk: the Matt Damon-led Bourne movies all blend together. For reference, Ultimatum is the one with Clive Owen the one with Karl Urban the one with Edgar Martinez, that kick-ass car chase through lower Manhattan and Bourne's homecoming/final swan dive. Paul Greengrass kept things lean and mean in his last moments as franchise head coach, while Damon was at his brusque and brutal best. Jeremy Renner and Co. have large, military-issued boots to fill for The Bourne Legacy.
Toy Story 3, 2010 (dir. Lee Unkrich)
It's kind of impossible to have a list of threequels without Toy Story 3. Beloved by critics (with the exception of Armond White), beloved by audiences, and beloved by Academy members, the third film in the near two-billion-grossing Pixar franchise dealt with the loss of innocence and growing into adulthood better than almost any live-action film release in the recent past. Translation: I cried. You did too.