You know them by their names; their stats; their silhouettes… They’re the biggest, the fastest, the most extreme, the most unusual… They are the members of the COASTER PANTHEON – the staggering collection of iconic, landmark coasters that permeate into pop culture and become bucket list rides for thirllseekers around the globe. Today, we’ve collected the 10 coasters we think belong in the “Coaster Pantheon” as the most iconic, legendary roller coasters on Earth. How many have you conquered?
1. Millennium Force
Image: Six Flags
Location: Cedar Point (Sandusky, Ohio)
There may never be a coaster to hit pop culture quite as hard as Cedar Point’s still-headlining giga-coaster, the Modern Marvel: Millennium Force. Perhaps the icon of the “Coaster Wars” that defined the ’90s and 2000s, Millennium Force was made possible by an unrelenting ambition to do what was long thought impossible: to shatter the 300-foot height barrier.
Manufactured by Intamin at the height of its innovative game, the ride begins with a high-speed, 20-second cable lift, the ride reaches blistering speeds of 93 miles per hour, and by the end of the 6,595 foot long course (the fifth longest roller coaster on Earth), it barely seemed to have shed any speed at all. There’s no question that Millennium Force is a sort of central, immortal icon in the Coaster Pantheon, highly revered as a must-ride and topping many bucket lists…
2. Superman: The Ride
Image: Six Flags
Location: Six Flags America (Agawam, Massachusetts)
Opened just months after Millennium Force is its “spiritual sister,” Superman: The Ride at Six Flags America (not to be confused with Superman-branded coasters at… well… lots of other Six Flags parks). Superman: The Ride isn’t a giga-coaster – it’s got “just” a 221-foot drop. But it is a stunner. About as close as Intamin has gotten to building a “Mega-Lite” model ride in the U.S., Superman soars over arcing airtime hills, peels through banked turns, leaps skyward, then transforms halfway through into a slaloming, ground-level race through banked turns, helices, and hops.
You have to understand that for the first decade of the 21st century, annual coaster polls tended to place Millennium Force and Superman: The Ride (then known as Superman: Ride of Steel) in the top two slots, swapping them back and forth every year as some sort of indication that they were just interchangeably the best. There are more than a dozen coasters with the Superman name across the Six Flags chain, but there’s only one Superman: The Ride for a reason.
3. Velocicoaster
Image: Universal
Location: Universal Islands of Adventure (Orlando, Florida)
Opened in May 2021, the Jurassic World VelociCoaster is entirely one-of-a-kind. Story-wise, the ride invites guests onto the newest thrill ride at Jurassic World – the cutting edge successor to the old-fashioned Jurassic Park, tailored to a global audience who’s looking for experiences with “more teeth.” They’ll find it in VelociCoaster, an Intamin creation custom designed for Islands of Adventure.
It begins with a 50 mile per hour launch into the park’s Velociraptor pen. There, in an ultra-compact layout, guests swirl around rockwork, dive into the path of the gnashing dinosaurs, and twist through two inversions. Then, the trains race through a second launch, accelerating to 70 miles per hour and racing up a 155 foot tall vertical top hat over the iconic Discovery Center, kicking off a second half that soars through massive elements, diving and dipping toward a final “Mosasaurus roll” that practically dips riders’ ponytails into the park’s central lagoon. It’s a staggering and intense ride experience, but surely ranks among the best coasters on Earth.
4. Nemesis
Location: Alton Towers (Alton, UK)
By definition of being in the Coaster Pantheon, every ride on this ride is iconic. But few embody such mystery, suspense, and drama as Nemesis. Originally opened in 1994 – when inverted roller coasters were still a very new concept – Nemesis was supported by a dark, eerie, sci-fi marketing campaign detailing the cult-like worship of an ancient crustacean alien whose tentacles and claws spread throughout a wasteland. Unlike some coasters supported by over-the-top marketing campaigns, Nemesis lived up to the hype. Built into blasted-out canyons deep in the park, the ride snaked through narrow, rocky crevices, inverted over blood rivers, and generally served as an early pinnacle of brand new genre of coasters.
Like many Coaster Wars landmarks, Nemesis ran into a problem: it got old. In 2022, Alton Towers launched a second substantial marketing campaign for the 28-year-old ride – this time, around its closure. Hinging on the mysterious “Phallanx” paramilitary organization built into the ride’s mythology, the coaster was officially retired in November 2022. But you can’t keep Nemesis down for long. Through an extensive effort, a new black version of the ride was re-built to the original’s exact specifications, adding more mystery, mythology, and lore as Nemesis Reborn.
5. Steel Vengeance
Image: Six Flags
Location: Cedar Point (Sandusky, Ohio)
It was 2011 when coaster manufacturing newcomers Rocky Mountain Construction (RMC) transformed the rickety ’90s remnant Texas Giant into an ultra-intense, super-smooth steel masterpiece with its patented I-Box replacement track. Since then, a handful of similarly problematic wood giants have been “RMC’ed” into headlining, personality-filled steel installations. But there’s no question that the king of them all in Steel Vengeance – a second Coaster Pantheon entry at Ohio’s Cedar Point.
Like the menacing Mean Streak woodie whose remains it was built on, Steel Vengeance is a beast. The ride features a 200 foot vertical drop, four inversions, and a shocking two-and-a-half minute ride time. Certainly among the most intense coasters on Earth, Steel Vengeance is a height of RMC’s unique genre. In true Cedar Point fashion, it’s huge, powerful, and over-the-top in the best way.
