Fast and Furious Timeline: Every Movie in Story Order

The Fast and Furious timeline starts with The Fast and the Furious (2001), directed by Rob Cohen. The story opens in Los Angeles, where LAPD officer Brian O'Conner goes undercover in the street racing scene to find a crew of truck hijackers, and he ends up inside Dominic Toretto's circle. It closes when Brian hands Dom the keys to his Supra after a railroad crossing race wrecks Dom's car. That choice drives almost everything later, because Brian is now a cop who let his main suspect walk.

A short film, The Turbo Charged Prelude for 2 Fast 2 Furious, fills the gap next. Directed by Philip G. Atwell, it follows Brian as he leaves Los Angeles, earns money in street races across the southwest and reaches Miami in a customized Nissan Skyline. It is a short, so it has no film page on Cinvibe, and you can treat it as a bridge rather than a required stop.

Miami fits second in story order, in 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003), directed by John Singleton, after The Turbo Charged Prelude for 2 Fast 2 Furious. Brian, played by Paul Walker, is hiding out there as a former officer and racing for cash when federal agents arrest him. They offer to clear his record if he goes undercover against the drug lord Carter Verone, played by Cole Hauser, and he insists on bringing his childhood friend Roman Pearce, played by Tyrese Gibson, who does not trust him. Customs agent Monica Fuentes, played by Eva Mendes and already inside Verone's circle, helps the pair get close.

Brian crashes a car onto Verone's yacht, their records are wiped and the two open a garage in Miami. Tej Parker, played by Ludacris, is introduced here. The ending sets up Brian and Roman as a team but does not tease a larger storyline, which is why the next film jumps to Dom.

Los Bandoleros, a roughly 20 minute short written and directed by Vin Diesel, leads directly into Fast & Furious (2009), which is third in story order. The feature was directed by Justin Lin. In the short, Dom is in the Dominican Republic, where he meets Han, Tego and Santos and plans a Robin Hood style hijacking of a gasoline tanker. That tanker job opens Fast & Furious, and the short arrived on home video in 2009. Han Lue, played by Sung Kang, first appears in story order in Los Bandoleros.

In the feature, Dom learns that Letty has been murdered and returns to Los Angeles, following a clue to a green Ford Torino. FBI agent Brian is chasing the same drug lord, Arturo Braga, and the two are pushed together. Dom is sentenced to life without parole, and Brian and his allies move to stop the prison bus.

Fast Five (2011), directed by Justin Lin, picks up the moment Brian and Mia Toretto free Dom from the prison bus and is fourth in story order. The three flee to Rio de Janeiro, where a train heist for cars goes wrong because the cars belong to the crime boss Hernan Reyes, and they are framed for murder. DSS agent Luke Hobbs, played by Dwayne Johnson, is sent to hunt them.

Dom assembles old friends, including Han and Gisele Yashar, to steal about $100 million of Hernan Reyes's money from a vault in a police station. The crew drags the vault through the streets of Rio behind two cars, then swaps its contents for a trash truck. Mia tells Brian she is pregnant. A mid credits scene shows Monica Fuentes handing Hobbs a file with a recent photo of Letty.

The mid credits scene of Fast & Furious 6 (2013) shows Han's fatal Tokyo crash, which sets up Furious 7 and places The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift sixth. Directed by Justin Lin, the film itself is fifth in story order. Hobbs finds Dom's crew living abroad and offers pardons if they help catch Owen Shaw, a former British special forces officer who leads a team of mercenary drivers. Hobbs shows Dom proof that Letty is alive and working for Shaw, and the team reassembles in London, where Letty turns out to have lost her memory.

A highway chase in Spain features a tank, and the finale tethers a huge cargo plane to the crew's vehicles on a runway. Gisele is lost saving Han, and the crew earns its pardons. In the mid credits scene, Han is hit by a car in a Tokyo chase. The driver, Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), leaves Letty's cross necklace at the scene and phones Dom with a warning that he is coming.

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006) fits sixth in the Fast and Furious timeline, after Fast & Furious 6 and before Furious 7. It was directed by Justin Lin and was the third film released, which is why it looks out of order. It follows Sean Boswell, played by Lucas Black, a reckless Arizona teen sent to live with his father in Tokyo, where Twinkie introduces him to the drift scene.

Sean owes a debt after destroying a borrowed Nissan Silvia, so he works for Han Lue, played by Sung Kang, who teaches him to drift. Han is killed when another car hits his and it explodes. Sean then beats Takashi in a downhill drift race and becomes the new Drift King. In the last scene Dom arrives in a Plymouth Road Runner and says Han was family, which links the film to the earlier movies.

Deckard Shaw, played by Jason Statham, killed Han Lue in Tokyo, and Furious 7 (2015), directed by James Wan, reveals it. Deckard is Owen Shaw's older brother and swears revenge, attacks Hobbs at a government office and kills Han. A letter bomb then wrecks the Toretto home, and Dom flies to Tokyo to bring Han's body back to Los Angeles for the funeral.

Mr. Nobody, played by Kurt Russell, offers a deal: the crew rescues the hacker Ramsey, played by Nathalie Emmanuel, who built the God's Eye tracking program, and he helps them catch Deckard. The crew drops their cars by parachute into the Caucasus Mountains and later steals the God's Eye chip in Abu Dhabi. Dom defeats Deckard, who ends up in a secret prison. In the final scene Dom and Brian part ways on the road as a farewell to the character and to Paul Walker.

Dominic Toretto, known as Dom, betrays his crew in The Fate of the Furious (2017), directed by F. Gary Gray, because Cipher, played by Charlize Theron, holds his son and Elena Neves. The film opens with Dom and Letty on their honeymoon in Havana, where Dom wins a street race to clear his cousin's debt. Cipher then shows Dom what she holds over him, and he helps her steal an EMP device in Berlin and later the God's Eye program.

Mr. Nobody frees Hobbs and Deckard from prison so they can track Dom down. The finale sets a frozen sea against a Russian nuclear submarine that Cipher has seized. Dom turns on Cipher, kills her enforcer Rhodes and lures a homing missile into the submarine with his Charger. Deckard Shaw rescues Dom's son, who Dom names Brian, and Deckard joins the family for a rooftop dinner.

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019) fits ninth in the Fast and Furious timeline, after The Fate of the Furious and before F9. It is the one spin-off, directed by David Leitch. It follows MI6 agent Hattie Shaw, played by Vanessa Kirby, who steals the programmable virus Snowflake from the terror group Eteon and injects it into herself. Brixton, a cybernetically enhanced former agent, frames her, and Luke Hobbs and her brother Deckard Shaw are pushed into an unwilling partnership to protect her.

The chase runs through Chernobyl and ends in Samoa, where Hobbs's family helps fight off Brixton's forces. Scenes after the credits include Deckard and Hattie breaking their mother Queenie out of prison. Queenie Shaw, played by Helen Mirren, also appears in the casts of F9 and Fast X, so the spin-off feeds the main saga.

Han Lue, played by Sung Kang, is alive in F9 (2021) because, as he explains, Mr. Nobody had him protect Elle, and Deckard Shaw helped fake his death. F9 was directed by Justin Lin and follows Dom, living in retirement with Letty and his son, as he learns that his estranged brother Jakob Toretto, played by John Cena, is tied to Project Aries, a device that can hack weapons systems. Flashbacks to 1989 show their father Jack dying in a crash on a race track.

Elle's DNA activates the device, and Jakob and his backer Otto, played by Thue Ersted Rasmussen, kidnap her and take the second half. Tej and Roman use a rocket powered car to wreck Otto's satellite. Dom finally forgives Jakob by handing him his car keys, and the film ends with a family barbecue joined by Brian.

The Fast and Furious timeline currently ends with Fast X (2023), directed by Louis Leterrier, with Fast Forever dated for March 17, 2028. The film finishes on a cliffhanger. Dante Reyes, played by Jason Momoa, is the son of the drug lord from Fast Five, and he hunts Dom for revenge and lures Roman, Tej, Han and Ramsey into a trap in Rome with a truck carrying a neutron mine. The chase moves through Naples, Rio and Portugal, where Jakob sacrifices himself to protect Dom's son.

The film ends with Dom driving off a dam as Dante sets off explosives, with Roman, Tej, Ramsey and Han left in a shot down plane. In Antarctica, Gisele Yashar emerges from a submarine and rescues Letty and Cipher. A mid credits scene has Dante phoning Hobbs to name him as his next target. You can find the latest on the Fast Forever release date page.

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift is out of order because the franchise later folded Han's death into a story that unfolds after Fast & Furious 6. The film ends with Dom appearing in a Plymouth Road Runner and calling Han family, but the later films build on that: the mid credits scene of Fast & Furious 6 shows Han in a Tokyo chase, and Furious 7 names Deckard Shaw as the man who killed him. That is a retcon, since a crash that once looked like a straightforward accident now reads as part of Deckard's revenge.

Han's arc runs in a loop that explains the shuffle. It starts with Los Bandoleros and Fast & Furious, continues through Fast Five and Fast & Furious 6, and reaches his Tokyo crash, which is why Tokyo Drift sits sixth. He then returns in F9 and appears in Fast X.

Is it better to watch in chronological order? In my opinion, release order is the better first pass, because the Dom cameo in Tokyo Drift lands as a surprise when you arrive there third, while the chronological order pays off Han's story more neatly once you know it. Both lists are on the Fast and Furious movies in order page. If you are new to this, start with release order and save the chronological run for round two.