How Many Halloween Movies Are There? All 13 Films

There are 13 Halloween movies in all: 10 films in the main saga plus 3 spin-offs, released between October 1978 and October 2022. The three spin-offs are Halloween III: Season of the Witch and the two Rob Zombie films, and the other ten follow Michael Myers, the masked killer who haunts the town of Haddonfield, Illinois.

The number is easy, but the order is less so, because the series changes direction several times: Halloween III drops Michael Myers entirely, and Halloween (2018) is a sequel to the 1978 film that departs from its sequels. If you are new to this, think of a long running television show that keeps changing its cast and its showrunner, with Michael Myers as the one constant (bar a single film). Newcomers can follow the halloween movies in order guide for the viewing sequence, and the halloween movies hub lists every title.

The original series is five films, starting with Halloween (1978), directed by John Carpenter, and running through Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995). In halloween 1978, a young Michael kills his teenage sister on Halloween night in 1963, then escapes the sanitarium fifteen years later while his psychiatrist, Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence), races to Haddonfield. Jamie Lee Curtis plays the babysitter Laurie Strode. The film cost $325,000 to make and took about $70 million worldwide, according to The Numbers.

Halloween II (1981), directed by Rick Rosenthal, picks up the same night at Haddonfield Memorial Hospital: see halloween ii 1981. Then comes Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988), directed by Dwight H. Little (the halloween 4 page covers it), which wakes Michael from a coma ten years on and introduces Danielle Harris as Jamie Lloyd, the orphaned daughter of Laurie Strode. Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989), directed by Dominique Othenin-Girard, leaves Jamie mute and mentally linked to her uncle, and has its own halloween 5 page. The run closes with halloween the curse of michael myers, directed by Joe Chappelle, which sets a cult on his trail and casts Paul Rudd as an adult Tommy Doyle.

Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) has no Michael Myers because it is a standalone story with a different cast and a different threat. Directed by Tommy Lee Wallace, it follows the surgeon Daniel Challis (Tom Atkins) and Ellie Grimbridge (Stacey Nelkin) as they trace a Halloween mask to the Silver Shamrock factory in the town of Santa Mira, where Dan O'Herlihy plays the owner, Conal Cochran. It ran 98 minutes and grossed about $14 million domestically on a $4.6 million budget. Michael returns in 1988, six years later, and the halloween 3 season of the witch page covers the film in full.

Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) and Halloween: Resurrection (2002) are the next two main saga films after The Curse of Michael Myers. Halloween H20, directed by Steve Miner, brings Jamie Lee Curtis back as Laurie Strode, who now lives in California as Keri Tate, headmistress of Hillcrest Academy, and fears that her brother will find her. Halloween Resurrection was directed by Rick Rosenthal, who also made Halloween II (1981), and locks college students inside Michael's childhood home for an internet reality show, with Busta Rhymes and Katee Sackhoff in the cast.

Rob Zombie directed two spin-offs, Halloween (2007) and Halloween II (2009). Halloween 2007 Rob Zombie starts with a ten year old Michael (Daeg Faerch) in a troubled home, with Malcolm McDowell as Dr. Samuel Loomis, Scout Taylor-Compton as Laurie Strode and Tyler Mane as the adult Michael. It opened in the US on August 31, 2007, ran 110 minutes and took about $80 million worldwide on a $15 million budget. Halloween 2 2009 follows Laurie as she lives with Sheriff Brackett and his daughter Annie, while Loomis has become a celebrity through a book about the events.

The 2018 trilogy, directed by David Gordon Green, is a direct sequel to Halloween (1978) that departs from the earlier sequels. Halloween 2018 reunites Jamie Lee Curtis's Laurie Strode with her daughter Karen (Judy Greer) and granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak), and it grossed about $260 million worldwide on a $10 million budget, the largest total of the 13 films (see halloween box office). Halloween Kills begins the same night and gathers the survivors of 1978, including Anthony Michael Hall as Tommy Doyle. Halloween Ends arrived on October 14, 2022, jumps ahead three years and brings back Kyle Richards, who played Lindsey in 1978.

No 14th Halloween film has been announced, and Halloween Ends (2022) remains the newest release. In October 2023, Miramax Television signed a deal with Trancas International Films, run by Malek Akkad, to develop a Halloween TV series that Deadline described as a possible start of a cinematic universe across film and television. That is a television deal rather than a film greenlight, and no title, cast or release date for a feature has been announced. The new halloween movie page tracks the status.

To watch the films, start with the halloween movies in order guide, then read halloween timelines explained to see how the films connect.