Halloween Movies in Order: Release Order and Timelines

The Halloween movies in order of release are Halloween (1978), Halloween II (1981), Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982), Halloween 4 (1988), Halloween 5 (1989), Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995), Halloween H20 (1998), Halloween: Resurrection (2002), Halloween (2007), Halloween II (2009), Halloween (2018), Halloween Kills (2021) and Halloween Ends (2022). That is 13 films, and watching them top to bottom is the quickest way to see how the series changed over four decades, even though it is not one continuous story. Each line below covers only the setup, so nothing past the first act is given away.

1. Halloween 1978, directed by John Carpenter, opens with Michael Myers killing his teenage sister on Halloween night in 1963 in the small Illinois town of Haddonfield. Fifteen years later he breaks out of the sanitarium where he has been held, and his psychiatrist Dr. Loomis races to town while high schooler Laurie Strode plans a babysitting night.
2. Halloween II 1981, directed by Rick Rosenthal, starts on the same Halloween night. Laurie is sedated at Haddonfield Memorial Hospital, Loomis keeps searching the streets, and Michael heads toward the hospital.
3. Halloween 3 Season of the Witch (1982), directed by Tommy Lee Wallace, is a standalone story with no Michael Myers. Surgeon Daniel Challis and Ellie Grimbridge trace a Halloween mask back to the Silver Shamrock factory in the town of Santa Mira.
4. Halloween 4 (1988), directed by Dwight H. Little, jumps ten years ahead. Michael wakes from a coma during a hospital transfer and heads to Haddonfield after his young niece Jamie Lloyd.
5. Halloween 5 (1989), directed by Dominique Othenin-Girard, picks up with Michael surviving a fall into a mine shaft. Jamie has been left mute by her trauma and shares a mental link with him.
6. Halloween The Curse of Michael Myers (1995), directed by Joe Chappelle, finds Michael and Jamie held by a cult six years later. Paul Rudd plays Tommy Doyle, now a reclusive adult who has long been obsessed with Michael.
7. Halloween H20 (1998), directed by Steve Miner, brings back Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode, who faked her death and now runs a California school as Keri Tate.
8. Halloween Resurrection (2002), directed by Rick Rosenthal, locks a group of college students inside Michael's abandoned childhood home for an internet reality show.
9. Halloween 2007 Rob Zombie, directed by Rob Zombie, retells the story from the start, with a ten year old Michael in a troubled home before he is sent to Smith's Grove Sanitarium and Dr. Samuel Loomis, played by Malcolm McDowell.
10. Halloween 2 2009, also directed by Rob Zombie, follows Laurie Strode, now living with Sheriff Brackett and his daughter Annie, as Michael returns.
11. Halloween 2018, directed by David Gordon Green, is set forty years after the first film. Two true crime podcasters visit Michael at Smith's Grove, and Laurie waits in a fortified home.
12. Halloween Kills (2021), also directed by David Gordon Green, starts on the night of Halloween 2018, as Haddonfield survivors of the 1978 rampage, including Tommy Doyle, decide to hunt Michael down.
13. Halloween Ends (2022), again directed by David Gordon Green, begins on Halloween night in 2019 with teenage babysitter Corey Cunningham and then jumps three years ahead. It closes the Blumhouse and David Gordon Green trilogy.

Release order has one catch: the films do not tell a single story. Halloween III drops Michael Myers entirely, Rob Zombie's pair retells the whole tale, and Universal describes the 2018 film as a sequel to the 1978 original that departs from the other sequels. Most of the confusion around Halloween movies in order comes from that, so the next section splits the 13 films into timelines. For the full count and the spin-off split, see how many Halloween movies there are.

No dated Halloween feature film has been announced. Miramax Television signed a deal with Trancas International Films (Malek Akkad) in October 2023 to develop a Halloween TV series, which Deadline reported could launch a cinematic universe across film and television. That is a television deal, not a film greenlight, and the latest status sits on the new Halloween movie page.

In my opinion, the best place to start is Halloween 1978, followed by Halloween 2018, Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends, because that run gives you four films, one continuity and the full Laurie Strode story with Jamie Lee Curtis in every chapter. It also ends on a conclusion, since Halloween Ends (2022) closes the Blumhouse and David Gordon Green trilogy. So, you get a complete story without having to untangle the other timelines first.

Why not just press play on release order? Perhaps because it sends a newcomer from the lean 1978 film (91 minutes) into a mask mystery with no Michael Myers, then through three sequels before the series resets again. That is a great deal of reset for a first watch, and I would keep it for a second pass.

Which route suits you depends on what you want from the series:

• If you want the monster at his quietest. Halloween 1978 and Halloween 2018 are the pair I would pick. Michael is at his most frightening when a film treats him as a force that keeps walking toward the next house, and both films build their scares around that patience. The credit "The Shape" in Halloween (2018) and Halloween Kills, shared by James Jude Courtney and Nick Castle, fits that idea.
• If you want the Loomis saga. Watch the original series: Halloween 1978, Halloween II 1981, Halloween 4, Halloween 5 and Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers. Donald Pleasence carries the doctor through all five, and it could be argued that his obsession is the thread that holds the stranger sequels together.
• If you want a short Laurie Strode arc. Halloween 1978, Halloween II 1981 and Halloween H20 make a three film Laurie Strode run, and H20 runs only 86 minutes. Resurrection follows if you want the whole H20 line.
• If you want a rougher origin story. Rob Zombie's Halloween (2007) spends its opening act on a ten year old Michael, and Halloween II (2009) carries the fallout. They are harder in tone than the Carpenter films, so they suit viewers who like the killer explained rather than hidden.
• If you want something different. Treat Halloween III: Season of the Witch like a bonus episode of an anthology show, watched on a different night. It has no Michael Myers, so if you came for him, you can skip it.

If you are new to the series, start with Halloween 1978 tonight, then check where to watch Halloween for the streaming and rental options in the US, UK and Australia. Once you have seen a few, the Halloween movies ranked list and the Michael Myers character page will help you decide what to watch next.