How to Train Your Dragon (2010): Cast, Plot and Ending Explained

How to Train Your Dragon (2010) follows Hiccup, the small and awkward teenage son of the chief, Stoick, on the Viking island of Berk, where dragons constantly raid the village and steal its livestock. Hiccup works for the blacksmith Gobber and longs to fight dragons like everyone else, although nobody in Berk expects much from him.

During one raid he shoots down a rare Night Fury, and nobody believes him. When he later finds the injured dragon in the woods, he cannot bring himself to kill it, and that choice starts a friendship that changes how the whole village lives. Hiccup also joins the village dragon fighting class alongside Astrid and the other teens, which gives him a front row seat to everything Berk believes about dragons.

The setup is a boy, a dragon he was meant to kill and a village under endless dragon attack. The film is the first main saga entry in both release order and chronological order, and the story continues in How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014). For the full viewing sequence, see the How to Train Your Dragon movies in order.

The full plot of How to Train Your Dragon (2010) is the story of a boy who learns that dragons can be understood instead of fought, and it ends with a battle that costs him part of his left leg.

Hiccup brings the Night Fury down with a homemade launcher, then finds it trapped and wounded and lets it go. He names the dragon Toothless and builds a replacement tail fin so it can fly again, with Hiccup riding in a harness. While he secretly studies how dragons behave, Hiccup becomes the star of his dragon training class, using kindness in place of force.

Astrid grows suspicious of his sudden success, and Toothless eventually shows her and Hiccup the hidden nest where the dragons live. There they discover a huge dragon, the Red Death, which forces the others to bring it food.

Hiccup's secret comes out when Toothless is captured during his final exam. Stoick, believing his son has betrayed the village, disowns him and sails with the fleet to find the nest. Hiccup frees Toothless and rallies his friends to ride the training dragons into the battle, and Stoick sees that his son was right all along.

Hiccup and Toothless defeat the Red Death, but Hiccup loses part of his left leg. He wakes up at home to find that Gobber has made him a new prosthetic foot. Dragons now live alongside the Vikings, and Hiccup is accepted by his father and the village.

How to Train Your Dragon (2010) premiered on Sunday, March 21, 2010 in Universal City, California, and reached US theaters on March 26, 2010. Australia got the film first, on March 25, 2010, a day before the US, and the UK release came on March 31, 2010.

The date had moved before that. The film was originally dated for November 20, 2009, and was later pushed to March 2010. It opened in IMAX 3D on 186 North American screens.

The film earned $494 million worldwide on a $165 million budget, split between $218 million in the US and Canada and $276 million internationally. The next entry is How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014). If you want the full financial picture across the series, the How to Train Your Dragon box office page has the numbers film by film.

A live action remake, How to Train Your Dragon (2025), is a separate film and sits fourth in release order. Universal dated the live action How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2027) for June 11, 2027 in the US at CinemaCon in April 2025, as Screen Daily reported.

The ending of How to Train Your Dragon (2010) shows that Hiccup wins the war by ending it: he and Toothless destroy the Red Death, Hiccup loses part of his left leg, and Berk makes peace with dragons for good.

The smartest choice in the film is the parallel between its two heroes. Early on, Hiccup builds a replacement tail fin so Toothless can fly again, with Hiccup riding in a harness. By the end, Gobber builds Hiccup a new prosthetic foot, so the boy who repaired a dragon is repaired in turn. The film makes the point that Hiccup and Toothless are only whole together.

The Red Death matters because it explains the war. The dragons were not raiding Berk out of cruelty, since a huge dragon in the hidden nest forced them to bring it food. Once that dragon is defeated, there is no reason left for the fighting, and Stoick, who disowned Hiccup and sailed off with the fleet, sees that his son was right all along. That reconciliation lands because the film has spent its length showing Hiccup using kindness in place of force, which is exactly what the other Vikings failed to try.

The last image is a village where Vikings and dragons share their homes and daily life. The key production change is that Toothless is a Night Fury large enough to carry riders, where the book version is a small Common or Garden Dragon. That change is what makes the ending possible, because a rider and a dragon fighting side by side in the final battle need a creature of that size. The setup carries straight into How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014).

How to Train Your Dragon (2010) has no live action filming locations, because it is an animated film and Berk is a fictional Viking island. The world of Berk was created digitally by DreamWorks Animation.

The closest thing to a location credit is the work of Roger Deakins, hired as a visual consultant to help with lighting and the overall look of the film.

The only real-world location tied to the film is its premiere location, Universal City, California. If you want to compare the animated Berk with a version shot on real stages, see the live action vs animated comparison.

The best-known trivia about How to Train Your Dragon (2010) is that Toothless is a small Common or Garden Dragon in Cressida Cowell's books but a Night Fury large enough to carry riders in the film. Several other details about the making of the film surprise fans who only know the finished version.

• DreamWorks Animation executives noticed Cressida Cowell's book series in 2004, and producer Bonnie Arnold chose the property after Over the Hedge (2006).
• Early versions by Peter Hastings, Lorna Cook and David Soren followed the novel closely, but DreamWorks found the story too young, so Chris Sanders was hired and brought in Dean DeBlois to co direct.
• Visual consultant Roger Deakins was hired to help with lighting and the overall look of the film.
• The film was originally dated for November 20, 2009, and was later moved to March 2010.
• John Powell's orchestral score uses Scottish and Irish instruments such as penny whistle and bagpipes, and it earned him his first Oscar nomination.
• The film was released in IMAX 3D on 186 North American screens.