How to Train Your Dragon Timeline: Every Film in Story Order

How to Train Your Dragon (2010), directed by Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois, starts the timeline on the Viking island of Berk, where dragon raids are a daily fact of life. Hiccup, the small and awkward son of the chief Stoick, shoots down a Night Fury with a homemade launcher, then finds it wounded in the woods and cannot bring himself to finish it. He names the dragon Toothless, builds it a replacement tail fin, and learns how dragons behave while he trains alongside Astrid and the other teens.

The film ends with the defeat of the Red Death, the loss of part of Hiccup's left leg, and a new prosthetic foot built by Gobber. By the last scene, Vikings and dragons share Berk, and that peace is the starting point for every later gap on this timeline. The Numbers lists the US release as March 26, 2010, and the film runs 98 minutes. For the full story, see how to train your dragon 2010.

Dragons: Gift of the Night Fury fits directly after How to Train Your Dragon (2010) and before the five year jump to How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014). The 22 minute short, directed by Tom Owens, is set around Snoggletog, the Viking winter holiday, when the dragons of Berk suddenly leave the island. Toothless cannot fly without help, so he stays behind with Hiccup, who builds him an automatic tailfin so he can take off on his own.

The short reached US home video on November 15, 2011, and it never played in a US theater, so it sits on this timeline as a context line rather than a numbered film. Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson and America Ferrera return as Hiccup, Stoick, Gobber and Astrid.

How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014), directed by Dean DeBlois, is set five years after the Vikings of Berk made peace with dragons. Hiccup and Toothless spend their days charting unexplored lands, while Stoick wants his son to prepare to become chief. Hiccup and Astrid run into trappers who work for the warlord Drago Bludvist, and the search for Drago leads Hiccup to his mother Valka, who has been sheltering dragons in a hidden ice sanctuary.

The events that follow reshape Berk. Stoick is killed shielding his son, Toothless and the freed dragons force Drago's Bewilderbeast to retreat, and Hiccup is named chief, with the dragons accepting Toothless as their alpha. The film opened in the US on June 13, 2014, and runs 102 minutes. More detail sits on How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014).

How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019), directed by Dean DeBlois, takes place a year after Hiccup became chief. Berk is overcrowded with rescued dragons and keeps getting raided by hunters, so Hiccup decides the village must find the Hidden World, a dragon haven his late father once described. The hunter Grimmel is handed a female Light Fury as bait for Toothless, and the two dragons are drawn to each other almost at once.

After Grimmel's Deathgrippers wreck much of Berk, the villagers settle on an island they name New Berk. Hiccup and Astrid eventually find the Hidden World, and the film ends with the Berkians releasing their dragons. Months later Hiccup and Astrid marry, and ten years on they visit Toothless and the Light Fury, who have three young hybrid dragons. The film reached US theaters on February 22, 2019, at 104 minutes. See how to train your dragon the hidden world.

How to Train Your Dragon: Homecoming is set ten years after How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019), just before that film's epilogue, according to the DreamWorks synopsis. The 22 minute holiday special, directed by Tim Johnson, follows the villagers of New Berk as they prepare for Snoggletog, while a new generation of Vikings has forgotten the link between dragons and humans. Hiccup, with Astrid and Gobber, organizes a holiday pageant to celebrate dragons.

It first aired on NBC on December 3, 2019, as a 2019 NBC television special, so it sits on this timeline as a context line and not as a numbered film. Madalyn Gonzalez voices Zephyr, and Liam Ferguson voices Nuffink.

How to Train Your Dragon (2025), directed by Dean DeBlois, is a live action retelling of the first story, so it restarts the timeline on Berk and does not continue from How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019). Mason Thames plays Hiccup, Nico Parker plays Astrid, and Gerard Butler returns as Stoick, this time in live action. The beats match How to Train Your Dragon (2010): Hiccup downs a Night Fury, spares it, names it Toothless, and wins over the dragon training class and Astrid.

The film ends with the Red Death destroyed, Hiccup waking with a prosthetic foot, and Toothless fitted with a matching prosthetic fin. Box Office Mojo lists the US release as June 13, 2025, and the film runs 125 minutes. By release order it counts as the fourth theatrical film, but in story terms it overlaps How to Train Your Dragon (2010). See how to train your dragon 2025, and how to train your dragon live action vs animated for the differences.

The live action How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2027) is dated for June 11, 2027, and Universal announced that date at CinemaCon in April 2025. The film is in production, and Dean DeBlois writes and directs.

As a remake, it retells How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014) and so picks up five years after the peace on Berk, rather than extending the story past the epilogue of How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019). For cast news, rumors and date changes, follow how to train your dragon 2 live action.

The TV series Dragons: Riders of Berk, Dragons: Race to the Edge and Dragons: Rescue Riders and the shorts Book of Dragons and Legend of the Boneknapper Dragon are not placed on this timeline because their exact slots are not verified. The timeline above covers the theatrical films plus the two shorts with a confirmed placement, Dragons: Gift of the Night Fury and How to Train Your Dragon: Homecoming.

If you want every title in the order it arrived, how to train your dragon movies in order gives the release order and the chronological order side by side. For the full list of films, see how many how to train your dragon movies are there.

The animated story covers roughly sixteen years: five between How to Train Your Dragon (2010) and How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014), one to How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019), and ten more to the epilogue. That is my own arithmetic (5 plus 1 plus 10) from the studio gaps, so treat it as a guide and not a published figure.

In my opinion, the shape of those gaps is the reason the three animated films suit families so well. Hiccup is a teenager in How to Train Your Dragon (2010), so the five year jump lets him arrive in How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014) as a young man with a father pushing him toward the chief's seat. The one year gap before How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019) then keeps the fallout of Stoick's death in How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014) fresh, and the ten year epilogue lets Toothless and the Light Fury have a family of their own. It is a bit like a long running television drama, with a time skip placed exactly where each character needs to have grown.

The awkward piece is the 2025 film, because release order makes it the fourth theatrical film while the story sits first. Perhaps the simplest way to watch is to finish the three animated films, then treat How to Train Your Dragon (2025) as a fresh start, which matches how the live action How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2027) will return to the second story. Parents choosing for younger viewers can note that How to Train Your Dragon (2010), How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014), How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019) and How to Train Your Dragon (2025) each carry a PG rating in the US, UK and Australia. For the people at the center of the story, see hiccup how to train your dragon, toothless how to train your dragon and astrid how to train your dragon, or return to the hub at how to train your dragon movies.