Pirates of the Caribbean Curses: Every Curse in Order

The cursed Aztec gold turns the cursed crew of the Black Pearl into undead skeletons in moonlight, and the film says it can only be broken when every coin is returned along with a blood offering from the right bloodline. That is the whole rulebook, and it is why the first film runs like a heist in reverse: the pirates are not stealing treasure, they are trying to give it back.

It starts in Curse of the Black Pearl with a shipwreck. Governor Swann and his young daughter Elizabeth pull a boy named Will Turner from the water, and Elizabeth secretly keeps the gold medallion around his neck. Years later, Captain Barbossa's crew attacks Port Royal and carries Elizabeth Swann off, because her medallion is one of the cursed coins they must return.

Why did the pirates of the Black Pearl want the curse lifted? Because it leaves them undead, and the film's price for ending it is mortality: when the curse breaks, Barbossa dies as he becomes mortal again. His first attempt at the ritual fails, since Elizabeth is not the person he thinks she is. Jack Sparrow secretly pockets a coin, frees Will, and fights Barbossa while Will adds his own blood and the last coins. The navy then captures most of the remaining crew.

Jack Sparrow's curse is the Black Spot, a mark in Dead Man's Chest that means the monster called the Kraken will come for him because he owes a debt to the sea captain Davy Jones. Jack ends the first film as captain of the Black Pearl, and the second film hands him the bill.

Bootstrap Bill, Will Turner's father and now a cursed crewman on the Flying Dutchman, tells Jack the choice: serve on Jones' ship or be dragged down by the Kraken. Jones offers to free Jack if he delivers 99 more souls, and Jack responds by tricking Will into serving on the Dutchman in his place. Dead Man's Chest then plays the debt out as a chase for Jones' key and chest.

The curse ends the film in the worst possible way for Jack. Elizabeth realizes the Kraken wants only him and chains him to the mast so the others can escape, and the Kraken drags Jack and the Black Pearl into the depths. By At World's End Jack is trapped in Davy Jones' Locker, half mad, and his friends have to sail to the world's end to bring him back.

Davy Jones is controlled by whoever holds his heart, because Tia Dalma explains in Dead Man's Chest that the chest holds Jones' still beating heart and that whoever holds the heart controls him. His crew, including Bootstrap Bill, are cursed with him on the Flying Dutchman, which is why the ship is a prison as much as a vessel.

The film turns that rule into its central chase. Jones won the key to the chest in a game of Liar's Dice, Will steals it and escapes when Jones sends the Kraken against another ship, and everyone converges on Isla Cruces. There, Jack, Will and Norrington fight a three way sword duel over the heart, each wanting it for a different reason. Norrington grabs the heart and the Letters of Marque and runs, and later gives both to Cutler Beckett, who then commands Jones, the Dutchman and the Kraken.

In At World's End the heart is what finally kills him. Jack and Will stab Jones' heart during the battle in the whirlpool, and the Dutchman sinks and rises again with Will in command. For more on the character, see davy jones pirates of the caribbean.

Calypso is a sea goddess who has been bound in human form as Tia Dalma, the voodoo priestess who helps Jack's crew in Dead Man's Chest and At World's End. The first film to reveal it is the third, which makes this the saga's slowest burning curse.

Tia Dalma is the one who explains the chest and its beating heart in the second film, and she is the one who introduces the resurrected Hector Barbossa as the crew's guide at the end of it. In At World's End, the pirate lord Sao Feng takes Elizabeth Swann because he believes she is Calypso, and names her his successor when he dies after Jones wounds him. At Shipwreck Cove, the Brethren Court argues over whether to fight, and Barbossa frees Calypso.

The release does not go the way the pirates hoped. Calypso is angry at them, and instead of helping she summons a huge whirlpool. The Black Pearl and the Dutchman then fight inside it, and the film's ending follows from that battle. Calypso is the one curse on this list where the person under it is the most powerful figure in the story, which changes how the freeing scene plays.

Will Turner's curse is a captain's duty on the Flying Dutchman that lets him come ashore for one day every ten years, a sentence he takes on at the end of At World's End. It is the saga's most romantic curse and also its cruelest, since it separates him from Elizabeth Swann after they have only just married.

Barbossa marries Will and Elizabeth during the battle in the whirlpool, and after Jones dies Will becomes captain of the Dutchman. With its freed crew he helps wreck Beckett's ship, which kills Beckett, but he now has to ferry the dead for ten years. He and Elizabeth spend their one day together, and he leaves her his heart in a chest. A scene after the credits is set ten years later, with Elizabeth and her young son watching the Dutchman return and Will come back to them.

The duty is what sets up Dead Men Tell No Tales. His son Henry Turner decides the Trident of Poseidon could free his father, and the film ends with Will released and reunited with Elizabeth and Henry. For both characters, see will turner pirates of the caribbean and elizabeth swann.

Blackbeard fears a prophecy that he will die at the hands of a one legged man, and a voodoo doll of Jack Sparrow that Blackbeard made turns up in the final scene of On Stranger Tides. Neither is a curse in the strict sense, but both work like one, and they belong on this list for that reason.

In On Stranger Tides, set in the mid 1700s, Britain and Spain are racing to the Fountain of Youth. Jack is taken aboard Blackbeard's ship, the Queen Anne's Revenge, where he meets Angelica, his old flame and Blackbeard's daughter. Blackbeard wants the Fountain because of the prophecy, and the ritual needs two silver chalices from Ponce de León's ship, the Santiago, plus a mermaid's tear.

The film plays with the prophecy in its last act. Barbossa, who lost his leg to Blackbeard, stabs him with a poisoned sword. At the Fountain, Jack then tricks Blackbeard into drinking from the chalice that has no tear, and that kills him. A scene after the credits shows the voodoo doll of Jack washing up on a beach, where Angelica finds it and smiles. For the villain, see blackbeard pirates of the caribbean.

Captain Armando Salazar and the crew of the ghost ship Silent Mary are held in the Devil's Triangle, a punishment Jack Sparrow set in motion long ago, and none of them can step onto land. In Dead Men Tell No Tales that single limit works as the film's chase logic, much as moonlight does in the first film.

The mechanism of release is almost comic. Jack, broke after a failed bank robbery, swaps his magic compass for a drink, and that trade loosens the hold on the Triangle. Salazar's crew pours out, and the Silent Mary becomes a hunter. Earlier, Salazar had wiped out the crew of a British Navy ship but spared young Henry Turner on purpose, so Henry could carry the message that Salazar was coming for Jack.

The no land rule gives the heroes room to breathe. Henry, the astronomer Carina Smyth and Jack get away aboard the small ship Dying Gull, and the pursuit has to stay on the water. Captain Barbossa agrees to hand Jack to Salazar, then changes sides and helps free the shrunken Black Pearl so the group can reach the Trident's island. Salazar's end comes when Barbossa gives his life to kill him. For the villain, see captain salazar.

Destroying the Trident of Poseidon lifts every sea curse, and in Dead Men Tell No Tales that includes the one that holds Will Turner to the Flying Dutchman. It acts as a master key: the film sets it up as a goal early and spends it as the answer at the end.

Henry Turner hunts for it to free his father, while Carina Smyth carries a diary left by the father she never knew, with clues to the island where the Trident rests. On that island, Henry, Carina and Jack open a path through the sea itself. Salazar then takes control of Henry's body to claim the prize, but Henry smashes the Trident instead, and the sea begins to close in as Salazar gives chase.

The payoff is personal rather than magical. Carina recognizes the dying Barbossa as her father because of a star tattoo that matches her diary. Will is released and returns to Elizabeth and Henry, Carina and Henry share a kiss at Port Royal, and Jack takes the helm of the Black Pearl once more. After the credits, the shadow of Davy Jones crosses the bedroom where Will and Elizabeth sleep, with barnacles left on the floor by the bed, which hints at more trouble to come. For the character, see barbossa.

In my opinion, the Aztec gold is the best curse in the saga, and Blackbeard's prophecy and doll are the weakest. The ranking below judges how clear each curse's rules are and how well the film uses them in a set piece.

1. The Aztec gold. The rules are short and the film shows them rather than explaining them: moonlight, coins, blood. The reveal of the crew as undead skeletons in moonlight tells you everything, and Jack pocketing a coin makes the rules matter to the ending. It could be argued that no later curse is this easy to follow.

2. Davy Jones and the heart. A villain who can only be controlled through a chest is a good puzzle. Liar's Dice for the key and the three way duel on Isla Cruces, with Jack, Will and Norrington each wanting the heart for a different reason, are the best uses of a curse as a plot engine.

3. The Black Spot. The Kraken attack and Elizabeth chaining Jack to the mast give it the saga's best sacrifice scene, even though the debt is a little thin as a rule.

4. Salazar and the Devil's Triangle. The no land rule creates real chase logic, and Carina's diary and the star tattoo pay it off, though the Trident ending is quick.

5. Will's Dutchman duty. One day ashore every ten years is a genuinely cruel price, and the farewell is the emotional peak of At World's End. Paradoxically, the next film undoes it at speed.

6. Calypso. The idea is the biggest in the saga, but her release ends in a whirlpool battle with little time to explore why she is so angry.

7. The Trident. It is useful, but a single object that ends every sea curse feels convenient after the earlier rules were so strict.

8. Blackbeard's prophecy and doll. Both are clever, and the chalice trick is a fine twist, but neither has the weight of a true curse.

If you want to watch only for the curses, start with Curse of the Black Pearl, then watch Dead Man's Chest and At World's End in a row. For my full film ranking, see pirates of the caribbean movies ranked.