Pirates of the Caribbean Timeline: Every Film in Story Order

The timeline starts with The Curse of the Black Pearl, directed by Gore Verbinski and released in the US on July 9, 2003. It is based on the Disneyland attraction that debuted in 1967, and the film had its premiere at Disneyland on June 28, 2003.

The story opens with a young Will Turner pulled from a shipwreck by Governor Swann and his daughter Elizabeth, who secretly keeps a gold medallion from around his neck. Years later in Port Royal, Jack Sparrow arrives looking for a ship, and the cursed crew of the Black Pearl, led by Barbossa, raids the town because they need that medallion. The curse turns the crew into skeletons in moonlight, and it can only be lifted by returning every piece of Aztec gold along with a blood offering from the right bloodline.

The film ends with the curse broken, Barbossa dead, Elizabeth choosing Will over Norrington, and Jack escaping the gallows to sail off as captain of the Pearl, which is the position every later film starts from.

Dead Man's Chest picks up about a year after the first film, with Verbinski back in the director's chair and a US release date of July 7, 2006. Lord Cutler Beckett of the East India Trading Company breaks up the wedding of Will and Elizabeth with arrest warrants, and offers their freedom if Will brings him Jack's compass.

Jack, meanwhile, learns he owes a debt to Davy Jones, and Bootstrap Bill, Will's father and a cursed crewman on the Flying Dutchman, warns him that the Kraken is coming. Tia Dalma explains that the Dead Man's Chest holds Jones' still beating heart, and whoever holds the heart controls him. The set piece to watch is the three way sword duel on Isla Cruces, where Jack, Will and Norrington each want the heart for a different reason.

The film closes on a cliffhanger. The Kraken drags Jack and the Black Pearl into the depths, Norrington hands the heart to Beckett, and Tia Dalma introduces the crew's new guide, the resurrected Hector Barbossa.

At World's End continues straight from the cliffhanger, and it is the third and final film directed by Verbinski, released in the US on May 25, 2007. Beckett now controls the seas, forces Davy Jones to destroy pirate ships, and has people hanged for any link to piracy, so Barbossa, Will, Elizabeth and the Pearl crew set out to bring Jack back from Davy Jones' Locker.

The rescue runs through Singapore, where they seek the charts of the pirate lord Sao Feng, and on to Shipwreck Cove, where the Brethren Court argues over whether to fight. The finale is a battle inside a whirlpool, where the Pearl and the Flying Dutchman trade broadsides, Barbossa marries Will and Elizabeth mid fight, and Jack and Will kill Jones by stabbing his heart.

Will becomes captain of the Dutchman and may come ashore one day every ten years. A scene after the credits is set ten years later, with Elizabeth and her young son watching the Dutchman return and Will coming back to them.

On Stranger Tides, directed by Rob Marshall and released in the US on May 20, 2011, is set around 1750, when Britain and Spain are both racing to find the Fountain of Youth. Jack is forced aboard the Queen Anne's Revenge, the ship of Blackbeard, where he meets Angelica, a former love who is also Blackbeard's daughter.

The ritual at the Fountain needs two silver chalices from Ponce de León's ship, the Santiago, plus the tear of a mermaid, which Blackbeard's crew takes by force from a mermaid named Syrena. Barbossa, who has lost a leg to Blackbeard and now serves the British Crown, is chasing the same prize for revenge. Jack tricks Blackbeard into drinking from the chalice that has no tear, and the Fountain is wrecked in the process.

Barbossa takes Blackbeard's ship and sword, Jack strands Angelica on an island, and Gibbs uses the compass to find the Revenge and recover the Black Pearl from its bottle. A scene after the credits shows Jack's voodoo doll washing up on a beach, where Angelica finds it and smiles. This film follows Jack and Barbossa, and neither Will nor Elizabeth appears among its top billed cast.

Dead Men Tell No Tales, directed by Espen Sandberg and Joachim Rønning and released in the US on May 26, 2017, moves the story to the next generation. Years after his father Will was bound to the Flying Dutchman, Henry Turner decides the Trident of Poseidon could free him, and that he needs Jack Sparrow to find it.

The villain is the ghostly Captain Armando Salazar, who was trapped in the Devil's Triangle and wants revenge on Jack. Jack trades his magic compass for a drink, which breaks the hold on the Triangle and frees Salazar's crew. Henry teams up with Carina Smyth, an astronomer whose unknown father's diary holds clues to the Trident, and the two chase it with Jack and Barbossa.

Barbossa is revealed as Carina's father and gives his life to kill Salazar. Henry destroys the Trident, which lifts every sea curse including Will's, and Jack takes command of the Black Pearl again. Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley return as Will and Elizabeth, and a scene after the credits shows the shadow of Davy Jones slipping into their bedroom, with barnacles on the floor by the bed.

The timeline is easy to follow because chronological order and release order are the same, so the Pirates of the Caribbean movies in order list and this one match exactly. Think of a TV series that airs its episodes in the order they happen, with no flashback seasons. In my opinion, that is the best argument for simply pressing play on the 2003 film and carrying on.

What makes the five films feel like one story is a small set of running threads. The first is the Black Pearl itself: Jack captains it at the end of the first film, loses it to the Kraken in the second, sees it shrunk into a bottle in the fourth, and gets it back at the end of the fifth. The second is Barbossa, who dies in the first film, returns at the end of the second, loses a leg in the fourth, and finally gives his life in the fifth, which in my opinion makes him the most complete arc in the saga.

The third thread is the Turner family. Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann anchor the first three films, from the shipwreck rescue and the stolen medallion to the wedding in the middle of the whirlpool battle, and the third ends with the ten year separation. It could be argued that this explains why they are missing from the fourth: Will is ferrying the dead at sea, so a story set around 1750 that follows Jack and Barbossa has no natural place for him. That is my reading of the story, not a confirmed reason. The fifth film then pays the thread off through Henry, and the scene after the credits hints that Davy Jones is not entirely gone.

That being said, the middle of the saga is the loosest part. The fourth film is a self contained quest, and a new viewer could watch it without much confusion. If you are new to all this and short on time, watch the first film, then the second and third as a pair, and treat the fourth as optional.