Scream Timeline Explained: Every Film in Story Order

Scream (1996), directed by Wes Craven, is the starting point, and its events are the ones every later film refers back to. The story opens in the small town of Woodsboro, California, where a masked caller quizzes Casey Becker about horror films and then kills her and her boyfriend. Sidney Prescott, whose mother Maureen Prescott was murdered a year earlier, is attacked at home by the same killer in a black robe and ghost mask. That killer is Ghostface, the identity that later films hand from person to person.

The murders carry on through a school closure and a party at Stu's house, where the teenagers drink and watch scary movies while the body count climbs. Reporter Gale Weathers pushes the theory that Cotton Weary, the man convicted of Maureen's murder, is innocent. Randy, the film obsessed friend, lays out the unwritten rules that horror victims follow, and the Scream rules page covers how those rules shape the series.

The film ends with two killers: Billy Loomis and Stu Macher. Billy blamed Sidney's mother for breaking up his family. The two stab each other to make their story believable and plan to frame Sidney's father. Sidney, helped by a wounded Gale and by Dewey Riley, turns the tables. She kills Stu and then shoots Billy Loomis in the head when he rises one last time. Stu Macher and Billy are both dead at the end, and the story is left able to continue with Sidney, Dewey and Gale alive.

Scream 2 (1997), directed by Wes Craven, moves the story to Windsor College in Ohio, where Sidney Prescott is now a student. It opens at an early screening of Stab, a movie based on the Woodsboro murders, where Maureen and Phil are killed during the show. The new Ghostface attacks bring the press to campus, and Dewey Riley arrives to look after Sidney while Gale Weathers and her cameraman Joel cover the story.

The killings follow the pattern of the Woodsboro murders. Cici is killed at a sorority house, and Gale notices that the victims' names echo those of the original Woodsboro victims. Randy is killed inside Joel's van, and Dewey is stabbed while reviewing Joel's footage. Hallie dies after Ghostface kills the officers escorting her and Sidney.

The reveal comes in the campus theater, where Sidney finds her boyfriend Derek tied up. Mickey, a film student, is unmasked as Ghostface, and he wants to be caught so he can blame movie violence and become famous. His partner, the reporter Debbie Salt, shoots him. She is really Nancy Loomis, the mother of Billy from the first film, and she wants revenge on Sidney. Cotton Weary shoots her in return for an interview. Mickey returns and is killed by Gale and Sidney, and Sidney finishes Nancy with a shot to the head. Dewey turns out to be alive and is taken away in an ambulance, with Gale riding along.

Scream 3 (2000), directed by Wes Craven, drags the series out of small town Woodsboro and into the Hollywood studio system, where Stab 3 is in production as a horror movie about the Woodsboro murders. Sidney Prescott has withdrawn to a remote house and works as a phone counselor for abuse victims, which is about as far from the spotlight as she can get.

A fresh Ghostface works through the Stab 3 cast, and every body is left with a photo of a young Maureen Prescott. Dewey Riley, who is advising on the production, joins Gale Weathers and Detective Mark Kincaid in guarding whoever is left. Sidney eventually leaves hiding to face the killer, and she learns that her late mother had a hidden past in Hollywood before Sidney was born. Along the way the killer rings her up and imitates the voices of people she trusts.

The mask belongs to Roman Bridger, who directed Stab 3 and had faked his own death. He says he is Sidney's half brother, born of a violent assault on Maureen, and that her rejection of him shaped his life. He claims the murders were meant to frame Sidney, and she dismisses the excuse. Sidney stabs him several times in a hard fight, and Dewey shoots him when he rises again. The survivors regroup, Dewey and Gale share a quiet moment, and Sidney leaves her door open at last. This is where the original trilogy ends.

Scream 4 (2011), directed by Wes Craven, lands on the fifteenth anniversary of the first Woodsboro murders and brings Sidney Prescott home to promote her self help book. Two local girls are killed by a masked attacker that same week. Evidence turns up in Sidney's rental car, which makes her a suspect, and police ask her not to leave town.

Ghostface then calls her cousin Jill Roberts and Jill's circle. Olivia is murdered as Jill and Kirby Reed look on, and Sidney's publicist Rebecca is killed in a parking garage after Sidney fires her. Gale Weathers, stuck with writer's block, starts digging with film fans Charlie and Robbie, and Charlie argues the killer is following the rules of horror remakes. Gale is stabbed at a Stab marathon party, and the deputies watching Jill's house die, followed by Jill's mother Kate.

Charlie turns out to be one killer, and the second Ghostface is Jill. Her motive was envy: she wanted Sidney's fame as the celebrated lone survivor. She framed her ex boyfriend Trevor, killed him, killed Charlie, and wounded herself to pass as a victim. After stabbing Sidney and leaving her for dead, Jill is exposed at the hospital when Dewey and Gale notice she knew a detail of Gale's attack that was never public. Sidney uses a defibrillator on her and then shoots her. Reporters outside wrongly call Jill a hero.

Scream (2022), directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, is set twenty-five years after the original Woodsboro murders and introduces a new group of survivors. Teenager Tara Carpenter is home alone when a caller turns a chat into a deadly game, and a Ghostface killer stabs her. She survives and is taken to hospital. Her estranged older sister Sam returns to Woodsboro with her boyfriend Richie after years away, and Sam carries a secret about her father.

That secret answers one of the questions people search for most: Billy Loomis fathered Sam Carpenter. Sam is troubled by visions of Billy, and she is the link between the old story and the new one. You can follow her arc on the Sam Carpenter page, and her sister on the Tara Carpenter page.

The killer picks off people with ties to the old murders, including Vince, Wes and Sheriff Judy Hicks. Dewey Riley is stabbed at the hospital and dies. Gale Weathers and Sidney Prescott arrive to help. The group meets at the house of Amber, which used to belong to Stu Macher, and there Amber shoots Liv and is revealed as one of the killers, with Richie as her partner. They are Stab fans who wanted to stage new real murders to inspire a better sequel, and they planned to frame Sam. Both die at the hands of Sam, Tara and Gale. Gale chooses not to write a book about the killings and writes a tribute to Dewey instead.

Scream VI (2023), directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, jumps a year past the 2022 killings and relocates the survivors to New York City. The first scene kills a film studies professor, Laura Crane, and two students connected to her, with two separate people wearing Ghostface masks. Sam and Tara Carpenter are trying to start over in a shared apartment with Mindy and Chad Meeks-Martin and new friends Quinn, Anika and Ethan.

The attacks close in on that household. A therapist who knew Sam is also targeted, and suspicion falls on Sam again. Gale Weathers, now a bestselling author, joins the group, and Kirby Reed, now an FBI agent, is drawn back into the case. Gale guides them to an abandoned theater turned shrine, stocked with relics from earlier Ghostface killers. Mindy is stabbed on a packed train, and Quinn and Anika are lost along the way.

The mastermind is Quinn's father, Detective Wayne Bailey, with Ethan and a surviving Quinn at his side, and they are avenging Richie, their brother, whom Sam killed. Inside the shrine Tara stabs Ethan, Sam kills Quinn, and Sam defeats Wayne in the costume her own father once wore. Kirby finishes Ethan with a television. Sam discards her father's mask and walks into the city with Tara. After the credits, Mindy tells her friends that not every movie needs a post credit scene.

Scream 7 (2026), directed by Kevin Williamson, is the newest film in the story and sends the series back to Woodsboro. Sidney Prescott now lives as Sidney Evans, with a husband named Mark and a teenage daughter, Tatum, who has friends and a boyfriend. The story does not say how many years have passed since Scream VI, though the two films reached US theaters just under three years apart (March 10, 2023 and February 27, 2026).

A couple is attacked at a Woodsboro house in the opening scene, and the new Ghostface soon fixes on Tatum, picking off her friends and boyfriend while she is chased across town. Sidney is dragged back into the fight, and old allies including Gale and Mindy join her.

Karl Gibbs, an escaped mental institution patient, is one of the killers. A voice calling itself Stu Macher steers him, but that persona was fabricated by Marco Davis, an institution supervisor with computer skills. The other Ghostface is Jessica Bowden, Sidney's neighbor, who had killed her abusive husband and her son Lucas. She believed Sidney became famous by killing her tormentors, and she wanted to shape Tatum into a new final girl. Sidney shoots Marco, and she and Tatum kill Jessica. Mark survives, and Sidney and Gale mend their friendship. In a credits scene, Mindy asks to deliver the news report herself while Gale watches. A scene showing Stu alive was shot but cut after test screenings.

The Scream storyline holds together because every film answers the previous one, and in my opinion the franchise is best read as a chain of motives rather than a chain of dates. The first film gives Billy a reason, which is his family breaking up, and Scream 2 returns that reason through his mother Nancy. Scream 3 pushes it further back to Maureen Prescott's past through Roman Bridger. Each sequel digs up an older wound, and that is why the order matters more here than in most slasher series.

The second pattern is the change of who Ghostface wants to be. In the original trilogy the killers want revenge. By Scream 4, Jill Roberts wants to be the famous sole survivor, and by Scream (2022) the killers want to inspire a better Stab sequel. In my opinion this is the series at its sharpest, because the killers are always a step behind the audience's own habits. Scream 7 repeats the fame motive through Jessica Bowden, who wants to build a new final girl, and that is the entry where the idea feels most worn.

The third pattern is the handoff from legacy characters to a new generation. Dewey dies in Scream (2022), Sam and Tara take the lead, and by the credits scene in Scream 7 Mindy is taking over the news report while Gale steps back. It could be argued that this is the cleanest timeline decision in the franchise, since it makes room for Scream 8 without erasing anyone.

If you are new to the series, start at Scream (1996) and watch straight through, because skipping a film means missing the reason for the next killer. If you only want the modern story, begin with Scream (2022) and keep going, then use the Ghostface killers guide to see who wore the mask in each film.