Step Up Timeline: The Story of All Five Films in Order

The story starts in Baltimore with step up 2006, Anne Fletcher's film, which reached US theaters on August 11, 2006. Tyler Gage (Channing Tatum) gets by on talent and loyalty to his friends Mac and Skinny, and a night of vandalism at the Maryland School of the Arts lands him a janitor's job there as community service.

While he mops floors, he watches Nora Clark (Jenna Dewan), a ballet senior with a showcase that could decide her career. Her partner Andrew is hurt, Tyler learns the routine and takes over, and the pair argue about style before they begin to trust each other. Alyson Stoner is also in the cast as Camille Gage, who comes back in later chapters.

The back half carries real loss. Skinny takes a car from a dangerous local rival and is shot dead, which makes Tyler and Mac reconsider where they are headed. Tyler returns for the senior showcase, the younger dancers perform Nora's ensemble piece, and Director Gordon (Rachel Griffiths) offers him a place at the school. A kiss with Nora closes the film. As a starting point it works well, because the clash between the school and the street crews is the tension every later film picks up. Tyler Gage and Nora each have a character profile.

The second chapter, step up 2 the streets, returns to Baltimore and the same Maryland School of the Arts, with Jon M. Chu directing his first Step Up film and the US release on February 14, 2008. It follows Andie West (Briana Evigan), a street dancer who is still grieving her mother and lives with her guardian, Sarah (Sonja Sohn).

Andie dances with an unsanctioned crew called the 410 in an underground contest known as The Streets. Her friend Tyler (Channing Tatum, billed eighth) urges her to audition for the school, and Chase Collins (Robert Hoffman) helps her get in, which is the main link back to Step Up (2006). Adam Sevani appears as Robert Alexander III, better known as Moose, and Harry Shum Jr. plays Cable.

The 410 throw Andie out once they learn she studies at the school, so she and Chase build a new crew from outcast students. Chase pranks the 410 leader, Tuck, and the 410 respond by attacking Chase and wrecking the school's dance studio. Blake Collins (Will Kemp), the school's director and Chase's older brother, expels Andie for the damage, and she accepts the blame to protect her crew. On the night of a school fundraiser, the crew skips the event to compete at The Streets, and Blake follows them there. Watching the dancing, he accepts that street dance is a real art form and lets Andie back in. In practical terms, this film is where the series stops being one love story and becomes an ensemble of crews.

The third chapter, step up 3d, moves the timeline to New York City, with Jon M. Chu directing again and the US release on August 6, 2010. Moose (Adam Sevani) and Camille (Alyson Stoner) arrive to start at NYU, and Moose has promised his father he will give up dancing for engineering.

He lasts about as long as a diet at a bakery. After he follows a stranger in rare sneakers to a street battle and wins it, he meets Luke (Rick Malambri), who runs a crew called the Pirates out of a converted warehouse that is behind on its payments. Luke wants to win the World Jam championship to save the building, and he recruits Natalie (Sharni Vinson), a gifted newcomer who is hiding the fact that she is the sister of Julien (Joe Slaughter), the leader of the rival Samurai crew.

When the family tie comes out, Luke feels betrayed, then loses the warehouse to foreclosure and breaks up the crew. Moose argues with Camille, who has feelings for him, but they make up through a dance on the street, and he rebuilds the Pirates with her and friends from the MSA Crew. With Natalie's help the Pirates beat the Samurai at World Jam. Luke passes his sneakers to Moose before he leaves for film school in California, which marks Moose as the crew's new leader. The film was shot in 3D, according to TheWrap, and its $30 million budget was the biggest in the series at that point.

The fourth chapter, step up revolution, shifts the timeline to Miami, with Scott Speer directing and a US release date of July 27, 2012. Sean Asa (Ryan Guzman) and his best friend Eddy (Misha Gabriel) lead The Mob, a flash mob crew that takes over public spaces such as Ocean Drive and posts the results online, while working as hotel waiters by day.

Emily Anderson (Kathryn McCormick) arrives hoping to win a place in a professional dance company. She meets Sean, joins the crew, and keeps quiet about her family. Her father, Bill Anderson (Peter Gallagher), is a developer whose plan to redevelop the neighborhood would wipe out the area where the crew lives, including the bar run by Sean's uncle. Eddy exposes her, Sean is arrested, and Emily bombs her audition.

The friends make up, and The Mob teams up with another local crew to crash the public announcement with a big dance protest. Bill sees how happy his daughter is among these dancers, drops his plan to clear the area and chooses to revitalize the community. Sean and Emily get back together, and the crew is offered work dancing in commercials for a sportswear brand. Stephen 'tWitch' Boss, who was also in Step Up 3D, appears as Jason Hardlerson, so the Miami story does not sit completely apart. Emily and Sean have their own character pages.

The final chapter on the timeline, step up all in, brings the earlier casts together in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Trish Sie directed it, and the US release was August 8, 2014, with a runtime of 112 minutes.

Sean Asa and The Mob leave Miami for Los Angeles, keep getting rejected, and lose a battle to a rival crew, the Grim Knights. The rest of the crew goes home, but Sean stays, working as a janitor at a dance center run by Moose's grandparents. He and Moose recruit Andie West (Briana Evigan, returning from Step Up 2: The Streets) and other dancers to form a new crew called the LMNTRIX, and they win a place in The Vortex, a Las Vegas contest whose prize is a three year show. Camille is back too, which makes this the third film for Alyson Stoner as Camille Gage, after Step Up (2006) and Step Up 3D.

The drama comes from Sean pushing Andie to try a trick she is not ready for, which makes her walk off, and from the contest host, Alexxa Brava (Izabella Miko), who is secretly involved with the Grim Knights' leader and is rigging the competition. The Mob joins the LMNTRIX for the finals, and Sean and Andie land the trick they argued over. The producers overrule the host and name the LMNTRIX winners. It is the last film in the series and sets up nothing further.

The Step Up timeline is simple to state: the films play in release order from 2006 to 2014, and no film jumps backward or sideways in the story. That is why the chronological order and the release order in the step up movies in order list are identical. The release dates are the clearest markers, and the gap between Step Up (2006) and Step Up: All In (2014) is eight years in the real world.

So, what actually connects the five films? In my opinion, the best way to read the series is as a relay race rather than a single plot. The baton passes from Tyler and Nora in Baltimore, to Andie in the same city, to Moose and Camille in New York, to Sean and Emily in Miami, and finally to a combined cast in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Moose is one of the longest running threads, since he appears in Step Up 2: The Streets, Step Up 3D and Step Up: All In, with Adam Sevani playing him each time. Camille Gage ties with him at three films, in Step Up (2006), Step Up 3D and Step Up: All In, and Andie West returns in the last film to close the loop on the second.

It could be argued that Step Up Revolution is the loosest link, because its leads, Sean and Emily, are new and its setting is Miami. That being said, it matters, because Sean becomes the lead of Step Up: All In, and skipping Miami means meeting him in Los Angeles with no background. For a parent choosing a film for a teenager, the order matters less than the individual rating, which is PG-13 in the US for all five films.

As for what comes next, no sixth film has been announced. Alongside the films, the franchise has a television series, Step Up: High Water, which moved from YouTube to Starz in 2020, according to TheWrap. It is a series rather than a film, so it sits outside the film timeline. The latest on a sequel is covered under step up 6, each crew's members are mapped in step up characters, and my own verdicts on every film are in step up movies ranked.