Hunger Games Timeline: Every Film in Story Order

The 10th Hunger Games sit at the very start of the story, and they are the setting for ballad of songbirds and snakes, a 2023 prequel directed by Francis Lawrence. Placed on the calendar of Panem, it falls about ten years after the First Rebellion and more than sixty years before Katniss Everdeen ever volunteers, so the Capitol is still young in its habit of staging the Games.

The point of entry is Coriolanus Snow, a Capitol student whose family has lost its money and who sees a mentoring prize as the way back. His tribute is Lucy Gray Baird of District 12. Because he is the one offering ideas on how the Games should be run, this film shows the format being shaped, years before the audience of the 74th Games takes it for granted.

The later stretch moves from the arena to District 12. Snow is posted there as a Peacekeeper, and his betrayal of Sejanus Plinth and his final pursuit of Lucy Gray into the forest close the film on a snakebite and an unanswered question about whether she survived. On the timeline, that open end matters: it is the last we see of her, and it leaves the road to the tyrant of the later films.

The 74th Games are the story of the hunger games 2012, directed by Gary Ross, and they are where the main saga begins. Sixteen year old Katniss Everdeen volunteers at the reaping to replace her sister Primrose, and Peeta Mellark, the baker's son, is the male tribute from District 12.

In the Capitol, Haymitch Abernathy, a past winner, mentors the pair, and the stylist Cinna makes Katniss a memorable figure on television. Peeta announces in a televised interview that he has loved her for years, and the pair look like star crossed lovers to the audience. In the forest arena Katniss forms an alliance with Rue, and Rue's death sparks unrest in her home district.

A late rule change allows two tributes from one district to win together, and Katniss nurses the wounded Peeta. Cato, the last of the Careers, is killed in a final struggle, and the Gamemakers then withdraw the rule. Katniss and Peeta threaten to eat poisonous berries, and the Capitol names them both victors. President Snow sees that defiance as a danger.

The 75th Games are the Quarter Quell of catching fire, directed by Francis Lawrence. Katniss and Peeta return to District 12 shaken, and Snow warns Katniss that her defiance has inspired uprisings. He forces the pair to play devoted lovers on a Victory Tour, but the speeches and gestures spark more unrest, and Gale is whipped for stepping in to protect others.

Snow then announces that the Quarter Quell will draw its tributes from past victors. Katniss is the only living female victor from District 12, and Peeta volunteers in place of Haymitch. In his interview Peeta says that he and Katniss are married and expecting a child, which causes an uproar. Cinna dresses her in a wedding gown that turns into a Mockingjay and is beaten by Peacekeepers before she enters the arena.

In the arena she and Peeta team up with Finnick Odair and Mags, then with Beetee, Wiress and Johanna Mason. Beetee's plan uses a wire run to a tree that lightning strikes, and Katniss fires an arrow trailing the wire into the arena's roof. The blast breaks the force field, and a hovercraft carries her away while Peeta and Johanna are captured by the Capitol. She learns that the rebels planned the rescue and that the Capitol has destroyed District 12.

After the arena is destroyed, the story shifts from the Games to open politics, and mockingjay part 1 is the first stretch of that war. Francis Lawrence directs, and the film is set almost entirely after the 75th Games, with Katniss recovering in the rebels' underground stronghold of District 13.

What changes on the timeline is the method of fighting. President Coin and Plutarch Heavensbee build a media campaign around Katniss as the Mockingjay, and Peeta's appearances on Capitol television show that Snow is running a campaign of his own. Film crews carry her to wrecked districts, and the footage travels faster than any army. The Capitol's reply includes the bombing of a hospital, and a strike on District 13 follows a rebel attack on a dam.

The rescue of Peeta, led by a team that includes Gale, ends the film on a dark note, because he has been conditioned to see Katniss as a danger and he tries to strangle her. Coin then names District 2 as the next target. Both Mockingjay films were shot back to back at a reported $250 million, according to TheWrap, so this is the first half of a single war.

The final stage of the timeline belongs to mockingjay part 2, which Francis Lawrence directed, and it carries the war from District 2 into the heart of the Capitol. It also gives the saga its latest point in time, with an epilogue set years after the fighting.

Once District 2 falls, Coin lets Katniss move. She travels with Boggs, Gale, Finnick and Peeta, guided by a holographic map of the Capitol's booby traps. The route costs the unit dearly: Boggs, the Leeg sisters and Finnick are all lost on the way, and Peeta relapses and kills a squad member. The last stretch runs through the sewers, where mutant creatures attack.

The war ends in two decisions. Snow, after the bombing that kills children and the medics who came to help, including Prim, tells Katniss that Coin staged it. Coin then refuses the election she promised and suggests one more Games with Capitol children. At the execution, Katniss aims at Coin, not Snow, and the crowd kills Snow. A letter from Plutarch, read out by Haymitch, clears Katniss, who goes home to District 12 and, years later, is married to Peeta with two children.

In my opinion, the chronological order is the more interesting way to meet Snow, and the release order is the better way to meet Panem. The gap between the 10th Games and the 74th Games is 64 Games, which fits the claim that Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes happens more than sixty years before Katniss volunteers. Watching the prequel first lets you see how a young man who hopes to rescue his family's fortunes turns into the president who threatens her family.

The cost is that the prequel leans on what the original films already taught you. Its District 12 and its habit of treating the Games as television are more affecting if you have seen what they grow into. So, if you are new, I would start with The Hunger Games (2012), and keep the 2023 film for after Mockingjay Part 2.

It could be argued that the clearest thread across the saga is Snow's belief that spectacle controls people. He shapes the Games as a mentor in the 10th, forces Katniss and Peeta to play devoted lovers on the Victory Tour after the 74th, and then faces an uprising whose propaganda, built around Katniss as the Mockingjay, spreads defiance in Mockingjay Part 1. That is a reading, not a fact from the films, but the timeline supports it. Mockingjay was split into two films, which is why the war takes two entries while the two arena stories take one each.

Two questions come up often about the links between the eras. Is Katniss related to Lucy Gray? The films do not say so: they connect the two through District 12 and through the song The Hanging Tree, which Jennifer Lawrence sings in Mockingjay Part 1 and which returns in a new version in the prequel's trailer. Who is Snow's granddaughter? None of the five films on this timeline introduces one, and I will not guess beyond what they show. If you want a recommended sequence, our hunger games movies in order page gives one for each approach, and the hunger games characters page covers the people who carry the story from Games to Games.