All the Mummy Movies: Every Film in the Series

The Mummy series stands at six theatrical films, three main films and three spin-offs, with a seventh, The Mummy: Book of the Dead, due in US theaters on October 15, 2027. The plain title is the first trap, because The Mummy is the name of three separate films, so each one is given with its year here. Lee Cronin's The Mummy (2026) is a different film and not part of this series.

The main films are The Mummy (1999), directed by Stephen Sommers, The Mummy Returns (2001), also directed by Sommers, and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008), directed by Rob Cohen. The spin-offs are The Mummy (1932), directed by Karl Freund, The Scorpion King (2002), directed by Chuck Russell, and The Mummy (2017), directed by Alex Kurtzman. If you want them sorted for a marathon, the Mummy movies in order gives both release order and chronological order.

The oldest is The Mummy (1932), a Universal release that opened in the US on December 22, 1932 and runs 73 minutes. Boris Karloff plays Imhotep, a high priest buried alive for a sacrilege, who is brought back when the young assistant Ralph Norton reads aloud from the Scroll of Thoth during a British expedition in Egypt in 1921. Zita Johann, David Manners and Edward Van Sloan lead the rest of the cast. Box Office Mojo lists no budget or domestic gross for it, so there is no profit figure to compare against the later films.

The Fraser trilogy was a commercial hit from the first film, and the numbers show it. The Mummy (1999) opened on May 7, 1999 and, according to Box Office Mojo, took more than $417 million worldwide on an $80 million budget. In the story, set in 1926, the librarian Evelyn Carnahan and her reckless brother Jonathan free the soldier of fortune Rick O'Connell (Brendan Fraser) from a Cairo prison so he can guide them to the lost city of Hamunaptra, where Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo) has been waiting under a curse that the film describes as a horrible living death.

The Mummy Returns (2001) jumps to 1933, with Rick and Evelyn married and raising their son Alex in London. Alex puts on an ancient bracelet, a cult led by Baltus Hafez revives Imhotep, and the film introduces Mathayus, the Scorpion King, played by Dwayne Johnson. It cost $98 million and grossed about $444 million worldwide, the highest total in the series so far. You can compare every figure on the Mummy box office page.

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008) moves to 1946 and to China, where, in the film's own legend, a sorceress cursed a ruthless emperor and his army into clay. Jet Li plays the emperor Han and Michelle Yeoh plays Zi Yuan. Maria Bello replaced Rachel Weisz as Evelyn, according to Variety, and Luke Ford took over the role of the grown Alex. It cost $145 million per Box Office Mojo and grossed more than $403 million worldwide, so it earned less than its two predecessors despite the biggest budget of the three. Brendan Fraser stars in all three, and the full ensemble is on the Mummy cast page.

The Scorpion King (2002) is a spin-off from The Mummy Returns, following Dwayne Johnson as Mathayus, an Akkadian assassin hired to kill the sorceress who guides the warlord Memnon. It opened April 19, 2002 in the US, cost $60 million and grossed more than $180 million worldwide.

The Mummy (2017) opened June 9, 2017 in the US with Tom Cruise as the soldier and antiquities looter Nick Morton, Sofia Boutella as Princess Ahmanet and Russell Crowe as Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde. Box Office Mojo lists a $125 million budget and $409 million worldwide, while The Numbers lists the budget at $195 million, so the cost depends on the source. Production used Shepperton Studios, central London, Namibia and Bordeaux.

Only some of them are, because the six films form three separate groups. The 1999, 2001 and 2008 films are one continuous story about the O'Connell family, with Imhotep as the villain of the first two and a new curse in the third. The Scorpion King branches off from The Mummy Returns through Mathayus, and that spin-off is set in ancient times. The 1932 and 2017 films tell their own stories with their own casts. For the in-universe sequence, the Mummy timeline lays it out, and the Mummy characters page covers the people who carry across, such as Rick O'Connell and Imhotep.

In my opinion, the series is easiest to understand by asking what each film does with its creature, because the answer changes every time. The 1932 film keeps the horror small: one resurrected priest, Karloff as Imhotep, a scroll read aloud by a careless assistant, and a story that unfolds in rooms rather than set pieces. The 1999 film swaps that restraint for a desert adventure, with Hamunaptra and a Cairo prison as the stage and Vosloo's Imhotep as a regenerating threat that the O'Connell group has to outrun.

The Mummy Returns (2001) escalates, and it could be argued that this is where the series stops being about one monster. A cult, a bracelet that starts a countdown, the oasis of Ahm Shere and the Scorpion King all compete for attention, and the budget rose from $80 million to $98 million to match. That bet paid off, since it grossed about $444 million worldwide. Tomb of the Dragon Emperor tried the same escalation with a bigger budget of $145 million, per Box Office Mojo, a move to China (Variety and The Hollywood Reporter both covered the casting and the location work, including Montreal studio work) and a replacement Evelyn in Maria Bello. The gross fell to more than $403 million, which suggests the formula needed its original leads and its Egyptian setting more than its budget.

The Mummy (2017) went the other way and made the creature a woman, Ahmanet, who makes a deal with the god Set in the opening. Perhaps the most telling detail is Russell Crowe's Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde, a character built to point toward more monster films rather than toward a sequel with Ahmanet. Compared with the O'Connell trilogy, which stays with one family across 1926, 1933 and 1946, that reboot trades character for setup, and its $409 million worldwide on a $125 million budget (or $195 million, on The Numbers' figure) looks thinner for it. If you want the lighter, family adventure, start with 1999. If you want the monster played straight, start with 1932.

Yes, Mummy 4 is officially titled The Mummy: Book of the Dead, and its status is announced, with a US theatrical release of October 15, 2027. Variety reported in April 2026 that the date moved up from May 19, 2028, which Universal had first announced in February 2026. Radio Silence (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett) directs from a script by David Coggeshall. The A.V. Club reported a cast that includes Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, John Hannah, Kevin J. O'Connor, Oded Fehr, Numan Acar and Michael Johnston. Plot details have not been disclosed, and no UK or AU release dates have been published. The Mummy 4 trailer page will cover the footage once it exists. To see where each film streams right now, check where to watch the Mummy, or start with the Mummy movies ranked if you want help choosing which to pick up first.