The Mummy Timeline: Every Film in Story Order

The oldest film in the series is The Mummy (1932), directed by Karl Freund and released in the US on December 22, 1932, and its story opens in 1921 when an expedition in Egypt digs up the mummy of the priest Imhotep. Ralph Norton reads the Scroll of Thoth aloud, the mummy wakes, and the story jumps ten years ahead.

By then Imhotep is walking around as a mysterious man called Ardath Bey, played by Boris Karloff, and he steers a new expedition toward the tomb of the princess Anck-es-en-Amon. He believes she has returned as Helen Grosvenor, and the rest of the film is a slow, creeping courtship that he intends to end with a ritual. It is a quiet film with very little running around, and the fear comes from a man who simply refuses to leave. This story is a stand alone chapter that does not feed into the later O'Connell adventures.

The Scorpion King (2002), directed by Chuck Russell, is set in ancient times, so it sits first in the chronological order of the O'Connell saga even though it arrived fourth in release order. The warlord Memnon is crushing the desert tribes with the help of a seer, and the Akkadian assassin Mathayus, played by Dwayne Johnson, is hired to kill her.

Johnson first appeared as the character in The Mummy Returns (2001), and the spin-off followed a year later (ABC News covered the debut and the decision to give him his own film). Mathayus ends the film hailed as the Scorpion King, which gives the legend that later haunts the O'Connells a human beginning. For his full profile, see the scorpion king mathayus.

The Mummy (1999), directed by Stephen Sommers, takes place in 1926 and is the true starting point of the O'Connell story. A prologue in ancient Egypt shows the priest Imhotep and the pharaoh's mistress Anck-su-namun killing the pharaoh, after which Imhotep is mummified alive under a curse.

Thousands of years later the librarian Evelyn Carnahan, her brother Jonathan and the adventurer Rick O'Connell travel to the lost city of Hamunaptra. Evelyn reads from a golden book, and Imhotep wakes and begins regenerating by draining the life of those he kills. The Medjai warrior Ardeth Bay has spent his life guarding against exactly this. Evelyn uses the second book to make Imhotep mortal, Rick kills him, and Hamunaptra collapses behind the survivors.

The Mummy Returns (2001) is set in 1933, nine years after the first film on the timeline, and it is the point where the O'Connells stop being treasure hunters and become a family with a stake in the curse. Stephen Sommers directed again, and the action shifts from the buried city of Hamunaptra to the oasis of Ahm Shere.

Rick and Evelyn are raising their son Alex O'Connell in London when the boy slips on a golden bracelet tied to the Scorpion King. It sets a seven day countdown running, and it ties the film directly to the ancient era that The Scorpion King (2002) would later tell. A cult led by Baltus Hafez revives Imhotep, and Anck-Su-Namun returns in the form of Meela, so the old rivalry is reborn along with the villain. Evelyn learns she is the reincarnation of an Egyptian princess, which gives her a personal stake in the fight.

The finale is a collapsing pyramid. Rick kills the Scorpion King with a spear, Imhotep drops into the underworld, and Izzy flies the family out in his airship. Because the bracelet drives the story, this chapter only makes sense after The Mummy (1999).

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008), directed by Rob Cohen, is set in 1946 and takes the saga from Egypt to China, so it is the latest point on the O'Connell timeline. The story opens in ancient China, where a warlord who unified the land is cursed along with his soldiers into a terracotta army by the sorceress Zi Yuan.

In 1946 the grown Alex finds the buried emperor, and the family races from Shanghai to the Himalayas and the hidden Shangri-La, where yetis help them. Maria Bello plays Evelyn in this film, replacing Rachel Weisz, as Variety reported in 2007. Rick and Alex finish the emperor with a special dagger, and the closing scenes send Jonathan to Peru with the Eye of Shangri-La, hinting at a new mummy discovery there.

The Mummy (2017), directed by Alex Kurtzman, is a reboot set in the present day, and it opens in ancient Egypt with Princess Ahmanet. Ahmanet loses her claim to the throne, makes a deal with the god Set, and is buried alive far from home.

Tom Cruise plays Nick Morton, a US soldier who loots antiquities on the side and uncovers her tomb in Iraq with his partner Chris Vail. After a plane crash in England Nick finds himself cursed as the intended vessel for Set, and he meets Dr. Henry Jekyll, played by Russell Crowe, who runs an organization that studies monsters. The ending points toward a wider shared universe of monsters.

The Mummy timeline is really three separate stories sharing a creature: the 1932 original, the O'Connell saga with its Scorpion King prequel, and the 2017 reboot. In my opinion, the confusion comes from the title itself, since "The Mummy" names three different films and the monster, which is why the year matters every time one is mentioned.

Think of it like a long running television drama that gets recast and rebooted: the characters carry the same names, but the continuity does not carry over. The O'Connell run is the only one with a real chain of cause and effect, where the bracelet in The Mummy Returns (2001) depends on the survivors of The Mummy (1999), and where Alex grows from a boy into the lead of The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008). The 1932 film shares the name Imhotep with the 1999 film, but it does not share a continuity.

The release order and the story order disagree in one spot, because The Scorpion King (2002) arrived after The Mummy Returns (2001) yet takes place long before either. Paradoxically, the cleanest way to watch the saga is the order of release, as laid out in the mummy movies in order. That keeps the Scorpion King teased first and told second, which is how the series introduced him. If you are new to this, start with The Mummy (1999) and treat the rest as extras. For the full run of films, see all the mummy movies or go back to the the mummy movies hub.