How to Watch the ‘Friday the 13th’ Movies and TV Shows in Order

The second movie in the franchise was the first to officially establish Jason Voorhees as the antagonist instead of his mother, Pamela Voorhees, who had more of a role in the first movie. It takes place only a couple of months after the original film and expands the lore of Crystal Lake.

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The third film in the franchise was the first to officially introduce Jason’s hockey mask. Isn’t it interesting how this franchise’s iconography rolled out, one by one? Jason also starts this film injured from the events of the previous film. It is a very direct sequel.

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Narrator voice: It was not the final chapter.

The fourth film introduces a nemesis for Jason, aka Tommy Jarvis (not to be confused with the Marvel characters Tommy and J.A.R.V.I.S.) played by Corey Feldman. They think Jason is dead at the beginning of this movie and the end of this movie. Guess what?

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Same narrator voice: It was not a new beginning. One year later, the franchise returned like nothing even happened. Jason Voorhees is allegedly dead in this one, but Tommy is haunted by his memory and a copycat killer on a spree of his own. Or was it Jason all along? The twists. The turns.

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We know he lives! It’s kind of his thing. The sixth film follows Tommy after he, spoiler alert, resurrected Jason Voorhees at the end of the previous film. It happens. This movie also gets explicitly supernatural in a way that the ones before it do not, and the ones after kinda must.

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“New Blood” seems like a fun horror take on “The Next Generation” as a sequel titling convention. More of that, please! Sure enough, the new blood in question is a telekinetic girl named Tina who’s not unlike Carrie White. She accidentally frees Jason while learning how to use her powers. Do they square off, or become murdering besties? Only one way to find out...

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It only took eight movies for Jason Voorhees to cross the Hudson River. What did he do next? Four years after The Muppets Take Manhattan, Jason arrived to defy death in even more bizarrely impossible ways. While also killing, of course.

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“Evil has finally found a home,” reads the tagline for the film that almost ended the franchise a second time. It’s totally bonkers, involving FBI sting operations, cannibalism, bounty hunters, and a magical dagger. They really went out with a bang, and yet...

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Nine years later, the franchise returned in what may be the most 2002 movie of all time. Where does Jason Voorhees go after Manhattan and Hell? Outer space and 400 years in the future, of course! Does this make canon sense? Absolutely not. Don’t worry about it.

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For some reason, I thought this movie was made last century. The epic crossover event brings Jason down to Earth for a face-off against another ’80s slasher, the A Nightmare on Elm Street killer Freddy Krueger. It technically takes place “before” the events of Jason X. So if you want to watch in true chronological order instead of release order, flip ‘em.

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Six years later it was time for a reboot. Don’t worry about where it fits into the already convoluted timeline. It technically takes place in 2008, the same year that Jason was cryogenically frozen in Jason X, but they’re rightfully not getting into all that. This is just a new, modern, lightly non-canon take on the Crystal Lake classic.

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