How to Watch All 13 “Halloween” Movies in Order

Jessica Sager, Nicole Pomarico, Emily KrauserSun, October 18, 2026 at 10:00 AM UTC

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Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode and Brad Loree as Michael Myers in 2002’s ‘Halloween: Resurrection’Credit: Miramax/Dimension Films/Kobal/Shutterstock -

The first Halloween movie premiered in 1978

The film franchise centers on serial killer Michael Myers, who chases Laurie Strode throughout the years

There are a total of 13 movies, which can be watched in the order they were released or chronologically in the storyline

John Carpenter’s Halloween changed the horror game when it premiered in a Kansas City, Mo., theater on Oct. 25, 1978.

The original film — which introduced one of the most iconic villains of all time, Michael Myers and formidable final girlLaurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) — is not only considered one of the best horror movies in film history, but it also inspired the slasher sub-genre.

The iconic flick spawned 12 additional movies over 40 years. Curtis credits playing Laurie in Halloweenwith making her a star, but it also set off a chain of events that led her to marry British filmmaker Christopher Guest in December 1984 and eventually expand her acting horizons into comedy.

However, keeping up with the Halloween timeline can be a bit tricky. There are three different timelines for Curtis’ arc as Laurie, plus Rob Zombie’s standalone films and another Halloween movie that only vaguely connects to the others.

Here’s how to watch the Halloween movies in order in each timeline, as well as chronologically in order of release date.

Halloween Movies in Release Date Order

James Jude Courtney as Michael Myers in 2021’s ‘Halloween Kills’Credit: Ryan Green/Universal Pictures/THA/Shutterstock -

Halloween (1978)

Halloween II (1981)

Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)

Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989)

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)

Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998)

Halloween: Resurrection (2002)

Halloween (2007)

Halloween 2 (2009)

Halloween (2018)

Halloween Kills (2021)

Halloween Ends (2022)

Halloween Movies in Chronological Order

Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode and Nick Castle as Michael Myers 1978’s in ‘Halloween’Credit: Compass International Pictures/Courtesy Everett CollectionThe Original Halloween TimelineHalloween (1978)

Nick Castle as Michael Myers in 1978’s ‘Halloween’Credit: Fotos International/Courtesy of Getty

Curtis was just 19 when she starred as Laurie in the original Halloween. In 2022, she wrote in an essay for PEOPLE that the film began as an idea from film producer and financier Moustapha Akkad, who “wanted to make a ‘babysitter-slasher movie.’ ”

She recalled that the then-unknown Carpenter and his girlfriend Debra Hill developed the story for Halloween from that prompt.

“They added high school girls who strolled down tree-lined streets and teased each other about boys. They threw in children who needed babysitters and then a carnival, which led to dressing up in costumes on Halloween night,” Curtis wrote. “The final ingredient in that idyll: a man in a white mask who would become the embodiment of pure evil. This was a powerful recipe.”

She was paid $8,000 for Halloween, calling it “a fortune” for the time, especially for her first leading role. The film, produced for just $300,000, raked in $47 million at the box office and became the most commercially successful independent movie ever at the time.

Halloween II (1981)

Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode in 1981’s ‘Halloween II’Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection

Following the success of Halloween, Curtis returned for Halloween II, released in 1981. Carpenter and Hill produced and wrote the screenplay for the sequel, with Rick Rosenthal directing.

The film begins one minute after the events of Halloween: Laurie is hospitalized, and Michael stalks her and brutally murders anyone who gets in his way.

Rosenthal said in a March 2002 interview that while he wanted to remain loyal to Carpenter’s original vision for Halloween, he also wanted to put his own stamp on Halloween II.

“You have to try hard to maintain the style of the first movie. I wanted it to feel like a two-parter,” he said. “You have the responsibility and the restraints of the style that’s been set. It was the same crew. My philosophy was to do more of a thriller than a slasher movie.”

Halloween II reveals that Laurie is actually Michael’s younger sister, who was adopted after their parents’ deaths, with the records sealed to protect her. This aspect of the storyline was later dropped.

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)

George P. Wilbur as Michael Myers in 1988’s ‘Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers’Credit: Moviestore/Shutterstock

Released a decade after the first film, 1988’s Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers had little connection to the original other than being based on the characters Carpenter created.

The franchise creator and Curtis weren’t involved, as Laurie was written out of the film and died off-screen. Instead, she appears in a photograph in this installment. The only returning cast member from the first two Halloween films was Donald Pleasence as Michael’s psychiatrist, Dr. Samuel Loomis.

Halloween 4 takes place a decade after the events of Halloween II, with Michael having been comatose for the past 10 years. While being transferred from Haddonfield Memorial Hospital to a sanitarium, Michael hears ambulance personnel mention that he has a niece, Laurie’s daughter, Jamie Lloyd (Danielle Harris), who lives with a foster family. Michael brutally and relentlessly pursues Jamie throughout Haddonfield, leaving countless people dead in his wake.

Screenwriter Dennis Etchison originally wrote the script for Halloween 4 with Carpenter and Hill, and it was quite different, with a Footloose-style ban on Halloween in Haddonfield.

However, as Bloody Disgusting reported in October 2017, creative differences led Carpenter and Hill to exit and sell their rights to the Halloween franchise, and the studio went with a script from Alan McElroy instead. McElroy penned Halloween 4 in just 10 days, finishing it just before a writers’ strike, per a Daily Dead interview in July 2018.

Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989)

Don Shanks as Michael Myers in 1989’s ‘Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers’Credit: Magnum/Kobal/Shutterstock

The fifth installment, Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, premiered on Oct. 13, 1989. Set one year after the events of Halloween 4, Pleasence and Harris reprised their roles as Dr. Loomis and Jamie, respectively, with Michael continuing to pursue his niece.

Halloween 5 presents more supernatural elements than previous Halloween films, with Jamie having a telepathic connection to her murderous uncle, and Michael being cursed and controlled by a cult to kill his family members.

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)

From left: Marianne Hagan as Kara Strode, Devin Gardner as Danny Strode and Paul Rudd as Tommy Doyle in 1995’s ‘Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers’Credit: Moviestore/Shutterstock

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers picks up on the cult elements first sown in Halloween 5. J.C. Brandy plays an adult Jamie, who is now living in what was Michael’s childhood home with relatives of hers and Laurie’s adoptive family.

Beginning six years after the end of Halloween 5, the sixth film finds Michael and Jamie being abducted by a cult. Jamie gives birth to a baby boy, Steven, the night before Halloween and manages to escape with the child in tow — and with Michael in hot pursuit of them both.

Paul Rudd stars as a grown-up Tommy Doyle, who lives across the street from the Strodes’ home and whose life is consumed with trying to understand Michael. He finds Steven at a bus station, where he runs into Dr. Loomis, played once again by Pleasence in his final role before his death on Feb. 2, 1995.

What follows is a convoluted but campily entertaining combination of the occult, genetic engineering and, of course, a lot of slayings.

In December 2019, Quentin Tarantinotold Consequence that he was actually in the running to write and direct Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, but the job eventually went to screenwriter Daniel Farrands and director Joe Chappelle.

The H20 Timeline

Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode and Chris Durand as Michael Myers in 1998’s ‘Halloween H20: 20 Years Later’Credit: Nicola Goode/Dimension/Kobal/ShutterstockHalloween (1978)

The Halloween H20 timeline begins with the 1978 original Halloween film, which chronicles the first time Michael terrorizes babysitter Laurie, who becomes the heroic final girl of the H20 series.

Halloween II (1981)

Halloween II is part of the H20 timeline, chronicling Michael stalking Laurie through Haddonfield Memorial Hospital (and likely overcrowding its morgue).

The rest of the original timeline, Halloween 4, Halloween 5 and Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers,are not canon in the H20 timeline.

Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998)

Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode in 1998’s ‘Halloween H20: 20 Years Later’Credit: Dimension Films/Kobal/Shutterstock

Curtis returned for Halloween H20: 20 Years Later in 1998, reprising her role as Laurie. In H20, it’s revealed that Laurie faked her own death and has been hiding from Michael and working at a boarding school in California under the alias Keri Tate.

As a result of her trauma, she is overprotective of her son, John (Josh Hartnett), and prohibits him from going on a trip with his friends and girlfriend Molly (Michelle Williams). That inadvertently puts John and Molly in the path of Michael, who travels from Haddonfield to California to try to kill Laurie once he finds out she’s alive.

As SyFy reported, at New York Comic Con in October 2022, Curtis said she wanted her character’s arc to end with Halloween H20, where she appears to kill Michael in the end, but we all know you can’t keep The Shape down for long.

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Halloween: Resurrection (2002)

Tyra Banks as Nora Winston and Busta Rhymes as Freddie Harris in 2002’s ‘Halloween: Resurrection’Credit: Kimberley French/Miramax/Dimension/Kobal/Shutterstock

Because Halloween H20 was such a smash, another sequel in the timeline came four years later with Halloween: Resurrection.

In the 2002 film, Laurie is in a mental institution after killing who she thought was Michael at the end of H20, but the deceased person turned out to be the wrong man.

During the 2022 New York Comic Con, Curtis recalled telling the writers for Resurrection, “You have to kill me in the first 10 minutes of the movie because I’ve now killed an innocent man, and I can’t live with that.”

They listened, and the rest of the film was largely comical camp — especially a memorable scene with rapper Busta Rhymes holding his own against The Shape.

The Rob Zombie TimelineHalloween (2007)

Tyler Mane as Michael Myers and Kristina Klebe as Lynda Van Der Klok in 2007’s ‘Halloween’Credit: Dimension/Spectacle/Kobal/Shutterstock

Zombie’s Halloween is not canon with any of the previous films.

“Call it a remake, an update, a [reimagining] or whatever, but one thing that for sure is this is a whole new start… a new [beginning] with no connection to the other series,” Zombie wrote on his blog in 2006, per Film Threat.

He added, “I talked to John Carpenter about this the other day, and he said, ‘Go for it, Rob. Make it your own.’ ”

Zombie did just that, rebooting the franchise with an origin story for the masked murderer. The movie begins with a 10-year-old Michael (Daeg Faerch) already showing the brutality The Shape was known for, then flashes forward 15 years to an adult Michael (Tyler Mane) pursuing his younger sister Laurie (Scout Taylor-Compton).

Halloween was significantly more graphic than many of its predecessors, and Zombie said the gruesome violence was a deliberate choice and it wasn’t supposed to be easy viewing.

“I never wanted there to be any moment in the movie when something would happen, and the audience would cheer, like sometimes that happens in certain types of horror movies,” he told Cinema.com. “I was never a fan of that. I wasn’t looking for ‘inventive’ kills, and I even hate that word because if you have these characters screaming or crying in pain, I don’t think anyone should be jumping out of their seat cheering. It should be horrible, and you should feel sick watching it because that’s what it is: sick.”

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Halloween grossed $30.6 million at the box office over Labor Day weekend in 2007, setting a record it held until Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Ringsdebuted in 2021, per Variety.

Halloween II (2009)

Tyler Mane as Michael Myers in 2009’s ‘Halloween II’Credit: Universal Images Group North America LLC/Alamy

Halloween II premiered in theaters on Aug. 28, 2009, and Zombie later said he preferred the sequel to his original Halloween, in part because he could make it entirely his own.

“I am still proud of both Halloween movies,” he told SFX magazine in October 2018. “I prefer the second one, which might surprise people, but the problem is that when you do a remake, you can never get a true judgment on what it is you have done.”

The Last Laurie Strode Timeline

Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode in 2021’s ‘Halloween Kills’Credit: Universal PicturesHalloween (1978)

The original 1978 Halloween movieis the only one in the franchise considered canon for the Laurie Strode timeline trilogy that includes Halloween (2018), Halloween Kills(2021) and Halloween Ends (2022).

Because the original Halloween is the only canon film ahead of the 2018 film, Laurie and Michael are not brother and sister in this timeline, as that revelation came in Halloween II. According to Curtis, that was a deliberate decision made by writer and director David Gordon Green.

“There is nothing more terrifying in the world than a random act of violence; that is the root of terrorism,” Curtis told Den of Geek in July 2018. “Not that you see it coming, that something occurs in a horrible way, without you ever thinking it could happen to you — that’s what made this movie so profoundly terrifying, is it was random.”

Halloween (2018)

Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode in 2018’s ‘Halloween’Credit: Ryan Green/Universal Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

This Halloween takes place 40 years after the events of the 1978 original and sees Laurie coping with the trauma she suffered after being targeted by Michael, as well as how that trauma shaped and strained her relationships with her daughter Karen (Judy Greer) and granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak).

At New York Comic Con in 2022, Curtis explained that Green sent her a script and said Laurie “spent 40 years hiding behind barbed wire, emotionally and physically. At the expense of her daughter and granddaughter, she knows Michael is coming back. It was this incredible film about Laurie and her trauma.”

The film also has a message of women’s empowerment, which really drove Curtis to reprise the role that made her a star.

“It was this beautiful movie about a woman taking control of her life,” she said. “And it coincided with the women around the world standing up and taking control of their lives and saying, ‘Me Too, Me Too, Time Is Up and Me Too.’ ”

Halloween Kills (2021)

From left: Judy Greer as Karen Nelson, Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode and Andi Matichak as Allyson Nelson in 2021’s ‘Halloween Kills’Credit: Universal Pictures

Halloween Kills picks up minutes after the end of 2018’s Halloween, similar to how Halloween II begins one minute after 1978’s Halloween.

The second film in the trilogy sees Laurie and her daughter and granddaughter lead a pack of Haddonfield residents to hunt for Michael. The cast also includes Anthony Michael Hall as Tommy Doyle and Real Housewives of Beverly Hillsstar Kyle Richards reprising her role as Lindsey Wallace — both characters were adult versions of Strode’s babysitting charges from 1978’s Halloween.

“[Acting] really is my first love, and I am enjoying it so much,” Richards told PEOPLE in October 2021. “I felt so comfortable the entire time and working with David Gordon Green. He’s such an incredible director and generous and open-minded and [has] no ego. So he really made it easy for me, and I loved it.”

Halloween Ends (2022)

James Jude Courtney as Michael Myers and Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode in 2022’s ‘Halloween Ends’Credit: Ryan Green/Universal Pictures

The latest Halloween trilogy ended with the aptly titled Halloween Ends, released in 2022.

The movie focuses on how Laurie has coped with the devastating losses she experienced in 2018’s Halloween and 2021’s Halloween Kills, and how her character, like many victims of trauma, is ostracized by the people around her.

Laurie’s experience parallels that of a new character, Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell).

“It’s a movie about how the entire town of Haddonfield has turned against Laurie Strode, the innocent victim whose life was brutalized by Michael Myers, and it just shows what violence does to people,” Curtis said in a 2022 New York Comic Con panel hosted by Drew Barrymore, per Entertainment Weekly. “These movies are about way more than just Michael Myers and Laurie Strode; they’re about who we are.”

The Anthology TimelineHalloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)

Bradley Schachter as Little Buddy in 1982’s ‘Halloween III: Season of the Witch’Credit: Moviestore/Shutterstock

Halloween III: Season of the Witch is a standalone film that doesn’t connect to any others in the Halloween franchise.

As Screen Rant reported in 2019, Carpenter and Hill originally planned the Halloween films as an anthology of standalone movies that took place on Halloween night, and the creators felt Michael’s arc ended in Halloween II.

Halloween III follows sinister goings-on at the fictional Silver Shamrock mask factory. The cast consisted mostly of character actors, including Stacey Nelkin and Tom Atkins.

However, some franchise stars returned: Nancy Kyes, who played Laurie’s friend Linda in 1978’s Halloween and Halloween II, and Dick Warlock, who played Michael in Halloween II, both make appearances in Halloween III: Season of the Witch. Curtis also has an uncredited voice role as a curfew announcer, per Yahoo UK.

While Halloween III: Season of the Witch isn’t about Michael, he does appear in the film — in a TV commercial for 1978’s Halloween.

on People

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