It’s time to head to the starting grid, get your checkered flags at the ready, and ignite those engines – because the first five Fast and Furious movies have now landed on Prime Video. The first half of the saga is when the franchise was slightly more ‘pure,’ before Dom Toretto and his gang started taking ridiculous leaps between buildings and into space. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty of fun to be had.
With the release of Fast and Furious 10 in the summer of 2023 and that climactic cliffhanger, fans are hyped to find out which of our favorite Fast and Furious characters survive during Fast and Furious 11. At the moment, it’s being touted as the last movie in the Fast saga, but we’ll believe that when we see it. Vin Diesel has already teased fans that Fast’s conclusion could actually extend across three movies, not the previously planned two.
Unbelievably, though, there are still some movie fans, and even action movie fans, who have never seen any of the Fast movies. So now the films are on Prime it’s a great time to catch up with all of the Fast and Furious movies in order, with the first five being new on Amazon Prime.
The Fast and Furious saga kicked off all the way back in 2001 with a fairly low-key thriller movie about illegal street racing. The similarly-themed Gone in 60 Seconds, starring Nicolas Cage and Angelina Jolie, had come out in 2000, but it would be Vin Diesel and Paul Walker who would kick-start a multi-billion dollar franchise.
Walker plays Brian O’Conner, a police officer who infiltrates the drag-racing gang led by Diesel’s Dom Toretto. Original Fast and Furious cast members Michelle Rodriguez (Letty) and Jordana Brewster (Mia) would become mainstays of the franchise.
2 Fast 2 Furious shockingly doesn’t feature Vin Diesel, but Walker is joined by Tyrese Gibson (Roman) and Ludacris (Tej), who would become core members of the Fast family. Set in Miami, this one still has the original movie’s charm, which seems positively quaint compared to what the franchise would become.
The outlier in the Fast franchise is the third movie, Tokyo Drift, which takes place out-of-order chronologically. It introduces fan favorite Fast and Furious character Han (played by Sung Kang), and is where director Justin Lin joined the family. It’s one of the most controversial films in the saga – with some haters and some passionate defenders.
The fourth movie sees Diesel and Walker reunited for the first time since the first and cements one of cinema’s best-ever bromances. Future Wonder Woman Gal Gadot also crops up here. Things end dramatically, with Dom heading to prison and Brian quitting the law.
2011’s Fast Five is where the franchise moved into a higher, faster gear and became the behemoth that we know and love today. The significant new addition to the best action movie saga since the millennium was Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson as Agent Hobbs. The setting moves to Brazil, and this is where the set pieces started becoming the ridiculously overblown affairs that we expect today.
We all know that one of the biggest draws of the Fast franchise is of course the ultra-cool wheels, so check out our guide to the Fast and Furious cars ranked. You can also find out what we think are the best Dwayne Johnson movies. We’re looking forward to more action spectacle in The Marvels, coming very soon.