How do you watch the Fast and Furious movies in order? Somehow, living life a quarter mile at a time has led the Fast and Furious franchise to nine full movies and one spin-off (so far). Along the way, like any franchise that’s been on the road for 20 years, there have been some detours, though we’re now running headlong into the Fast and Furious 10 release date.
Mapping the road so far can be tricky, but thankfully, we’re experts in untangling over-complicated action movie arcs and making them easy for you to understand. Whether you’re planning to go right back to when the Fast and Furious characters Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) and Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker) first met, want to know the two-or-three essential highlights, or you just want a quick refresher ahead of any new movies, we have you covered.
From the early Fast and Furious days of pure drag racing to the wrecking-ball antics of Fast Five to Hobbs and Shaw going their own way and some overdue justice for Han, this is how to watch the Fast and Furious movies in order. Strap in.
The Fast and Furious movies in order:
- The Fast and the Furious
- 2 Fast, 2 Furious
- Fast and Furious
- Fast Five
- Fast and Furious 6
- The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
- Furious 7
- The Fate of the Furious
- Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw
- Fast and Furious 9
The Fast and the Furious (2001)
Humble beginnings, nobody could foresee what this thriller about illegal street racing was going to start. The FBI enlist LAPD officer Brian to infiltrate the group of drag-racing enthusiasts it believes to be responsible for some high-speed heists that have occurred.
In gaining the respect of Toretto, his sister Mia (Jordana Brewster), Letty Ortiz (Michelle Rodriquez), and the others, O’Conner grows to like them and ultimately decides against arresting Dom.
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Simple, effective, early-noughties fender-bending action that lays the foundation for what’s to come. You can watch this movie, and the following five movies in the franchise, with a subscription to Prime Video.
2 Fast, 2 Furious (2003)
Diesel sits out the immediate sequels, and Walker is joined by mainstays Tyrese Gibson and Ludacris for another round of infiltration via dangerously fast sports cars.
After letting Dom go, Brian’s found and arrested by authorities in Miami, Florida, and agrees to a plea deal of freedom in exchange for bringing down a drug lord.
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Brian enlists childhood friend Roman Pearce (Gibson), and the pair earn their pardon through more than a few dents and scrapes. Like its predecessor, it might seem small now, but you can feel the electricity.
Fast and Furious (2009)
This is one of the confusing parts. The Justin Lin-directed fourth movie, Fast and Furious – because 4 Fast, 4 Furious doesn’t quite roll off the tongue – is the third in the chronology, taking place five years after the first.
Diesel and Walker are reunited, cementing their places as leaders of the pack, and Gal Gadot is introduced to the Fast and Furious cast as Gisele Yashar.
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Brian, now an FBI agent, helps Dom avenge the apparent death of Letty, by taking down another drug lord, this time Fenix Calderon (Laz Alonso). Things don’t end so neatly this time, with Dom on his way to prison and Brian quitting the FBI for good.
Fast Five (2011)
The action moves to Brazil, and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson joins in, for the sequel that’s very much defined the back half of the series. Directly leading on from the previous thriller movie, Dom is broken out of prison, and everyone flees to South America.
Changing to a slightly different lane, Dom, Brian, and Mia pull a good old-fashioned heist – to be perpetrated using designer automobiles, of course – on a corrupt businessman. Hot on their tail is DSS Agent Luke Hobbs (Johnson), who gets a little more than he bargained for in the pursuit.
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Ludacris, Gibson, and Gadot return, and Han Lue (Sung Kang) show up to capture the hearts of the collective fandom, solidifying the crew as we’ve come to know them. Everything moves at lightning pace, and the set-pieces get preposterous, to the point a bank vault is being swung around Rio De Janeiro like a wrecking ball. A post-credits scene reveals Letty’s still alive, promising a prompt reunion.
Fast and Furious 6 (2013)
Justin Lin’s third sequel on the trot starts widening the cast exponentially. Luke convinces Dom to work with him to capture new baddie Owen Shaw (Luke Evans), under the premise that’ll lead them to Letty.
The crew rallies, Dom manages to find and get through to an amnesiac Letty, and Shaw is defeated in a high-octane, cars-versus-plane sequence on a landing strip. Just another day at the office, until Jason Statham, of The Transporter and Crank fame, pops up for the post-credits scene.
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006)
The post-credits scene in Fast and Furious 6 brings us back to the third movie. This is Kang’s actual first appearance as Han Lue, and for the most part, it’s just a rehash of what we’ve seen in The Fast and the Furious, and 2 Fast, 2 Furious, except it’s in Tokyo, Japan.
Sliding into a life of crime as a teenager, Sean Boswell (Lucas Black) moves in with his father in Japan to avoid prosecution in the US. He quickly discovers the local drag racing scene, forming relationships and getting into a spot of bother.
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There’s lots of street racing, the Yakuza are involved, and everything comes down to a race. Dom shows up at the end, because why not, and Deckard (the baddie in the next film) is retroactively shown to have targeted Han at the end of Furious 6, tying everything up into one very frayed little bow.
Furious 7 (2015)
James Wan steps into the director’s chair, and the Fast crew move from Los Angeles to Abu Dhabi and back again in one of the most audacious films in the series.
Brian and Luke narrowly avoid death at the hands of Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), and the mysterious Mr Nobody (Kurt Russell) offers to help Dom, if the sports car aficionados can retrieve God’s Eye, a mass surveillance tool.
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It’s a rollercoaster techno-thriller in which we have Letty and Dom’s proper reunion, the start of Luke and Deckard’s unlikely partnership, and that awe-inspiring jump across the Etihad Towers in a Lykan HyperSport. Paul Walker’s time on the franchise was unceremoniously ended when he passed away towards the end of filming, making the ending one that leaves a real lump in the throat. Honestly, this is probably the best movie in the franchise.
The Fate of the Furious (2017)
The eighth movie has Dom turn his back on his family, thanks to new movie villain Cipher (Charlize Theron). Turns out, Dom had a child with Elena Neves (Elsa Pataky), his partner before Letty returned, and Cipher has kidnapped Elena and the infant Toretto.
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Dom, Cipher, and the gang play cat-and-mouse for much of the film, wherein Deckard becomes an anti-hero, saving Dom’s kid at the behest of his mother, Magdalene Shaw (Helen Mirren). Mr Nobody reappears, and the final race is against a nuclear submarine. Only marginally more stressful than a round of Mario Kart.
Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw (2019)
Finally, the other two bald, muscle-bound men of the franchise get a chance to shine. Deckard and Luke are forced to work together against the superhuman Brixton Lore (Idris Elba), who wants to release an experimental virus on the world.
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Luke’s Samoan heritage is the backdrop for the entire third act, and Dwayne’s fellow WWE superstar Roman Reigns has a small role as one of his onscreen family members. Expect that connection to come up again, likewise for Deckard’s sister, Hattie Shaw (Vanessa Kirby). They save the world because, of course, they do, and at the end, it’s hinted this isn’t the last we’ve seen of Eteon, the organisation that Brixton worked for.
Fast and Furious 9
In the latest chapter, Cipher is back, and Dom and the crew have to go to space to stop her evil plans. Thankfully, Han pops back in to lend a hand, and Cardi B shows up for good measure. John Cena gets in on the fun as well, and though Cipher ultimately escapes, we’re all revved up for the next two mainline movies.
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That’s the Fast and Furious saga as it stands right now. With Fast and Furious 10, a Hobbs and Shaw sequel, and another, an unnamed female-led spinoff on the way, life a quarter mile at a time is turning out to be pretty long.
That’s the complete Fast timeline as we know it. If you want to know more about the future of the franchise then check out our guide to the The Fast and Furious 10 release date. What does the future hold? We’re not sure, but if you’d like more bros and bad dudes, check out the best Westerns. Or, for more releases, here are the 2023 movies that we can’t wait to see, like Barbie, Oppenheimer, and Dune 2.
