The story of Dom Toretto and his family can be surprisingly confusing to catch up on
The Fast and Furious franchise has been around for over 20 years now, and it’s had a long and winding path to the international box office juggernaut we know it as today.
But perhaps the only thing more confusing than how Dom, Letty, Brian, and the rest of the crew turned from street racers, small-time crooks, and cops into global superspies is what order you’re actually supposed to watch these movies in. After the release of Fast X, the series will have 10 mainline entries, two with the same name and several with totally different types of names, and a spinoff movie.
Don’t worry though, we’re here to help guide you through the franchise a quarter mile at a time, and if you’re a Fast franchise veteran who already knows the timeline backwards and forwards, we’ve even got another suggestion for how to mix up your rewatch ahead of the franchise’s penultimate (probably?) entry:
Where to watch the Fast and Furious movies on streaming
Before we dive into the potential watch orders, it’s important to know where they are all streaming.
The first eight entries of the franchise are available for DirecTV subscribers. The first five entries, as well as Furious 7, are available on TNT and TBS (the first movie is only on TNT). Furious 7 and F9 are streaming on Peacock, and F9 is also streaming on HBO Max. The spin-off Hobbs & Shaw is only available through VOD vendors like Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, and Vudu — and the rest of the movies are available on those platforms as well.
Watching Fast and Furious movies in release order
This is the most straightforward possible way to watch these movies: the order in which they were originally released. On the one hand, this is a semi-logical progression of a narrative and provides a nice window into the way the series has expanded over the years. As an added bonus, it’s also very fun to watch these things get more and more ridiculous at every turn — and watching the crew go from boosting A/V equipment to stealing nuclear subs still hits just as hilariously and weirdly watching them like this as it did seeing them years apart in theaters.
- The Fast and The Furious
- 2 Fast 2 Furious
- The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
- Fast & Furious
- Fast 5
- Fast & Furious 6
- Furious 7
- Fate of the Furious
- Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw
- F9
- Fast X
Watching Fast and Furious movies in chronological order
Image: Universal Pictures
This one is a little bit flimsy, considering all the retcons, flashbacks, and CGI scene-additions over the years, but we’re doing the best we can. Aside from the flashback of Dom and his brother Jacob from F9, the only huge change to this order is fitting in The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift into the middle of the sixth and seventh entries, because that’s technically when it happens in the canon. Other than that, this is pretty similar to release order, but it does at least make a little more sense.
- F9 (the Dom and Jacob at the racetrack flashback)
- The Fast and The Furious
- 2 Fast 2 Furious
- Fast & Furious
- Fast 5
- Fast & Furious 6
- The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift
- Furious 7
- Fate of the Furious
- Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw
- F9 (the rest of the movie)
- Fast X
Watching Fast and Furious movies in “flashback order”
Image: Universal Pictures
Now we’re really mixing things up. This order attempts to make sense out of the slipshod continuity (complimentary) that has held this franchise together, and given Justin Lin and Vin Diesel license for increasingly absurd stunts — especially in the last decade.
To start with, we’re going to have to justify the fact that this crew is known for their daring espionage and heisting exploits, so we’re kicking off with Fast and Furious and Fast 5. Next, it’s time to get a little backstory on how this crew came together. Finally, we kick things off into high gear with some of the crew’s highest-profile jobs, as well as a story arc about Han and Shaw, which will continue to be a plot thread up until Fast X, where it’s been teased the two might meet.
This order shakes things up for veteran Fast viewers, and gives a slightly new shape to the way the series tells stories. Critically though, it does keep just enough structure to stop it from feeling totally random.
- Fast & Furious
- Fast 5
- The Fast and The Furious
- 2 Fast 2 Furious
- Fast & Furious 6
- The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift
- Furious 7
- The Fate of the Furious
- Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw
- F9
- Fast X
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