How to Watch the Halloween Movies in Order (October 2026)

If you want to know how to watch the Halloween movies in order, start with John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) and then pick one of two routes. Follow release order for all 13 films and see the reboots as history, or follow a single storyline, because the franchise has been reset three times and the versions contradict each other. Our running order below covers both, plus which films you can skip.

Updated for October 2026. Spoilers stay light; we flag the one exception where a film gives away the status of an earlier one.

How to Watch the Halloween Movies in Order at a Glance

There are 13 films in the Michael Myers franchise. There are not 13 entries in one continuous story.

Three reboots wiped the slate each time, which leaves four widely followed routes. Pick one and ignore everything it excludes.

Timeline	Watch in this order	What it skips
Original / Thorn	Halloween (1978) → Halloween II (1981) → Halloween 4 (1988) → Halloween 5 (1989) → Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)	Halloween III, H20, Resurrection, everything after
H20	Halloween (1978) → Halloween II (1981) → Halloween: H20 → Halloween: Resurrection	Halloween III, Halloween 4, Halloween 5, The Curse of Michael Myers
Rob Zombie	Halloween (2007) → Halloween II (2009)	All 1978 to 2002 films, plus the 2018 trilogy
Blumhouse / H40	Halloween (1978) → Halloween (2018) → Halloween Kills (2021) → Halloween Ends (2022)	Halloween II and every sequel released between 1981 and 2002

In shorthand: 1978 → 1981 → H20 → Resurrection for the cleanest Laurie Strode arc, or 1978 → 2018 → Kills → Ends for the modern one.

Fan forums tend to agree on release order for a simple reason. There are no prequels here, only multiple continuities, so nothing gets chronologically scrambled by watching the films as they came out.

What Is the Best Viewing Order for the Halloween Franchise?

All 13 Halloween movies in release date order, with Michael Myers flagged where he appears:

1. Halloween (1978) — John Carpenter’s original. Michael Myers, Haddonfield, Laurie Strode.
2. Halloween II (1981) — Same cast, same night continuing. Michael Myers.
3. Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) — Standalone set in America, no Michael Myers, but it invented the mask and the Shape idea.
4. Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988) — Michael Myers returns. Nick Castle back in the mask.
5. Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989) — Michael Myers. Weakest stretch of the original run.
6. Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995) — Michael Myers, plus the Thorn mythology.
7. Halloween: H20, 20 Years Later (1998) — Michael Myers. Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie, Donald Pleasence as Dr. Loomis.
8. Halloween: Resurrection (2002) — Michael Myers. The last theatrical entry before the reboot.
9. Halloween (2007) — Rob Zombie’s remake. A new universe, new mask maker, no Shape mythology.
10. Halloween II (2009) — Rob Zombie’s sequel to his own remake.
11. Halloween (2018) — Blumhouse. Direct sequel to the 1978 film, ignoring everything between.
12. Halloween Kills (2021) — Michael Myers. Set the night after 2018.
13. Halloween Ends (2022) — Michael Myers. Closes the trilogy with an ending most fans read as ambiguous.

Note the gap between 1989 and 1995. The franchise stalled, and the fifth-to-sixth film jump is the biggest continuity wound in the whole series.

Two of these entries are the ones most lists get wrong. Halloween Kills (2021) is a theatrical film and belongs in the count even when articles claim 13 titles and then list 12. Halloween III belongs in the count too, even though Myers is not in it.

The Original Halloween Series

Watch Halloween (1978) and Halloween II (1981) first, always, in that pairing. Everything else branches off from them.

Carpenter’s original is a 91-minute slasher with almost no backstory, which is exactly why later films could keep resetting it. Jamie Lee Curtis plays Laurie Strode, Donald Pleasence plays Dr. Loomis, and Nick Castle wears the mask.

The widely connected run people mean when they say the original series is films 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6. Those share a producer, a returning Loomis and a recurring sense of place.

H20 by Jamie Lee Curtis is the exception. It is a sequel in spirit, not in continuity, which is why it starts a route of its own.

Halloween II

Halloween II picks up roughly forty minutes after the first film ends, at the same hospital, with the same characters. It is the most direct sequel the franchise ever attempted.

Its opening sequence is why the film matters to the timeline. Donald Pleasence tells a young Laurie about the historical connection between Michael Myers, the town and the tradition of masking on October 31, which plants the lore that Halloween III later runs with.

Watch it second with no hesitation. It is short, fast and it explains why the mask keeps showing up as a manufactured product.

Halloween III: Season of the Witch

Halloween III has no Michael Myers. It is a standalone horror film that happens to sit inside a numbered franchise, and treating it as a sequel is the most common timeline mistake.

The setup is deliberately generic: an American town, an ancient ritual, a masked figure conjured by a childrens’ TV host. Donald Pleasence returns in a completely different role.

It earns its place for two reasons. It shows how the Shape works when it is not Michael, and it explains the mask manufacturing on a scale the earlier films only hinted at.

For a Michael Myers marathon, skip it. For a completionist run, put it third in release order and treat it as a detour.

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers

Halloween 4 is where Michael Myers comes back, years after Halloween II, returning to Haddonfield and picking up a teenage niece named Jamie Lloyd.

Nick Castle is back behind the mask, which gives the film a continuity link to the first two even though the plot pulls toward a different mythology. Donald Pleasence returns as Loomis.

The reception was mixed, mostly because the script leans on dream sequences and a sheriff subplot that never quite lands. It still has the shape of the original films: a small town, a knife, a teenager who thinks she can handle it.

Watch it fourth if you are following the Thorn path. Skim or skip it if you are not.

Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers

Halloween 5 is the direct sequel to Halloween 4 and the low point of the original run. It is the film people ask permission to skip.

There is a continuity problem worth naming: Jamie Lloyd appears roughly twelve years older with no explanation, and the film starts with a lengthy monologue delivered in rhyme. Both are known wrinkles in the continuity, not something you missed.

The makeup effects are excellent, and opinions on the film are sharply split, so treat it as optional.

My advice: if the original run bores you at number three, do not force four more hours through it for this one.

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers is the last theatrical Myers film before the franchise stalled, and the only one with the Thorn mythology at its centre.

Here Michael is described as a person selected by a cult called the Cult of Thorn, and his power is tied to a talisman connected to the sign of the Thorn. The Starman Shape, a symbol seen throughout Haddonfield, is the visual sign of that blessing.

Plainly: the film says Michael is not just a mask and a knife, he is a chosen figure with a destiny attached to him. That idea shows up again in Halloween Ends decades later.

The movie itself is divisive. The opening sequence, set decades earlier, is often cited as the franchise’s best piece of family backstory.

Halloween: H20

Halloween: H20 is the bridge film, and the cleanest Laurie Strode story the franchise ever produced.

It is set 20 years after the first two films, with Jamie Lee Curtis back as Laurie and Donald Pleasence returning as Dr. Loomis, which makes the ending land hard. It also, quietly, does not pretend films 4, 5 and 6 happened.

That is the retcon in plain view. Rather than explain Jamie Lloyd or the Curse plot, the film treats the original duo as the only continuity that matters.

Watch it seventh in a release-order run and third if you are doing the H20 route. Either way, do not skip it.

Halloween: Resurrection

Halloween: Resurrection was the last Halloween film released in theaters before the 2007 reboot, and it ends on a genuine cliffhanger.

Laurie is institutionalized, Michael is declared dead, and the survivors end up in a reality TV horror show built inside the old Myers house. The finale pulls the mask off and shows a face that is not the Shape.

Plenty of fans in the Halloween movie forums leave it out of the H20 route entirely, because finishing on a flat note ruins the Laurie arc.

My take: watch it once for the closure, then go back to H20 as the real finale of that storyline.

The Halloween Anthology Specials

The anthology specials are television and straight-to-video material, and they sit awkwardly inside the numbered list.

Halloween: The Beginning, released in 2007 on DVD, was produced as a 20th anniversary special tied to H20 and set up the events leading into Resurrection. Treat it as an optional extra between H20 and Resurrection if you want the connective tissue.

Documentaries such as The Unauthorized Halloween Story are companion pieces, not films. They can be genuinely interesting, but they never advance the Myers story.

They do not form one continuous Myers continuity, and they should not be treated as chapter nine of anything. Watch the theatrical films first and add these only if you have run out of franchise.

The Rob Zombie Halloween Remakes

Rob Zombie’s Halloween (2007) and Halloween II (2009) are reimagined versions of the first two films, set in their own universe, not sequels to the whole franchise.

The same events happen: Laurie Strode, the pumpkin, the broken fence, Myers escaping. Nearly everything else is different. The Shape is no longer a supernatural force, the characters are younger and rural, and the mask is a manufactured product tied to a grieving mother’s occult obsession.

Nothing from 1978’s first two films carries over, and nothing from Zombie flows into the 2018 trilogy. It is a closed world of two movies.

How they fit: watch them after the original run as a curiosity, or use them as an alternative entry point if you prefer the more brutal version. Do not try to slot them between films that assume the Shape has real power.

Halloween (2018), Halloween Kills, and Halloween Ends

Watch the modern trilogy consecutively: Halloween (2018), Halloween Kills (2021), then Halloween Ends (2022).

The 2018 film is sold as a sequel to the 1978 original and a soft reboot at the same time. It picks up with Laurie Strode, Annie and an elderly Dr. Loomis, and it ignores Halloween II and all the sequels that followed.

That is another retcon, and the one that causes the most debate. In this route Laurie and Annie’s relationship to Michael is not what the 1981 film established, which is why the 1981 film and the 2018 film should not be treated as one continuous story.

Jamie Lee Curtis leads all three, and the trilogy has a post-credits sting in Ends that fans have spent years debating. Leave the ending alone until you have seen it yourself.

Where Do Newer Halloween Films and Specials Fit?

Anything outside the 13 films is optional. Nothing released after Halloween Ends is required for a complete franchise experience.

There are also knock-off films with Halloween in the title and characters played by familiar genre faces, such as The Slasher and The Hills Run Red. They are not part of the franchise, which is where the idea that there are 20 Halloween movies comes from.

Same with Halloween-themed films that have nothing to do with Michael Myers. Useful for a marathon, irrelevant to the order question.

For streaming, the situation rotates constantly and any list of services goes stale within a season. Check what is available in your region before you plan a marathon night, and treat any article claiming a definitive current home for all 13 as out of date.

Release Order vs. Story Chronology

Release order wins for this franchise, because there are no prequels and no time travel to juggle. Watching by release date tells you how the movies were actually received and how each reboot was sold.

Story chronology only makes sense once you accept that three separate timelines exist and one film sits outside them. That is where the confusion comes from, and it is why the table at the top of this guide matters more than the numbered list.

The films you can safely skip without losing a plot thread:

• Halloween III: Season of the Witch — no Michael Myers, nothing later refers to its plot.
• Halloween 5 — skipped by most viewers on every route except the complete Thorn run.
• Halloween: Resurrection — optional on the H20 route, since it was never followed up.
• The Rob Zombie films — their own universe, safe to ignore entirely.

The films not to skip: Halloween (1978), Halloween II (1981), H20 and the 2018 trilogy. Everything else is a preference.

Tips for the Best Halloween Movie Marathon

Runtimes, so you know what you are signing up for. Figures are approximate and based on the theatrical cuts.

Viewing path	Films	Approx. total runtime
Double feature	1978 + 2018	About 3.3 hours
Best five	1978, 1981, H20, 2018, Ends	About 6.6 hours
Original / Thorn	1978, 1981, 4, 5, Curse	About 7.6 hours
All 13	Everything in release order	About 22 hours

Do not attempt all 13 in one sitting. Twenty-two hours is a two-week project at a reasonable pace, and the fifth film is where most people quit.

Split a marathon into two nights: the originals plus the Thorn run on one evening, H20, Resurrection and the modern trilogy on the next. That gives the Shape a break in the middle and keeps the payoff at the end.

If you dislike a sequel, stop arguing about it. The order that matters is the one you will finish, and every route here works.

No subtitles are needed for the franchise. If you want a quiet October night with the lights on, put Halloween Ends last rather than first.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where to Start Tonight

Put on Halloween (1978), then Halloween II (1981), then jump to H20 and let the modern trilogy follow. That is how to watch the Halloween movies in order for most people, and it costs about six and a half hours.

Save the full 13-film run for a cold October when you have nothing else planned.