How to Watch The Texas Chain Saw Massacre Movies in Order 2026

Start with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), then watch the four films that follow it in release order: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), Texas Chainsaw 3D (2013), Leatherface (2017) and Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022). That five-film route takes about seven hours, and it is the whole franchise for most people. Everything else is optional.

The confusion is real, and it comes from one thing: the series keeps restarting. Leatherface has appeared in ten released films across four separate continuities, and the cannibal family changes names each time they do. A sequel continues a story, a prequel backs up before it, and a reboot throws the story away and starts over with the same characters. Once you know which one you’re looking at, the whole watch order gets about ten seconds long.

A few ground rules before we start. I use the exact titles below, which matters more than it sounds: the first film’s name has a space in it (Chain Saw), and almost every film after it drops that space (Chainsaw). Two of the films have confusingly similar titles from completely different decades. And the 2022 Netflix film is a sequel to 1974, not to anything else, which surprises a lot of people.

Step-by-Step: How to Watch the Texas Chain Saw Massacre Movies in Order

This route treats the franchise as one spine with a detached branch hanging off it. Five films, in release order, starting from the original. The Legacy sequels get their own section below.

Film	Year	What It Is	Director	Runtime
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre	1974	The original	Tobe Hooper	83 min
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre	2003	Remake of the original	Marcus Nispel	98 min
Texas Chainsaw 3D	2013	Prequel to the 2003 remake	John Deranbeyioglu	85 min
Leatherface	2017	Origin story, set decades before the 2003 remake	Alexandre Bustillo	90 min
Texas Chainsaw Massacre	2022	Sequel to the 1974 original	David Yarovesky	90 min

1. Watch The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

Nothing works without this one. Tobe Hooper’s original is 83 minutes long, was shot on a shoestring budget, and turned a real unsolved case, Ed Gein’s, into a slasher picture that still holds up. Five friends drive to a condemned Texas house to pick up an old chainsaw, and the family living there decides not to let them leave.

Gunnar Hansen plays Leatherface in a skin mask, Marilyn Burns plays Sally Hardesty, and Jim Siedow plays the owner of the house, Buf Hammond. The violence is genuinely brutal, and the film was rated PG on release before being reclassified as R years later. It is the rare old slasher that is still frightening rather than just gory.

A spoiler note before you go further: Leatherface is never confirmed to have a real first name in the 1974 film. If you see a guide telling you his name is Jed, that came from a sequel. So when I say how to watch the Texas Chain Saw Massacre movies in order, film one is genuinely the place where everything starts.

2. Watch The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

Marcus Nispel’s film is a remake, not a sequel. It tells the same story as 1974 with a modern cast: Matthew McConaughey plays Drayton Sawyer, Jessica Biel plays Paige, and Andrew Bryniarski wears the mask. The characters have new names and the deaths are different, but the bones are the same.

Do you need to remember details from 1974 to understand it? No. Nothing in the 2003 film requires prior knowledge. Watch it as its own thing, which is also why a lot of people meet this version first and only discover the original later.

Fan opinion on this one splits harder than any other film in the series. Reviewers consistently note that it was savaged when it came out and reads very differently now that the films released after it are widely regarded as the weaker ones. McConaughey’s chain-dragging monologue alone has a fan following.

3. Watch Texas Chainsaw 3D (2013)

This one is a prequel to the 2003 remake, which is why it comes third rather than second. Texas Chainsaw 3D backs up to show the final weekend of the Sawyer family before Drayton’s death. Bill Moseley returns as Booth Sawyer, and Dan Yeager plays Leatherface, giving the character a surname for the first time in the modern films.

You can watch it before or after the 2003 film and see the same events. That is prequel logic, and it is worth repeating because franchise fans argue about it constantly. Both work. If you are going for story order inside this branch, watch 2013 first, then 2003.

It is also the film people skip most often. Horror fans on r/slasherfilms and r/HorrorMovies describe it as a slasher with no pursuer in it, since Leatherface spends so much of the runtime waiting in a car. Understandable, but you are skipping the hinge between the two Sawyer branches.

4. Watch Leatherface (2017)

Alexandre Bustillo’s Leatherface is an origin story. It gives the character a childhood, a name worth noticing, and a family origin that explains the mask and the silence. Stephen Samuels plays young Leatherface, Sam Strike plays him as a teenager, and Stephen Amell heads the cast as the sheriff who eventually puts the family behind bars.

It connects most closely to the 2003 branch, because the Sawyer house and a few family members show up in it. It also shares sets and crew with Texas Chainsaw 3D, which is why so many people treat the two 2010s films as one continuous block.

For a straight franchise watch, put it fourth. It functions as a prequel to everything modern, so the only real risk is that a spoiler about its ending makes the other two films feel less surprising.

5. Watch Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022), the Sequel to 1974

This is the one that trips people up. Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the Netflix film directed by David Yarovesky, is a direct sequel to the 1974 original. It is not connected to the 2003 remake, Texas Chainsaw 3D or Leatherface. Nothing that happened in those films carries over.

The premise is simple: 50 years after Sally Hardesty escaped the house, a group of young people celebrating a birthday near the same abandoned property runs into Leatherface. Sophie Thatcher plays Melody, the survivor trying to get everyone out, and Elsie Fisher plays her sister Lila.

It works for two kinds of viewer. If you want a modern slasher with a fresh cast and almost no legacy weight, it is an easy entry point. If you want the payoff to a specific moment in 1974, watch the original first, which is why it sits at the end of this route rather than the start.

Where Do the Legacy Sequels Fit?

Four films fall outside the core route. Horror fans tend to treat them as a separate branch that branches off the original, because each one resets the family, changes the setting or jumps forward in time without carrying plot forward from the previous film.

1. A Beginning from the End (1977). A fan edit of the 1974 original by Cavil Gore, reassembled from the theatrical cut. It is not a studio film and no new footage exists, but fans credit it with restoring atmosphere the studio release smoothed over. Some fans even claim they discovered the franchise here before seeking out 1974. Optional in the purest sense.

2. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986). Tobe Hooper directing again, 13 years after the first film, with Dennis Hopper as a corrupt Texas Ranger and Bill Moseley introducing Chop Top. It is black comedy played almost straight, and reviewers consistently single it out as the franchise’s most fun film and the one most outsiders miss.

3. Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990). A twin-brother variation, with Bill Moseley returning and Katey Sagal playing one of the two Sawyers. Where part two leaned comedic, this one plays the cannibal family straight and gets grim fast.

4. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre: The Next Generation (1995). Later re-cut as The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and given a limited release, which is why some guides list it as 1994 and others as 1995. Both dates have a basis, and the 1995 release is the safer one to use. Leatherface is absent for long stretches, which is why it is frequently described as the low point of the series.

Watch these four in that order if you want them, but treat the branch as a bonus rather than a requirement. Every one of them changes the family, the location or the rules, so there is no version of this franchise where you are catching up on a plot by skipping them.

Common Mistakes and Viewing Tips

Assuming the 2003 film continues the 1974 story. It does not. Different characters, different names, different deaths. Treat it as a remake.

Expecting Texas Chainsaw 3D to pick up where 2003 ended. It runs the other way. It shows what happened before, so either order works inside that branch.

Treating Leatherface (2017) as a sequel. It is an origin story, and it is the last of the modern Sawyer films rather than a bridge between them.

Assuming the 2022 Netflix film follows Texas Chainsaw 3D. It follows 1974. Skip the 2003 to 2017 branch entirely and the 2022 film still makes complete sense.

Looking for All American Massacre. A standalone horror film shot in the early 1990s that was never released. Its footage was recycled into later franchise films, and several “complete” lists give it a release year it never had.

Worrying about the name change. Sawyer through 1995, Hewitt in the modern films. Same family concept, new actors, new names, new story. That is a reboot pattern, not a retcon you missed.

Waiting for a censored cut that never came. The 1974 film is the one that gets asked about most, and it was released in an uncut theatrical version. It was re-rated from PG to R in later years and remains restricted or unrated in some countries, which is where most of the banning talk online comes from. Expect graphic content throughout the series, especially in 1974 and in the Leatherface origin material.

Timing a marathon wrong. The core five films run about 7 hours 26 minutes. Adding the Legacy branch pushes the total past 12 hours, so a full franchise run needs two nights unless you like sitting.

The franchise has no announced next installment as of 2026, and the 2022 film was deliberately built as a starting point rather than a finale. Plenty of fans mark the viewing season with the unofficial Texas Chain Saw Day, a short theatrical rerelease event in late January, if you want a reason to watch in a room with other people.

Frequently Asked Questions

Start with the 1974 Original

Begin with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) tonight, then move forward through the 2003 remake, Texas Chainsaw 3D, Leatherface and the 2022 Netflix sequel. That is a complete, coherent route through the Texas Chain Saw Massacre movies in order, and it takes about seven and a half hours. Save the 1986, 1990 and 1995 Legacy films for a second night when you want to see where the franchise went in between.