What’s The Best Order To Watch The Star Trek Movies?
Boldly go... carefully.
For nearly 60 years, no other science fiction franchise has created more content, inspired more fans, and influenced culture more deeply than Star Trek. While Star Wars may be more populist and Doctor Who more cultist, there are simply more hours of Star Trek than most other big sci-fi universes. With 12 distinct TV series (counting the upcoming Starfleet Academy) and 14 separate films (counting Section 31), the Final Frontier is massive.
For longtime fans, the various TV series are the true core of the show, a format that is capable of exploring various types of stories, mashing up genres, and delivering nuanced, unique storytelling. But, in terms of sheer popularity, the gateway to the Star Trek universe is almost always one of the feature films. So, you’ve decided to watch the Star Trek movies, and you’re wondering what’s the best order? Here are a few different strategies for watching the Star Trek feature films, ranging from the straightforward to the most unhinged way possible.
Star Trek Movies In Release Order
Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the first big-screen adventure of the Enterprise crew.
The easiest way, of course, to watch any franchise is in the order in which the movies were released. Watching Star Trek movies in this way will give you a kind of crash course in how franchises evolve, but will also reflect the history of sci-fi cinema from 1979 to basically the present day. Here’s how that watch order shakes out:
- Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
- Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
- Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)
- Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
- Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)
- Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)
- Star Trek Generations (1994)
- Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
- Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)
- Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)
- Star Trek [reboot] (2009)
- Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)
- Star Trek Beyond (2016)
- Star Trek: Section 31 (2025)
The disadvantages of this watch order are numerous, however. First, setting aside Section 31, there are, essentially, three different film series here: the adventures of the crew from The Original Series (the first six, numbered movies), four Next Generation movies (1994-2002), and three movies focused on the reboot crew. In other words, Star Trek Beyond is not “Star Trek 13.” Within its own series, it’s “Star Trek 3.”
The Evens-Only Star Trek Movie Watch Order
Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: First Contact.
Speaking of Star Trek Beyond, which was co-written by Simon Pegg, there’s a great, infamous Pegg quote from his wonderful TV series Spaced in which his character Tim says: “I mean, it’s a fact, sure as day follows night, sure as eggs is eggs, sure as every odd-numbered Star Trek movie is sh*t.”
This long-held fan belief is basically a way to create a superstitious watch order: Only watch even-numbered Star Trek movies. This doesn’t really work for the reboot movies, which, arguably, created the reverse trend insofar as Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek Beyond are generally considered decent, while Star Trek Into Darkness is... well... accurately titled.
It also doesn’t quite work for the Next Generation movies, since you’d be ending this list with Nemesis, which is easily the worst of the TNG films. But, if you modify this watch order slightly by excluding the reboot movies and Nemesis, you’ll get a tight, four-movie binge, which is literally banger after banger.
That watch order would look like this:
- Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
- Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
- Star Trek IV: The Undiscovered Country (1991)
- Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
The Genesis Trilogy Watch Order
Star Trek: III, the middle of a trilogy?
While all the Star Trek movies are, in a sense, technically sequels, the only three movies that are direct sequels to each other are II, III, and IV. Shepherded by producer Harve Bennett, and with writing from the legendary Nicholas Meyer and Leonard Nimoy himself, these three films tell one complete story, one about life, mortality, and rebirth. Each movie picks up just a few months after the previous one ended, and concludes with a hopeful reset button for the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. If you have ever only watched three Star Trek movies, you could do no worse than these three.
We’re calling this the “Genesis Trilogy” because the concept of the Genesis Device is what kicks the whole thing off. The watch order for the Genesis Trilogy would be:
- Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
- Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)
- Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
The Story Of Captain Kirk Watch Order
Captain Kirk (William Shatner) in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.
Are you mostly interested in the greatest space hero of all time? The outer space Hemingway, who rides horses as well as he punches out bad guys? Then you can focus just on the story of James T. Kirk, if you want. And that binge would include all the original six films, plus one more.
- Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
- Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
- Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)
- Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
- Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)
- Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)
- Star Trek Generations (1994)
If you wanted to make yourself cry, you could finish this binge off with the 2024 short film, “765874 - Unification.” If you know, you know.
The Story Of Spock Watch Order
Spock (Leonard Nimoy) in The Undiscovered Country.
For most fans, it’s hard to top the greatness of the character of Spock. Whether you love Leonard Nimoy, Zachary Quinto, or Ethan Peck, Spock is, in almost every way, the poster child for what makes Star Trek great.
And, if you wanted to only follow the chronological story of Spock — at least Spock from the Prime Timeline — there is a fun, quirky watch order for that. Because Spock time-travels to the Kelvin Universe in the reboot movies, his eventual fate happens in the past of another dimension. So, here’s how to follow the journey of Spock in one specific watch order:
- Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
- Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
- Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)
- Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
- Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)
- Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)
- Star Trek [the reboot] (2009)
- Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)
- Star Trek Beyond (2016)
The Next Generation Watch Order
Data (Brent Spiner) in Star Trek Generations (1994)
OK, let’s break a rule here. Although this list is focused only on the feature films, The Next Generation is unique insofar as it’s the only part of the Star Trek franchise that started on the small screen, jumped to the big screen, and then, 20 years later, continued again on the small screen.
In short, Star Trek: The Next Generation effectively continued with Star Trek: Picard, starting in 2020, which was a direct sequel to the 2002 feature film, Nemesis. And, if you were binging just the TNG movies and you ended that binge with Star Trek: Nemesis, you’d be so frustrated and sad. So, here’s the true TNG watch order, with the ending that the crew deserved, all thanks to Picard Season 3.
- Star Trek Generations (1994)
- Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
- Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)
- Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)
- Star Trek: Picard Season 3, Episodes 1-10 (2023)
The crew of the Enterprise-D in Picard Season 3.
If you wanted to get really wild here and view the biggest TNG two-part episodes as movies, you could make a custom TNG binge that would look like this:
- Star Trek: The Next Generation “Encounter at Farpoint” (1987)
- Star Trek: The Next Generation “The Best of Both Worlds Parts 1 and 2” (1990)
- Star Trek: The Next Generation “All Good Things...” (1994)
- Star Trek Generations (1994)
- Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
- Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)
- Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)
- Star Trek: Picard Season 3, Episodes 9 & 10, “Vox,” and “The Last Generation” (2023)
The Share Your Pain Star Trek Watch Order
“Must be all those marsh melons.”
Do you want to nitpick Star Trek? Do you feel like the best of times should be celebrated with the worst of times? Are you suspicious that your love of Star Trek co-mingles with your tendency to complain about Star Trek? Well, perhaps you’re looking for the painful watch order. And, as Spock’s brother, Sybok, taught us, the only way to fight your pain is to share it with others.
Here’s the truly painful Star Trek watch order:
- Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)
- Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)
- Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)
- Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)
- Star Trek: Section 31 (2025)
