The DCEU · Connected
Birds of Prey
Newly single Harley Quinn collides with a Gotham crime lord and unlikely allies.
One scene during the credits
Availability changes by country and by week, so this searches JustWatch rather than guessing.
Can you skip Birds of Prey?
Yes, on a first watch. It is self-contained, and nothing in the main DC story depends on it. What it does leave behind is one scene during the credits. In chronological order, reaching it takes about 30h 9m of essential viewing across 13 titles. Show only the DC essentials.
Skippable, and considerably better than its commercial reception. It is a small, fast crime comedy about a woman who has lost the protection her relationship gave her and is now fair game to everybody in Gotham she has wronged, which is a sharper premise than the title suggests.
The action is the best reason to watch it. Chad Stahelski's team worked on sequences in the film and it shows: long takes, legible geography, and a fight in a police evidence room with glitter cannons that is among the best in any DC film. Margot Robbie is clearly doing a large share of it herself.
The structure is the weak point, with an unreliable narrator jumping backwards repeatedly in the first half hour to introduce characters, which slows a film whose chief virtue is pace. Ewan McGregor plays the villain as a vain, thin-skinned club owner and is genuinely unsettling in one scene involving a woman's dress.
It was retitled after release when the marketing proved confusing, which is a rare admission. Nothing before it is needed beyond knowing who Harley is, and nothing after refers to it.
DC guides
Where it sits in the DC order
- Release order
- #28 of 52
- Chronological order
- #30 of 52
- Released
- 7 February 2020
- In-universe era
- The DCEU
What to watch next
In release order
In chronological order