What to watch before Sunrise on the Reaping
Nothing is required. Two films make it land about twice as hard.
The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping is out on 20 November 2026.
Updated 28 August 2026 · 3 titles tracked
Sunrise on the Reaping covers the 50th Hunger Games and how Haymitch Abernathy won them, twenty-four years before Katniss volunteers. Nothing in it depends on the other films.
It lands very differently if you already know Haymitch as the wreck he turns into, and that is the one thing the original films give you that the prequel cannot give itself.
The catch-up list, in order
None of it is required. This is the order that makes the prequel land hardest.
- 1The Hunger Games2012 · The Hunger Games · The Original Films
- 2The Hunger Games: Catching Fire2013 · The Hunger Games · The Original Films
- 3The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes2023 · The Hunger Games · The Prequels
Where it sits on Panem’s timeline
Three points on one line. The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is the 10th Games, sixty-four years before Katniss. Sunrise on the Reaping is the 50th, twenty-four years before. The Hunger Games is the 74th.
The 50th is a Quarter Quell, which is part of why it is the one worth telling: twice the usual number of tributes went into that arena.
Why the original films still come first
Haymitch in The Hunger Games and Catching Fire is a drunk who does not want to mentor anyone and cannot be made to care. Sunrise on the Reaping is the explanation for that man. Watching an explanation before the thing it explains costs you most of its effect.
Catching Fire carries more weight here than it looks, because the Quarter Quell rules it turns on are the same machinery that shaped Haymitch’s Games.
Does Songbirds and Snakes count?
Not as preparation. It is a different Games, a different tribute and a much younger Snow, four decades before Haymitch. Watch it for Snow, who is president by the time of Sunrise on the Reaping, and skip it without loss otherwise.
If you are starting from nothing
Watch The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, then go. Both Mockingjay films are the end of Katniss’s story and have nothing to do with the 50th Games.
Common questions
Do I need to watch the Hunger Games films first?
No, it stands alone. But Haymitch is the point of it, and he means far more if you have already seen what he becomes.
Where does Sunrise on the Reaping fit in the timeline?
The 50th Hunger Games: twenty-four years before the first film, and forty years after The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.
Do I need The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes?
No. It is a separate story about a different Games. It is useful only for knowing who Snow was before he was president.
How many Hunger Games films are there?
Five released so far, with Sunrise on the Reaping the sixth.