Star Trek Watch Order

8 Sept 1966

Three seasons that invented the whole thing. Set in the 2260s.

8 Sept 1973

A short animated continuation with most of the original cast returning to voice their roles.

7 Dec 1979

Slow, strange and ambitious. A very different film from every sequel it produced.

4 Jun 1982

The best Star Trek film, and the one everything afterwards is measured against.

1 Jun 1984

A direct sequel to Khan. The middle film of an unofficial trilogy.

26 Nov 1986

The crew travels to 1986 San Francisco to save some whales. Far better than that sounds.

9 Jun 1989

Shatner directs a search for God. Widely regarded as the low point.

6 Dec 1991

A Cold War allegory and a proper send-off for the original crew.

28 Sept 1987

Seven seasons in the 24th century. The best entry point into Star Trek as a whole.

3 Jan 1993

A space station, a long war, and the most serialised and morally complicated series here.

18 Nov 1994

The handover film, bringing Kirk and Picard together across seventy-eight years.

16 Jan 1995

A ship stranded seventy years from home. Runs concurrently with much of Deep Space Nine.

22 Nov 1996

The Next Generation cast versus the Borg. The strongest of the TNG films by some distance.

11 Dec 1998

A smaller, gentler entry that plays like an extended episode.

26 Sept 2001

A prequel set a century before Kirk, in humanity's first years of deep-space travel.

13 Dec 2002

The last TNG film, and the entry that closed the era for seven years.

8 May 2009

A time-travel incident creates a separate timeline, and a new cast plays the original crew.

16 May 2013

A reworking of Wrath of Khan that the timeline change was supposed to make unnecessary.

22 Jul 2016

The most Star Trek-feeling of the three, and the last of the Kelvin films so far.

24 Sept 2017

Starts a decade before Kirk, then jumps nine hundred years forward at the end of season two.

23 Jan 2020

Picard two decades after Nemesis. Season three functions as the TNG finale the films never delivered.

6 Aug 2020

An animated comedy about the crew nobody writes episodes about. Assumes a lot of prior knowledge.

28 Oct 2021

Aimed at younger viewers, and the best on-ramp for anyone starting from nothing.

5 May 2022

Captain Pike's Enterprise, a few years before Kirk. Episodic, warm, and the easiest modern entry point.

24 Jan 2025

A streaming film following Philippa Georgiou and Starfleet's deniable intelligence division.

15 Jan 2026

A Discovery spin-off set in the 32nd century, following cadets rebuilding Starfleet.