Halloween in release order
John Carpenter's Halloween opens the list in October 1978, and Halloween II follows in October 1981. Halloween III: Season of the Witch, the one without Michael Myers, came a year later. Halloween 4 and 5 arrived in consecutive Octobers in 1988 and 1989, and The Curse of Michael Myers closed that run in 1995. Halloween H20 brought Jamie Lee Curtis back in 1998, followed by Halloween: Resurrection in 2002. Rob Zombie's remake came in 2007 with its sequel in 2009. Halloween in 2018, Halloween Kills in 2021 and Halloween Ends in 2022 close the list. No two of them were released together, so release order is simply the order of these thirteen dates.
How to read this table
Everything is in the order it came out, oldest first. The columns:
- Air date — when the entry was first released. Where a page carries something first seen outside the United States, that is the date used, and the notes under the table say so.
- Sch — schedule order, which breaks a tie within a single day. On a night two of these went out, the earlier slot comes first - and a streaming episode that dropped after midnight comes before a programme broadcast that evening.
- Notes — click Notes ... on any row for the episode's links and, where there is one, an explanation of the cross-over.
- Watch — where you can watch that entry, in your own country. The badges link to the episode itself rather than to the service's front page. On a narrow screen this column is hidden - tap Notes ... on a row to see the same thing.
- Watched — tick a box and it is remembered in this browser. Turn syncing on in Preferences and it follows you between devices, with no account and no email address. An episode listed on more than one franchise is ticked on all of them at once.
Three icons can appear in the Notes cell, and they are the reason this site bothers with release order at all:
Story impact — this episode references another series in the franchise.
Story arc — it is part of a story running across several series.
Guest star — a character from another series appears in it.
In the Watch column, the shape of a badge is the difference between watching something now and paying for it again:
- P+ Solid — included with a subscription to that service.
- P+ Outlined — there to rent or buy.
Your country is worked out from your connection and can be changed in Preferences. It is a snapshot rather than a live check, so treat it as a strong hint rather than a promise — services add and drop things constantly.
| Air DateDate | Schedule OrderSch | Verse | Series | SeasonS | EpisodeE | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1978-10-25 | 1 | HALLOWEEN | Original films | 1 | 1 | Halloween | Notes ... |
| 1981-10-30 | 1 | HALLOWEEN | Original films | 1 | 2 | Halloween II | Notes ... |
| 1982-10-22 | 1 | HALLOWEEN | Standalone film | 1 | 1 | Halloween III: Season of the Witch | Notes ... |
| 1988-10-21 | 1 | HALLOWEEN | Thorn films | 1 | 1 | Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers | Notes ... |
| 1989-10-13 | 1 | HALLOWEEN | Thorn films | 1 | 2 | Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers | Notes ... |
| 1995-09-29 | 1 | HALLOWEEN | Thorn films | 1 | 3 | Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers | Notes ... |
| 1998-08-05 | 1 | HALLOWEEN | H20 films | 1 | 1 | Halloween H20: 20 Years Later | Notes ... |
| 2002-07-12 | 1 | HALLOWEEN | H20 films | 1 | 2 | Halloween: Resurrection | Notes ... |
| 2007-08-31 | 1 | HALLOWEEN | Rob Zombie films | 1 | 1 | Halloween | Notes ... |
| 2009-08-28 | 1 | HALLOWEEN | Rob Zombie films | 1 | 2 | Halloween II | Notes ... |
| 2018-10-19 | 1 | HALLOWEEN | Blumhouse films | 1 | 1 | Halloween | Notes ... |
| 2021-10-15 | 1 | HALLOWEEN | Blumhouse films | 1 | 2 | Halloween Kills | Notes ... |
| 2022-10-14 | 1 | HALLOWEEN | Blumhouse films | 1 | 3 | Halloween Ends | Notes ... |
About this order
Thirteen films about one night in Haddonfield, Illinois, and the man who keeps coming home to it - plus one that has nothing to do with him. They were made over forty-four years by changing hands, and the later ones keep starting the story again, so release order is the only order all thirteen agree on.
What is on this list
Every Halloween film released in cinemas. That is all there is on screen: there has never been a Halloween television series, television film, official short or web series.
Five timelines
The films do not form one story, and several of them say outright that earlier ones did not happen.
The first two films are one night, told in two parts. Halloween 4, 5 and The Curse of Michael Myers continue from them, through Laurie Strode's daughter Jamie and the cult of Thorn.
Halloween III: Season of the Witch is unconnected. It comes from a plan, soon dropped, to make each film a new Halloween story. Within it, a television advertises a showing of the 1978 film.
Halloween H20 ignores 4, 5 and Curse, follows on from Halloween II, and finds Laurie alive and living under another name. Halloween: Resurrection continues from H20.
Rob Zombie's Halloween starts again from the beginning, with its own Michael, Laurie and Loomis, and his Halloween II continues that version.
Halloween (2018) is a direct sequel to the 1978 film and nothing else, forty years on, which means Laurie is no longer Michael's sister. Halloween Kills picks up the same night, and Halloween Ends finishes the story four years later.
Each timeline is its own series in the table: Original films for the first two, then Standalone film, Thorn films, H20 films, Rob Zombie films and Blumhouse films. To follow just one, switch the others off above the table. The first two films stay on for every timeline that continues from them: the 1978 film for Thorn, H20 and Blumhouse, and Halloween II for Thorn and H20. Everything is still in the order it was released.
The first Halloween's date
The 1978 film did not open everywhere at once. It began in Kansas City, then went to Chicago, then New York and Los Angeles, and spread city by city from there. This list dates it 25 October 1978, its first showings in Kansas City. Wikipedia's film article gives 27 October, the first Friday, in one place and 24 October in another.
Three films called Halloween
Three of the films are called just Halloween (1978, 2007 and 2018), and two are called Halloween II (1981 and 2009). They are listed under the titles they were released with; the date and the series tell them apart.
Versions that are not on this list
Several films exist in more than one cut, and none of those is listed separately, because each is a version of a film already here. When NBC first showed Halloween on television, on 30 October 1981, the night Halloween II opened, it carried about twelve minutes filmed for that broadcast. The Producer's Cut of The Curse of Michael Myers is a substantially different film from the one released in 1995, with a different ending; it was first officially released in 2014. Halloween II has a television cut, H20 has a longer version FX showed in 2003, both Rob Zombie films have director's cuts, and Halloween Kills has an extended cut with an alternate ending.
What is still open
The rights to a Halloween television series were sold in 2023. No episode, cast or network has been announced, and in 2026 the plan was reported to have changed to a new film instead. Neither is dated, so neither is here yet.
Where the links go
Every film links to IMDb, to its Wikipedia article and to the Halloween Series Wiki.