Summary
- Final Destination series established unique lore through a simple premise, evolving with teeny changes over each movie.
- Final Destination 2 introduced signs of imminent death for multiple characters and highlighted the consequences of defying fate.
- Final Destination 5 revealed key lore aspects, serving as a prequel that unraveled connected deaths and consequences for survivors.
The early 2000s were an experimental time for horror. More gore-heavy franchises like Saw came out, along with adaptations of Japanese classics like The Ring. However, the king of the early 2000s franchises has to be Final Destination.
Final Destination: Every Movie, Ranked
The Final Destination series is home to some truly terrifying flicks, but some are arguably better than others. Here's how they compare.
The premise of Final Destination was so simple and satisfying that it only made sense to make more movies about it. Some people see a disaster happen, outlive it, and then some unknown entity tries to kill those survivors off one by one. Even though the base formula is the same every time, there are small changes made by each entry in the series. From the 2000 original to the latest, Final Destination Bloodlines, let’s go through how the series' lore has changed over the last two decades.
Spoilers Ahead for the Final Destination series.
6 Final Destination
Let’s Set Up The Lore
Final Destination
Display card tags widget Display card community and brand rating widget Display card main info widget- Release Date
- March 17, 2000
WHERE TO WATCH
- Cast
- Devon Sawa, Ali Larter, Kerr Smith, Kristen Cloke, Seann William Scott, Chad Donella, Amanda Detmer, Tony Todd, Daniel Roebuck, Roger Guenveur Smith, Brendan Fehr, Forbes Angus, Lisa Marie Caruk, Christine Chatelain, Robert Wisden, Barbara Tyson, Fred Keating, P. Lynn Johnson, Larry Gilman, Guy Fauchon, Randy Stone, Mark Holden, Marrett Green, John Hainsworth, Pete Atherton
- Runtime
- 98 minutes
- Director
- James Wong
Final Destination begins with a vision of a giant plane crash and a young student, Alex, waking up to find he is still alive, and the plane hasn't crashed...yet. He’s able to convince some fellow students to get off the plane, and then they all watch as it gets destroyed from the airport lobby.
It’s never explained in any of these movies why the protagonists get these visions, but regardless, the whole movie is Alex trying to figure out who will be next. FBI agents are investigating him as he keeps appearing at disaster scenes. The only other piece of lore established is that if someone gets saved, they will go to the back of the line, and then the next person will be killed.
5 Final Destination 2
Beware The BBQ
Final Destination 2
Display card tags widget Display card community and brand rating widget Display card main info widget- Release Date
- January 31, 2003
WHERE TO WATCH
- Cast
- A.J. Cook, Ali Larter, Michael Landes, Terrence T.C. Carson, Jonathan Cherry, keegan connor tracy, Lynda Boyd, James Kirk, Justina Machado, David Paetkau, Tony Todd, Sarah Carter, Alejandro Rae, Shaun Sipos, Andrew Airlie, Noel Fisher, Christina Jastrzembska, Eileen Pedde
- Runtime
- 90 Minutes
- Director
- David R. Ellis
Final Destination 2 involves a highway scene where a log truck causes a giant car pileup. Even in the best racing games, no one could try and recreate this magical carnage. Kimberly and her friends are on their way to spring break, but other than her, they all die, although she does save a few strangers by causing a ruckus on the highway. This was the first and only movie in the series to have a surviving character from the last movie, Clear Rivers, carry over to the sequel, but she also dies.
Final Destination: 10 Best Death Scenes From The Movies, Ranked
No other horror movie franchise has mastered the art of death scenes better than Final Destination. These are its best death scenes.
What’s new this time is that other people can see Death approaching through visions, although it’s still mostly Kimberly taking the initiative. More so than that, suicide is impossible for anyone under the curse, because one character, Eugene, puts a revolver to his head, and all six bullets end up being duds. Finally, this was the first movie to show that someone saved by a character marked by Death can get killed instead of them, as seen with the BBQ explosion.
4 Final Destination 3
Look At This Photograph
Final Destination 3
Display card tags widget Display card community and brand rating widget Display card main info widget- Release Date
- February 10, 2006
- Runtime
- 92 minutes
- Director
- James Wong
- Cast
- Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ryan Merriman, Kris Lemche, Alexz Johnson, Sam Easton, Jesse Moss, Gina Holden, Texas Battle, Chelan Simmons, Amanda Crew, Yan-Kay Crystal Lowe, Tony Todd, Ecstasia Sanders, Jody Racicot, Patrick Gallagher, Maggie Ma, Jim Shield, Cory Monteith, Dylan Basu, Alberto Ghisi, Stuart Cowan, Harris Allan, Alexandr Kalugin, Nels Lennarson, Jacob Rupp
Final Destination 3 took a big leap by introducing the photograph warnings. The initial accident happened at a school fair for seniors, wherein one of the rollercoasters went wild and killed everyone on board. Wendy was the lead who was taking pictures for her Journalism class throughout the carnival.
After the incident, she starts to notice that some deaths mimicked those in the photographs, prompting her to try to predict how other people were going to die. It was also the first movie that completely killed its entire surviving cast by the end, with another big crash, this time involving a subway derailment, eliminating its characters for good.
3 The Final Destination
Double Visions In 3D
The Final Destination
Display card tags widget Display card community and brand rating widget Display card main info widget- Release Date
- August 28, 2009
- Runtime
- 82 minutes
- Director
- David R. Ellis
- Cast
- Bobby Campo, Shantel VanSanten, Nick Zano, Haley Webb, Mykelti Williamson, Krista Allen, Andrew Fiscella, Justin Welborn, Stephanie Honoré, Lara Grice, Jackson Walker, Phil Austin, William Aguillard, Brendan Aguillard, Monique Detraz, Chris Fry, Tina Parker, Cecile Monteyne, Dane Rhodes, Gabrielle Chapin, Harold Evans, Curtis Akin, Eric Paulsen, Dennis Nguyen, Jedda Jones
The Final Destination is the fourth movie in the series, and it is all about a NASCAR-like disaster. The big gimmick involved 3D for a lot of its kills, which didn’t change the lore at all, but it certainly made the film unique, in both good and bad ways.
Nick was the survivor in this one. He was trying to save his friends and random people from the track. The big surprise at the end was a movie theater exploding, which turned out to be another fake-out, something that had never happened on that scale in the series before. Still, Nick and his two friends were eventually killed by a truck, mirroring the end of Final Destination 3, where no one was allowed to survive.
2 Final Destination 5
Kill Or Be Killed
Final Destination 5
Display card tags widget Display card community and brand rating widget Display card main info widget- Release Date
- August 12, 2011
WHERE TO WATCH
- Cast
- Nicholas D'Agosto, Emma Bell, Miles Fisher, Courtney B. Vance, David Koechner, Arlen Escarpeta, Jacqueline MacInnes Wood, P.J. Byrne, Ellen Wroe, Tony Todd, Brent Stait, Roman Podhora, Jasmin Dring, Barclay Hope, Chasty Ballesteros, Mike Dopud, Tanya Hubbard, Frank Topol, Tim Fellingham, Blaine Anderson, Dawn Chubai, Ryan Hesp, Andy Nez, Diana Pavlovská, Jodi Balfour
- Runtime
- 91 minutes
- Director
- Steven Quale
Final Destination 5 had a few big reveals to add to the lore. First, viewers may have been able to figure it out earlier based on context clues like technology, but it was a prequel to the original film , which ended with the plane crash that kicked off the series. Sam and his girlfriend, Molly, are on their way to Paris because Sam got a new job as a chef, which is when the plane explodes.
The beginning of the movie is about a bridge collapse, and in Sam’s vision, there is a survivor, Molly. Someone surviving in a vision had never been done before. Also, it was established that if a survivor killed someone, they would absorb their life. Molly does die, though, as previously mentioned, and even those who killed someone else still died, so that change to the lore was only semi-permanent.
1 Final Destination Bloodlines
Family Ties
Final Destination Bloodlines
Display card tags widget Display card community and brand rating widget Display card main info widget- Release Date
- May 16, 2025
- Cast
- Kaitlyn Santa Juana, Teo Briones, Rya Kihlstedt, Richard Harmon, Owen Patrick Joyner, Anna Lore, Brec Bassinger, Tony Todd, Andrew Tinpo Lee, Gabrielle Rose, Alex Zahara, April Telek, Max Lloyd-Jones, Brenna Llewellyn, Natasha Burnett, Mark Brandon, Yvette Ferguson, Travis Turner, Janelle Beadall, Panou, Jeanie Cloutier, Matty Finochio, Garfield Wilson, Shawn C. Orr, Bernard Cuffling
- Runtime
- 110 minutes
- Director
- Zach Lipovsky, Adam B. Stein
Final Destination Bloodlines is a major change for the series, as it’s technically a prequel like the fifth movie, or at least the beginning is. In the 1960s, a woman named Iris survives a tragedy in a restaurant, but because of her premonition, she prevents the deaths of everyone involved. That causes a ripple effect in time as Death has to eliminate multiple bloodlines, one family at a time, which took decades.
Final Destination Bloodlines begins with Death’s eyes set on Iris’ family, the Campbells. Because of this backstory, this could explain all the other events in the franchise by connecting the victims to survivors of the restaurant tragedy via their ancestors. Also, William Bludworth, the mortician played by the late Tony Todd, who appears in most of these movies, was a survivor along with Iris from all those years ago, which explains how he knew so much about the curse and was always lingering around the fringes of Death's retribution.
7 Lingering Questions We Have After The End Of Until Dawn Movie
When the credits roll on the Until Dawn movie, some unanswered questions linger in the background, leaving the door open for a sequel.