Star Trek timeline – how to watch all the movies and TV shows in order
ParamountWhether you’re new to the franchise or a seasoned voyager on board the USS Enterprise, the Star Trek timeline is not a simple path to follow. So, here’s all the Star Trek movies and TV shows in order.
It brings us great joy to see that Star Trek is enjoying something of a revival of late, largely thanks to Paramount Plus releasing new TV shows regularly. And, there’s plenty more on the way, too.
We’re still holding out hope for Star Trek 4 to come to fruition, but even it never happens, there’s still so much sci-fi fun to wile away the hours in this franchise.
From Star Trek captains of bygone eras, to the more modern takes on the big and small screen, here’s the Star Trek timeline explained.
Star Trek movies and TV shows in chronological order
To watch the Star Trek timeline in chronological order, you’d start in the year 2252 with the first season of Discovery, watch a load of films and TV shows in between, before ending in the year 3190 with the fifth season of Discovery.
ParamountStar Trek in chronological order:
- Star Trek: Discovery Season 1-2 (2252)
- Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2259-2260)
- Star Trek: The Original Series (2265-2269)
- Star Trek: The Animated Series (2269-2270)
- Star Trek: The Motion Picture (2270)
- Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan (2285)
- Star Trek 3: The Search for Spock (2285)
- Star Trek 4: The Voyage Home (2286)
- Star Trek 5: The Final Frontier (2287)
- Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country (2293)
- Star Trek: The Next Generation (2364-2370)
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (2369-2375)
- Star Trek: Generations (2371)
- Star Trek: Voyager (2371-2378)
- Star Trek: First Contact (2373)
- Star Trek: Nemesis (2379)
- Star Trek: Lower Decks (2380-2381)
- Star Trek: Prodigy (2383)
- Star Trek: Picard (2399-2402)
- Star Trek: Discovery Season 3-5 (3188-3190)
This is known as the Prime timeline, and is separate from the Kelvin timeline established by J.J Abrams’ movies.
The Star Trek movies are easy enough to work your way through in chronological order. You’ve got six William Shatner era movies, followed by Patrick Stewart’s crew and their trilogy.
The TV shows are a bit more complex. The early seasons of Discovery and Strange New Worlds all preface The Original Series and its animated counterpart. The Next Generation kickstarted a new era for the franchise, taking us 100 years into the future from the Shatner show.
Since then, we’ve boarded different Starfleet starships across different sectors of space and traveled many years into the future. While Deep Space Nine and Voyager take place roughly around the same period of time as The Next Generation, Lower Decks and Prodigy are different animals entirely, not least for their animated format.
Picard is, as you may expect, all about Patrick Stewart’s brilliant Jean-Luc Picard and picks up with the legendary character some 30 years after his tenure on board the Enterprise-D.
Finally, Discovery’s third, fourth, and fifth take us almost 1000 years into the future from the first two installments and hundreds of years beyond any timeline involving James T Kirk or Jean-Luc Picard.
Star Trek: The Kelvin timeline
The Kelvin timeline makes things even more complex, as the trilogy of movies and the Enterprise TV show are part of a different branch of the franchise entirely.
Paramount PicturesHere’s the Kelvin timeline chronology:
- Star Trek: Enterprise (2151-2161)
- Star Trek (2259)
- Star Trek: Into Darkness (2259-2260)
- Star Trek: Beyond (2264)
To put it simply, when the Narada attack led by Captain Nero occurs in the 2009 Star Trek movie, it causes a split in the timeline, canonically. This means that the events of Enterprise still happened in this timeline, but everything else was affected, and even wiped out of existence.
If you’re a stickler for canon and consistency, you’re best off watching these three movies and Enterprise separately to the rest of the franchise. That said, watching Enterprise as part of the Prime timeline wouldn’t necessarily be wrong, either.
Star Trek timeline in release order
Watching Star Trek in order by release date is a lot easier, and frankly, the franchise still makes sense if you do it this way. The Star Trek timeline begins with The Original Series, which launched in 1966, and the most recent entry in the franchise is Strange New Worlds Season 2.
ParamountHere’s how to follow the Star Trek timeline in release order:
- Star Trek: The Original Series (1966-1969)
- Star Trek: The Animated Series (1973-1974)
- Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
- Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
- Star Trek 3: The Search for Spock (1984)
- Star Trek 4: The Voyage Home (1986)
- Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994)
- Star Trek 5: The Final Frontier (1989)
- Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country (1991)
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-1999)
- Star Trek: Generations (1994)
- Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001)
- Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
- Star Trek: Insurrections (1998)
- Star Trek: Enterprise (2001-2005)
- Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)
- Star Trek (2009)
- Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013)
- Star Trek: Beyond (2016)
- Star Trek: Discovery (2017-2024)
- Star Trek: Picard (2020-2023)
- Star Trek: Lower Decks (2020-present)
- Star Trek: Prodigy (2021-present)
- Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2022-present)
You can keep it very simple by doing things this way, starting off with the nostalgic charm of William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and the crew. Begin with the original TV series, then dive into the big screen adventures of the USS Enterprise — Wrath of Khan is literally one of the best sci-fi movies ever made, by the way.
Then, bridge the gap between the first crew and the new team led by Patrick Stewart by watching lots of The Next Generation shows and movies starring the legendary actor. The fun thing is, the first movie in this era, Generations, even has a brief cameo from Shatner and co.
Star Trek took some time out in the early 2000s but came back with a bang thanks to J.J. Abrams’s revamped movie trilogy. Starring Chris Pine, these films are good fun and offer a fresh, modern take on the franchise while still honoring the charm of The Original Series.
The franchise has moved into animation once more of late, with Lower Decks offering fans plenty of Easter eggs and nods to other sections of the timeline. Unfortunately, Strange New Worlds and Discovery are… not so great, but still worth a watch if you want the full picture of Star Trek.
How to watch Star Trek – is it streaming?
The Star Trek timeline may be confusing, but finding a way to watch it all isn’t. Every Star Trek movie and TV show is available on Paramount Plus, apart from Prodigy, which is on Netflix.
You’ll need to be a Paramount customer, of course. You can join the streaming service by clicking the link below.
That’s the entire Star Trek timeline wrapped up. We’ve much more to come, though, like Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 and Star Trek: Section 31. And, as we said before, hopefully, a new movie, too. If you want more sci-fi magic, check out what we know about the upcoming Star Wars movies or dive into the Planet of the Apes timeline.
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