Avatar Movies in Order: A Streaming Guide to Pandora
In 2009, James Cameron’s sci-fi epic Avatar made history by becoming the highest grossing film of all time. That’s a list it still continues to top, even after all these years and despite plenty of stiff competition from the likes of Avengers: Endgame. The first film in Cameron’s eco-conscious saga introduced audiences to the hero, Jake Sully, and to Pandora, the home planet of the Na’vi and a place that Cameron has since returned to for two further instalments and counting.
The first was Avatar: The Way of Water, which was released in 2022 and eventually ended up third on the same list of highest grossing films. Then, last December, we saw the release of Avatar: Fire and Ash, the third film in a planned pentology that, all going to plan, could see Cameron wrapped up in this world for at least another five years. Whether or not we get to see those movies, there’s no doubting the impact that the Avatar movies have had on the industry; and whether or not you happen to be a fan, there’s really nothing out there quite like them.
Read on to discover how to watch the Avatar movies in order and use the guide below to find out where to stream them on services like Disney+ and AppleTV.
This article has been updated by Rory O'Connor.
The first Avatar was written and directed by James Cameron and released in 2009. It follows the story of Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a paraplegic US Marine who travels to Pandora on a mission with the RDA to extract a valuable resource called, ahem, “unobtanium”. To do this, Jake’s consciousness is transplanted into the body of a Na’vi avatar, so that he can integrate with the native population. While amongst them, he grows to deeply appreciate the Na’vi way of life, even finding a partner in Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), and eventually become the leader of a revolution.
If you’re new to this universe, I highly recommend starting from the beginning—the first Avatar movie not only sets the planetary and emotional stakes for the series, it’s also probably still the most satisfying film of the saga so far. If you’re a fan of epic stories set in otherworldly places, and if you don’t mind movies that rely on familiar narrative tropes (if you’ve seen anything from Lawrence of Arabia to Ferngully, you’ll know what we’re talking about), you’ll likely love it as much as I do.
In the second film in the saga, Avatar: The Way of Water, Cameron returned to Pandora a decade later with a story about Jake, who is now the chief of the Omaticaya clan and Neytiri’s burgeoning family. The drama is set in motion when the RDA, led by Colonel Miles Quaritch, returns to Pandora both with new plans to colonise and with their eye on a different precious resource—one with an even more ruthless method of extraction.
In order to survive, Jake and the Omaticaya seek refuge in the planet’s water region—a change of scenery that allows Cameron and his team to expand the world of Avatar to the seas. This means that the second Avatar movie not only boasts some of the most stunning digital images ever created, it also paves the way for a touching Whale Rider-esque subplot involving one of Jake and Neytiri’s sons and a friendly Tulkun named Payakan—perhaps the franchise’s MVP to this point, at least to a subset of fans. It all builds to a phenomenal closing battle that owes about as much to the previous movie as it does to Cameron’s Titanic.
The most recent adventure in Cameron’s magnum opus is Avatar: Fire and Ash, a movie that seemed to promise an adventure into the hotter parts of Pandora but instead delivered something different. The new clan in this movie, the Mangkwan, who are led by the fearsome warrior Varang (Oona Chaplin), are so hell-bent on revenge that they become the main antagonists of the third movie, even going so far as to ally with the RDA and the Recombinant Miles Quaritch.
This means that Jake, Neytiri and the Omaticaya clan must call not only on the other tribes for help, but also Eywa in order to survive. Fans of Way of Water may find this third installment a bit familiar (for better or worse, it reuses many of the same story beats), but it is never short on action. If you liked the Avatar movies up until this point and are interested in stories where a human child is raised by another species (Jungle Book and Tarzan are loose comparisons) you’ll find plenty to enjoy.
Around the release of Fire and Ash, the film world began to speculate about just how much more time James Cameron was willing to give to this project. In interviews, the great Canadian half-joked that Fire and Ash would need to gross at least $2 billion in order for him to make the last two installments of the series—that figure might still be a stretch, but it’s not outside the realms of possibility.
Whatever happens, we naturally don’t know a great deal about Avatar 4 at this point, although the film’s producer, Jon Landau, did state at a press conference in 2023 that some scenes (involving the younger actors) had already been shot in order to prepare for a six-year time jump that occurs at the beginning of the movie. With both water and fire now covered, there’s a good chance the fourth movie will look to explore more of the miraculous Wind Trader clan that we encountered near the beginning of the third film. We shall see.
Naturally, even less is known about Avatar 5. In 2022, Landau commented that Avatar 5 could involve a storyline in which Neytiri comes to Earth and gets to experience Jake's home planet for the first time—which sounds absolutely incredible and absolutely insane.
I’ve always imagined that the saga would build to a final showdown in the RDA’s base on Pandora, with Jake uniting the tribes one last time. Cameron has stated that if 4 and 5 don’t go ahead, he will conduct a press conference to reveal the plot. I for one hope we get to see them.
