How to watch the Riddick movies in order

❘ Updated: 2024-03-24T16:01:22

Vin Diesel as Riddick in the Riddick movies

Universal Pictures

This is your guide to watching Vin Diesel’s Riddick movies, including the order of release, chronological order, and where to watch them.

Vin Diesel may be best known as Dom Toretto, the Corona-guzzling patriarch of the Fast and Furious family, but he’s also beloved among many sci-fi fans as Riddick.

Coming shortly after the first entry in the Fast Saga, the Riddick franchise helped elevate Diesel’s status as a movie star, leading to multiple sequels, video games, and other tie-ins, with demand for another entry still rife.

So, if you’re wanting to dive in, here’s how to watch all of the Riddick movies in release and chronological order.

Riddick movies in release order

As always, watching a franchise in release order is always the most straightforward – and let’s be honest, the best – way to go. Here’s the release order for the Riddick movies:

Pitch Black (2000)
The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)
Riddick (2013)

Pitch Black was a sleeper success at the box office, grossing more than $53.2 million and spawning a franchise with Diesel at the helm. The Chronicles of Riddick was a huge movie in comparison: it had a budget exceeding more than $105 million and raked in $115 million — this makes it the highest-grossing entry, despite being a financial failure.

It took nearly 10 years for the next entry: Riddick, a back-to-basics, R-rated survival threequel that was received far more positively by critics and fans alike.

A fourth movie is in development, titled Riddick: Furya, set to be an origin story for the character. “Are you guys excited to hear about Furya? Do you want to know where it all began with that dark character Riddick?” Diesel said in an earlier video.

In 2022, Diesel shared some storyboards from the upcoming movie, but there haven’t been many updates regarding Furya since.

Riddick movies in chronological order

Watching the Riddick movies in chronological order is exactly the same as release order — however, we’ve added in some other stuff you should check out if you want to experience the franchise properly.

The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay (2004)
The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena (2009)
Pitch Black (2000)
The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury (2004)
The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)
Riddick: Blindsided (2013)
Riddick (2013)

There’s a mixture of games, movies, direct-to-DVD animated films, and motion comics here. We’re going to break it all down as simply as we can.

The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay (2004)

Escape from Butcher Bay is a game first released in 2004. It’s a prequel to Pitch Black, following Diesel’s Riddick as he attempts to escape the titular maximum-security prison.

While acclaimed as one of the greatest games of all time, it’s also significant to the canon, showing how the character acquired eyeshine, the name given to his night-vision abilities.

There’s also the small problem of Pitch Black: Slam City, a flash comic that some fans believe to be retconned by Butcher Bay given its treatment of eyeshine — you can watch it here.

The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena (2009)

Assault on Dark Athena is a sequel to Butcher Bay, but it still takes place before the events of Pitch Black.

It picks up immediately where the previous game ended, with Riddick and Johns in cryo-sleep, when they’re captured and taken aboard a mercenary ship: the Dark Athena. Once again, Riddick must use his combat and stealth skills to escape.

Pitch Black (2000)

In 2000, Pitch Black introduced Diesel’s Riddick to the world, set 500 years in the future and 25 years after the Necromonger invasion of Furya.

The movie follows the survivors of a spaceship forced to crash-land on a distant, desert planet. Riddick, a dangerous prisoner, escapes in the wake of the crash, but the remaining crew are forced to rely on him when they’re attacked by vicious alien creatures.

The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury (2004)

A still from Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury

Dark Fury is a direct-to-DVD animated short movie that took place between Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick.

In bridging the two movies, it picks up from the ending of Pitch Black, with Riddick, Jack, and the Imam being picked up by a mercenary vessel known as the Kublai Khan. It explains why Riddick decided to go into hiding for five years before the next movie.

The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)

Released in 2004, The Chronicles of Riddick pits its titular anti-hero against the Necromongers, a warrior army seemingly hellbent on annihilating all human life in the galaxy in a bid for universal dominance.

The sequel vastly expands the franchise’s lore and ups the action, but it leaves Riddick in a curious position as the Lord Marshal of the Necromonger fleet.

Riddick: Blindsided (2013)

Blindsided is a motion comic that bridges the gap between The Chronicles of Riddick and 2013’s Riddick.

We pick up with Riddick as Lord Marshal, although he’s yet to take the oath and refuses to submit to the Necromonger faith, leading to a conflict with Commander Vaako.

Riddick (2013)

Riddick is the third movie in the franchise. Five years into his tenure as Lord Marshal, he asks Commander Vaako to take him to his home planet of Furya in exchange for him succeeding him as the next leader.

When they arrive on a desolate planet, Riddick quickly realizes it’s not his home world and murders his escorts, before he’s buried in a landslide. After emerging with a broken leg, he’s forced to go up against the planet’s terrifying aliens.