The Walking Dead watch order has swelled over the years to include seven different shows. Complicating matters further is that many of them are running concurrently. So, you have two choices when it comes to the order you watch The Walking Dead, one of which is much more arduous than the other. We’ll describe both below.
What is the best order to watch The Walking Dead?
The simplest way to watch The Walking Dead is in the series release order, which we recommend. While some of the series run concurrently with each other, you’re not going to miss or spoil a ton with this watch order:
- The Walking Dead
- Fear the Walking Dead
- The Walking Dead: World Beyond
- Tales of the Walking Dead
- The Walking Dead: Dead City
- The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live
- The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon
Alternatively, you can tackle the franchise in strict chronological order. You’ll find this starts out simple, but after you hit The Walking Dead Season 5, it gets increasingly complicated to the point you have to switch between series multiple times a season:
- The Walking Dead Seasons 1–5
- Fear the Walking Dead Season 1
- The Walking Dead Season 6
- Fear the Walking Dead Season 2
- The Walking Dead Season 7
- Fear the Walking Dead Season 3
- The Walking Dead Season 8
- Fear the Walking Dead Season 4
- The Walking Dead Season 9
- Fear the Walking Dead Season 5
- The Walking Dead Season 10, Episodes 1–16
- The Walking Dead: World Beyond Season 1
- Fear the Walking Dead Season 6
- The Walking Dead Season 10, Episodes 17–22
- The Walking Dead Season 11, Episodes 1–8
- The Walking Dead: World Beyond Season 2
- Fear the Walking Dead Season 7, Episodes 1–8
- The Walking Dead Season 11, Episodes 9–16
- Fear the Walking Dead Season 7, Episodes 9–16
- Tales of the Walking Dead Season 1
- The Walking Dead Season 11, Episodes 17–24
- Fear the Walking Dead Season 8, Episodes 1–6
- The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 1
- The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Season 1
- Fear the Walking Dead Season 8, Episodes 7–12
- The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live
- The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Season 2
- The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 2
- The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Season 3
But if this is too much of a brain scramble and you like to keep things nice and tidy, here’s your series release order:
The Walking Dead: (2010-2022)
The Walking Dead AMC series, which ran for 11 seasons over 12 years and was developed by Frank Darabont from the Walking Dead comics, begins in a post-apocalyptic South, when sheriff’s deputy Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) wakes up in a hospital from a coma. The world he knew has been overrun by walkers, and these zombies are not the same as the ones in Night of the Living Dead. They’re fast, drawn to sound, and there are thousands upon thousands of them.
Rick becomes the leader of a small group of survivors in what used to be Atlanta, Georgia, and together they struggle to stay alive. However, this group of survivors isn’t the only one left. Alongside the threat of the walkers and contagion are other humans who will do whatever it takes to stay alive.
Fear the Walking Dead: (2015-2023)
This prequel series premiered in 2015 and explores the early days of the zombie apocalypse, focusing on a dysfunctional family in Los Angeles before the pandemic entirely takes hold. High school counselor Madison Clark (Kim Dickens), her fiancé Travis Manawa (Cliff Curtis), her teenage daughter Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey), and her young son, along with Travis’s son Nick Clark (Frank Dillane) from a previous marriage and Nick’s mother, Liza (Elizabeth Rodriguez), are facing a world rapidly descending into chaos.
As the infection spreads and society begins to crumble, the family must navigate their collapsing world and figure out how to reinvent themselves to survive.
The Walking Dead: World Beyond (2020-2021)
This limited series premiered in 2020 and, if we’re being honest here, folks, is maybe the least great of the Walking Dead series. Set in the same universe, ten years after the start of the apocalypse, the series follows two sisters, Iris (Aliyah Royale) and Hope (Alexa Mansour), and their friend Elton (Nicolas Cantu), teens who are part of the first generation to grow up in the zombie apocalypse. These lead protagonists leave the relative safety of their Nebraska hometown to embark on a dangerous cross-country journey to reach a mysterious group connected to the Civic Republic Military (CRM). This teen-centric drama is kind of like Disney meets The Walking Dead — and that’s not supposed to be a hook.
Tales of the Walking Dead (2022)
Released as an anthology series, each episode of Tales of the Walking Dead is standalone, focusing on new and established characters in the Walking Dead universe. In the first episode, Joe (Terry Crews), a prepper who’s been living alone for a while, leaves his bunker to search for a fellow prepper he’s been corresponding with online. Along the way, he meets Evie (Olivia Munn), a woman on a similar quest to find her estranged husband. Episode 5 begins when Davon (Jessie T. Usher) wakes up in a small Maine town, handcuffed to the corpse of a woman named Amanda (Embeth Davidtz). That two-episode preview is just a teaser. Sure, some episodes are stronger than others, but the creatives clearly tried to offer something different. For the most part, they did a pretty good job.
The Walking Dead: Dead City (2023 – )
The Walking Dead: Dead City currently has two seasons available, with the first premiering in 2023. The series was recently renewed in July 2025, so there’s more to come. Created by Eli Jorne, the show centers on two of the most popular characters from The Walking Dead universe: Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan).
Set in a post-apocalyptic Manhattan — could there be a worse place to be during an apocalypse? — The story follows the duo, who form an unlikely partnership as they venture into the city to track down Maggie’s kidnapped son, Herschel. And of course, they have to stay alive in a city overrun by walkers and dangerous human factions
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon (2023 – )
We can’t have a Negan spinoff without a Daryl spinoff, and that’s where The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon comes in. Norman Reedus reprises his role as Daryl, who mysteriously washes ashore in France, where the virus originated. With no memory of how he got there, Daryl must make his way through the violence of provincial France and contend with different strains of the virus he’s never seen before.
Early on, Daryl discovers a young child and their caretakers in danger and takes it upon himself to protect them as they make their way to the Nest, a sanctuary near Paris, in exchange for secured passage back to America. Along the way, he forms new alliances and encounters dangerous enemies, including survivors who have adapted to the apocalypse in very different ways than he has. The third season is set to premiere on September 7, 2025.
The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live (2024)
A six-episode miniseries created by Scott M. Gimple, Danai Gurira, and Andrew Lincoln, The Ones Who Live is set after the conclusion of The Walking Dead. Without giving away too many spoilers from the main series, it begins five years after the CRM took Rick Grimes. The series follows the separate journeys of its characters as they attempt to find one another, ultimately culminating in the long-awaited reunion between Rick and Michonne.
While the series didn’t get the most outstanding reviews, it did fully wrap up the storyline between Rick and Michonne, which was one of the biggest issues fans — and even the creators — had with their incomplete arcs in the original series. Whether or not the series did much beyond that is hard to say, but we’re not complaining. We like a nice bow to tie things up.
