Though Halloween is just around the corner and some of us are already feeling the spooky turn of the season, you really don’t need any reason for a Scream marathon. Here’s the best Scream watch order, including the Scream TV series.
What’s the best order to watch Scream?
We’ll pretty much always suggest watching any franchise in release order, even if the timelines get wonky. Fortunately, the whole Scream franchise is pretty straightforward. The TV show is unrelated to the movies, but it’s a great watch after you’ve finished the films in order. Either way, these should hold you over until the release of Scream 7 in 2026.
Scream (1996)
Few movies have been more terrifying than the opening of Scream. Right up there with the original When a Stranger Calls in terms of tension and terror, we come straight out of the gate with a teenager home alone on a call that gets more and more threatening until a killer hunts her down in a ghost mask. And she’s only the first in the lineup of killings in the sleepy town of Woodsboro.
Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) is a high schooler who, after her mother’s brutal murder, becomes the killer’s next target. This turns into a race to find out whodunnit as much as it is a desperate fight to stay alive. But what makes this movie so fantastic is how self-aware and subversive it is. It’s as much a horror movie as it is a commentary on the entire horror genre.
Directed by Wes Craven (already a horror legend thanks to A Nightmare on Elm Street) and written by Kevin Williamson, the movie was released in December 1996 on a modest $15 million budget but went on to pull in over $170 million worldwide. It’s one of our favorite Halloween movies that we return to every October.
Scream 2 (1997)
If the first Scream flipped the slasher genre on its head, Scream 2 doubled down by asking what happens when the sequel comes along? This one gets a little metatheatrical, opening with a now-legendary sequence in a packed movie theater. An audience is watching Stab, a film-within-a-film based on reporter Gale Winters (Courteney Cox) bestselling book covering the Woodsboro murders. It doesn’t take long before Ghostface shows up and turns it into another bloodbath.
Sidney Prescott, now in college, can’t catch a break. She’s trying to move forward from the trauma of Woodsboro, but just as she begins to settle into her new life, the killings get closer and closer. Directed once more by Wes Craven and written by Kevin Williamson, the film brings back Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, and David Arquette, and Jamie Kennedy, while adding new faces (and suspects) to the mix. Even has a memorable cameo from Sarah Michelle Gellar, right at the peak of her Buffy stardom. Though, of course, the cleverness of this appearance is in her total opposition to her other character’s fighting abilities. Scream 2 might be a sequel, but it’s every bit as gnarly and smart as the original.
Scream 3 (2000)
By the time Scream 3 rolled around, the franchise had already poked fun at horror movies and then skewered horror sequels. The next progression is naturally to shape this film around the idea of a trilogy. And, continuing the theme of movies and moviemaking, the setting shifts from small towns to Hollywood. On the set of a new Stab sequel, Ghostface is back and wastes no time cutting down actors, crew, and anyone unlucky enough to be in the way.
Once again directed by Wes Craven, Scream 3 was written by Ehren Kruger (taking over from Kevin Williamson this time). Though this one leans heavily into camp and satire, it still brings the horror tension. Alongside our core trio of Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, and David Arquette, Scream 3 also adds a whole swath of Hollywood cast of suspects and victims. Parker Posey steals scenes as an actress hilariously shadowing Gale Weathers, and Patrick Dempsey shows up as a detective trying to make sense of the carnage. Add in appearances from Jenny McCarthy, Scott Foley, Lance Henriksen, and even a cameo from Carrie Fisher, and you’ve got a slasher that fully embraces Hollywood’s absurdity.
Scream 4 (2011)
It’s been years since Sidney Prescott survived the last massacre, and over a decade since we last had a Scream movie. Now she’s back in Woodsboro on a book tour, hoping to finally close that chapter of her life. But in true horror fashion, Sidney doesn’t get the final word; the writers and the genre won’t let her. Ghostface is back, and this time the rules are different. And though Scream 4 is playing in the world of reboots and remakes, it effectively follows the cardinal rule of good reboots: “Don’t f*ck with the remake.”
Released in 2011, Scream 4 also carries a bittersweet note — it was Wes Craven‘s final film before he sadly passed away from brain cancer in 2015.
Scream (2022)
After more than a decade away, Ghostface returned in 2022 with a “requel”, a reboot/sequel hybrid that’s part homage, part reinvention. Sidney Prescott, Gale Weathers, and Dewey Riley all return, but this isn’t just their story anymore.
We’re back in Woodsboro, where high school student Tara (Jenna Ortega) is home alone when Ghostface attacks her in a brutal opening sequence. She survives, but ends up hospitalized, bringing her estranged sister Sam (Melissa Barrera) back into town. Along with Tara’s tight-knit friend group, the stage is set for another round of suspicion, blood, and broken horror rules. As the bodies pile up and the paranoia deepens, everything leads us back to the kitchen, where the original Scream revealed its killers.
The film is directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (the duo behind Ready or Not) and written by James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick. It also marks the franchise’s first entry under Spyglass Media, following the collapse of the Weinstein Company after the Harvey Weinstein allegations came to light.
Scream VI (2023)
The most recent movie in the franchise, Scream VI, brings back sisters Tara and Sam. They’ve had enough of small towns, and the filmmakers might feel the same, since we’re taken to the opposite setting and find ourselves in New York City.
Scream VI opens with one of the boldest cold openings in the series — maybe the best since the original opening — when a college film studies professor (played by Samara Weaving) is waiting for a blind date at a trendy bar in New York. Unaware to all of us, she’s catfished by one of her own students and lured with a clever use of preying on female empathy into an alley.
There, in the classic Ghostface costume, he brutally murders her. But just as the audience starts to think the killer’s mask has been pulled off early, the film pulls the rug. The student and his roommate believe they are directing their own twisted “movie,” but they’re only pawns in a game.
Scream TV Series (2015)
Developed by Jill Blotevogel, Dan Dworkin, and Jay Beattie, the Scream TV series is a serialized anthology horror show that found its home on MTV. It riffs on the original movie series, though by this point, creator Kevin Williamson had stepped away from the film franchise, leaving the TV adaptation to carve its own path.
The gore and violence might be more intense than you’d expect for an MTV series, which is part of its charm. It’s perfect for horror fans, especially since there aren’t that many horror series out there these days—beyond shows like Lovecraft Country, American Horror Story, or The Haunting of Hill House, quality scares on the small screen are surprisingly rare. Frankly, we’d watch more horror series if studios made them.
The Scream TV series is worth checking out. It follows a group of teens in the fictional town of Lakewood, where a cyber-bullying incident escalates into a brutal murder, reopening old wounds and inviting suspicion on everyone around. The show got mixed reviews, but overall, it holds up as a solid, bingeable horror experience for fans of the genre.
