Here's The Best Order to Watch the Saw Movies This Halloween

Director James Wan has helped create a number of excellent horror franchises during his prolific career, like the Insidious and The Conjuring series. But his very first feature film, the original Saw, may just have the greatest legacy of them all for spawning one of the most memorable and interesting horror franchises of all time, as well as one of our most iconic horror baddies. No, not the creepy puppet on the tricycle — I'm talking about John Kramer, aka Jigsaw, the old tired guy who aspires to teach people important life lessons by forcing them to suffer through grisly and murderous ordeals that they don't have much chance of surviving.

While often thought of as mere "torture porn," the reality is that Saw is as much a noir thriller series as it is horror — meaning it's full of complicated story threads and huge twists, and it's the only major horror franchise that's ever really even attempted to tell a single coherent story over more than a couple movies. In other words, the Saw franchise gives you a one-of-a-kind viewing experience that cannot be replicated by any other existing horror series. If you're the sort of person who spends every October binge watching scary movies, Saw has to be in the rotation.

How to watch the Saw movies in order of release

• Saw (2004)
• Saw II (2005)
• Saw III (2006)
• Saw IV (2007)
• Saw V (2008)
• Saw VI (2009)
• Saw: The Final Chapter (2010)
• Jigsaw (2017)
• Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021)
• Saw X (2023)

How to watch the Saw movies by timeline

The order in which you should watch the Saw movies is mostly straightforward. While the films constantly use flashbacks for shocking reveals and plot twists, release order is the best way to consume the story, with one exception. We'll get to that shortly. Let's dive into our list of the correct viewing order for the Saw series, and where you'll need to go to watch them. Fortunately, you've got more options than usual here, since the original seven movies are on both Max and Peacock.

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Saw (2004)

A mysterious serial killer known as Jigsaw has kidnapped two people (Leigh Whannell and Cary Elwes), locked them in a gross old bathroom, and handcuffed each of them to opposite sides of the room with no way to escape... except for a single old handsaw in the middle of the room. On the outside, a grizzled old police detective played by Danny Glover is attempting to unravel the mystery without getting his kneecaps blown off by one of Jigsaw's traps. And to think this is the most normal and chill one.

Saw II (2005)

One of the best aspects of the Saw series is how it defies having a true formula. In this first sequel, the game swaps the two handcuffed guys for a dozen folks trapped in an old industrial site with a series of very painful puzzles that can be solved in any order — a very nice escalation — while Detective Donnie Wahlberg, whose son is in the game, interrogates Jigsaw for the location while they all watch the games unfold on security cameras. 

Saw X (2023)

After a couple disappointing outings with Jigsaw and Spiral, the tenth movie in the Saw franchise took us back to the beginning with Saw X, set between the first and second movies. Saw X does spoil one of the twists from Saw II, so it's best to watch it after — and since Jigsaw having terminal brain cancer is a key part of the franchise story, it's not an issue that franchise star Tobin Bell is much older now than he was early in the series. That's actually the driver of this movie's plot — a woman conned him into paying for a fake treatment, and now she and her employees get to play a very deadly game.  

Saw III (2006)

Jigsaw's cancer is getting really bad, and so he kidnaps a brain surgeon to operate on him while he and his apprentice monitor yet another game elsewhere. This is when the plot begins to get really good.

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Saw IV (2007)

Jigsaw's long-term plan kicks into a new gear as we learn that yet another Jigsaw apprentice is lurking about, roping all the cops investigating the Jigsaw murders into a new series of games. Saw IV is so intimately connected with the events of the second and third movies that they basically form a trilogy by director Darren Lynn Bousman — the way everything comes together at the end of this one will blow your mind.

Saw V (2008)

A deadly game of cat and mouse between an FBI agent (Gilmore Girls star Scott Patterson) and Jigsaw's apprentice and — you know, it's hard to describe the plot of this one without spoiling the previous movies. 

Saw VI (2009)

Remember the old days of American health care, when an insurance company could deny you coverage because you got sick? Well it probably not too surprising that Jigsaw, a cancer patient, isn't too fond of people who work at predatory insurance companies. This one is a bit cathartic.

Saw: The Final Chapter (2010)

Seven years' of labyrinthine plotlines come to head in this fast-paced finale in which Jigsaw's apprentice comes into conflict with a Jigsaw cult led by a survivor of one of the Jigsaw traps from an earlier movie.

Jigsaw (2017)

A few years after Saw: The Final Chapter, Lionsgate attempted to semi-reboot the franchise — Jigsaw takes place after the other movies, but the story doesn't connect in any way. To make things worse, it uses way too much CGI gore, and it lacks any of the aesthetic stylings of the previous movies, opting instead for the look of a bog-standard cable show. I like to joke that this one is USA Network's version of Saw because of that.

Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021)

I really enjoy Spiral, which was made by Saw 2,3, and 4 director Darren Lynn Bousman and starred Chris Rock and Samuel L. Jackson. It looks great, has some excellent kills and plot twists, including a super dope ending, and Rock is a perfect Saw protagonist. But it was another soft reboot attempt, taking place in the wake of the Jigsaw murder spree without picking up any of the many dangling plot threads, which was frustrating. But now that Saw X has revitalized the series, maybe we'll come back to this story someday — it would be the Saw thing to do.