How to watch the Insidious series in chronological order (2024)

Insidious: The Red Door has arrived to take us all back into The Further and terrify us once again.

The Insidious series has never been straightforward if you wanted to watch them in chronological order, especially as whenever we're in The Further, it could literally land us at any point in time.

For that matter, you might end up choosing to watch them in release order and that's pretty simple:

Insidious movies in release order

• Insidious (2011)
• Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013)
• Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015)
• Insidious: The Last Key (2018)
• Insidious: The Red Door (2023)

But if you wanted to watch the movies in chronological order, the order of the five movies shifts quite a lot.

If you were really committed to watching the movies in order, you'd have to watch parts of each movie as there are flashbacks in most of them, but they work just watching them in the order where the majority of its action takes place.

That's the approach we've taken, but if you wanted to be a bit extra, we've also mentioned how each movie crosses over with other Insidious movies.

Insidious movies in chronological order

Insidious: Chapter 3

Watch now: Prime Video | iTunes | Microsoft Store

Taking place at some point before the first movie, Insidious: Chapter 3 focuses on Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye) and the case of a teenager who's haunting by The Man Who Can't Breathe.

Initially, Elise refuses to help as she doesn't want to go again into The Further where she's convinced she's being hunted by The Bride in Black. She's convinced by a friend to continue using her psychic and spiritual ability though, leading to her meeting Specs (Leigh Whannell) and Tucker (Angus Sampson) for the first time.

They all work together, along with the teenager's dead mother, to defeat The Man Who Can't Breathe, and Elise decides to continue her work with new assistants Specs and Tucker.

The final scene sees The Lipstick-Face Demon pay Elise a visit, teasing her eventual battle with the evil entity in the first Insidious movie.

Insidious: The Last Key

Watch now: Prime Video | iTunes | Microsoft Store

Although it takes place after Chapter 3, Insidious: The Last Key goes back further than any other movie in the series as it flashes back to Elise's childhood in 1953.

Elise has her first demonic encounter as she's tricked into releasing KeyFace into the world, who kills her mother and possesses her father, turning him into a serial killer. Decades later, Elise has to go back to her childhood home when KeyFace starts to terrorise her estranged brother and his two daughters, Imogen and Melissa.

It's another trip into The Further for Elise, but this time against her will as KeyFace ambushes her and takes her spirit. Luckily, her niece Imogen has the same powers as Elise and, with the help of Specs and Tucker, Imogen saves Elise and then with the help of Elise's dead mother, KeyFace is defeated.

While trying to find Melissa's spirit in The Further, Elise unwittingly opens a door to the Lambert house as she sees Dalton. This door between The Further and the real world is left open, setting up the events of the first movie, but Elise manages to save Melissa, so that's something.

Elise makes up with her estranged brother and all is well. Until that night, she dreams of Dalton and The Lipstick-Face Demon. Elise gets a call from Josh's mother Lorraine about the problems facing her grandson and Elise agrees to help. She'll regret that...

Insidious

Watch now: Prime Video | iTunes | Microsoft Store

Due to Elise's actions in The Last Key, Insidious sees the Lambert family – Josh (Patrick Wilson), Renai (Rose Byrne), Dalton (Ty Simpkins), Foster (Andrew Astor) and infant daughter Cali – being haunted by The Lipstick-Face Demon.

Dalton, unaware that he's an astral projector, has been travelling to The Further in his sleep and his spirit has been trapped there by The Lipstick-Face Demon. Luckily, it turns out that Josh has the same ability, but his memory of his childhood was suppressed to protect him from The Bride in Black.

Josh goes into The Further and manages to rescue Dalton from The Lipstick-Face Demon, although not before an encounter with The Bride in Black that tormented him as a child and wanted to possess him. Josh tells her to go away and leave him alone which, remarkably, looks like it worked.

Dalton and Josh wake up back in their bodies and the Lambert family is reunited. However, Elise notices something is wrong with Josh and when she takes a photo of him, she realises that Josh has been possessed by The Bride in Black.

Elise is strangled to death by 'Josh' and Renai discovers the body, as well as the photo that confirms Josh has been possessed. He appears behind her and the movie cuts to black... spoooooooky.

Insidious: Chapter 2

Watch now: Prime Video | iTunes | Microsoft Store

Insidious: Chapter 2 takes place shortly after the first movie with Josh being investigated for the murder of Elise. It appears he doesn't remember being possessed by The Bride in Black and the Lamberts move into his mother's house, but continue to encounter demonic events.

The sequel travels back to 1986 when Elise first helped the Lambert family by protecting Josh from The Further and suppressing his ability. Specs and Tucker look into this case and see a video with an adult Josh standing behind Josh in the video.

With the help of a former colleague of Elise's, Specs and Tucker contact Elise's spirit who points them to the serial killer Parker Crane, who killed young women while dressed as a woman. In The Further, Josh's spirit is able to communicate with his younger self who shows them where Parker's spirit lives.

However, it's actually the spirit of Parker's abusive mother who had been telling him to kill and is The Woman in White that has been haunting Elise for years. Elise arrives just in time to defeat The Woman in White and Parker's spirit disappears.

The Lambert family is reunited again in the real world, with Josh and Dalton agreeing to have their memories suppressed again. Really, who can blame them?

Insidious: The Red Door

Watch now: Cinemas

Set nine years after the events of Insidious: Chapter 2, Insidious: The Red Door sees Dalton and Josh confront the demons that continue to haunt them from The Further.

As ever in this series, the new movie also takes us back to the sequel as Dalton relives the trauma of his youth. You know, that moment when his father, possessed by The Bride in Black, decided to chase his family through their house and threaten to kill them.

Otherwise it's fairly straightforward for an Insidious movie as Dalton and Josh work together to finally trap the Lipstick-Face Demon in The Further once and for all, and it ends with everything looking up for the Lambert family.

And really, after everything they've been through, they deserve that at least.