How To Watch 'The Purge' Movies In Chronological Order For The Ultimate Slow-Burn Panic Attack

The prequel The First Purge begins in an alternate 2014, where President Bracken (Ian Blackman) and the New Founding Fathers of America (NFFA) have taken over, replacing Democrats and Republicans as the most powerful political party. 

Most of the plot takes place two years later, in 2016, when the NFFA announces an experiment will take place on Staten Island. For 12 hours, citizens will be allowed to commit all crimes, including murder. To really sweeten the pot, the NFFA offers anyone who stays during the experiment $5,000, just for being there - that is, if they make it through the night.

By the end of The First Purge, NFFA chief of staff Arlo Sabian (Patch Darragh) announces that the experiment was a success, and citizens can expect a nationwide Purge as soon as the following year.

The Purge (2013) was the film that started it all, briefly touching upon the New Founding Fathers of America and how they came into power in 2014, and passed the law sanctioning the annual Purge. The events of the film then occur during 2022, when the NFFA says the country has become virtually “crime-free” and unemployment rates have dropped to 1 percent, thanks to the Purge.

The only film to really focus on one family, The Purge follows James Sandin (Ethan Hawke), a man who has become very wealthy thanks to selling expensive security systems to keep the rich safe during the annual Purge. He lives in a ritzy, gated community in Los Angeles with his family, who plan to hunker down inside and wait for the annual event to end.

By the end of the film, a TV news broadcast reports that 2022 was the most successful Purge year yet, and the stock market is booming thanks to all of the Purge-related sales, like weapons and security systems.

The Purge: Anarchy picks up only a year after the events of the first released The Purge movie in 2023. Growing unrest in the working-to-lower class has led to an anti-Purge resistance group led by Carmelo Johns (Michael K. Williams) and Dante Bishop (Edwin Hodge) - the character the Sandins eventually chose to save on Purge night in The Purge. They hijack government feeds to denounce the Purge as well as the New Founding Fathers.

Like its predecessor, The Purge: Anarchy takes place entirely on Purge night. It follows a couple pairs - including waitress Eva (Carmen Ejogo) and her daughter Cali (Zoë Soul), whose building is attacked by death squads sent out by the government to eradicate the poor, and estranged married couple Shane (Zach Gilford) and Liz (Kiele Sanchez), whose car was tampered with by a biker gang ahead of the Purge alarm - who all end up being led by LAPD sergeant Leo Barnes (Frank Grillo), who wants to Purge the drunk driver who killed his son the previous year.

Resistance fighters manage to take down a theater party in which wealthy citizens were bidding on and then hunting their Purge victims. It is clear that there are citizens who want a revolution, but by the end of this film there is simply a countdown until the next year’s Purge.

The first season of The Purge picks back up five years after the events of The Purge (2013), in 2027, though flashbacks do show that two of the protagonists - siblings Miguel (Gabriel Chavarria) and Penelope Guerrero (Jessica Garza) - lost their parents during the experimental Staten Island Purge of 2016. That fact earns Miguel and Penelope the title “Original Martyr Family” or “OMF.”  

Losing her parents led Penelope to join a death cult led by the twisted Tavis (Fiona Dourif), who convinces the lost and vulnerable that volunteering to die to “help others Purge” is a higher cause that gives their life meaning. However, she is merely a cog in the machine, and is paid by the NFFA to keep the scam going. Penelope's brother, a Marine, spends the season trying to rescue his sister.

Meanwhile married couple Jenna (Hannah Emily Anderson) and Rick Betancourt (Colin Woodell) are forced to attend a lavish Purge party in order to secure a massive investment for their company from a Purge-loving businessman. This season also follows Jane Barbour (Amanda Warren), a finance executive whose boss makes her work Purge night. 

While the first season focused on one Purge night, the second actually follows the immediate aftermath of a Purge almost a decade later in 2036, as well as the lead up to Purge night 2037. 

One of the stories of season two involves ex-police officers who have become bank robbers, meticulously planning Purge night heists. It also follows a successful man named Marcus (Derek Luke) whose life falls apart when an assassin breaks in during Purge night, a group of college students who go out on Purge night, and an NFFA surveillance employee (Paola Núñez) who notices something amiss in the footage. It features an appearance by security system designer James Sandin (Ethan Hawke) from the first film.

The second season highlights the disdain many feel for the Purge, and how people are starting to band together to fight it. This leads right into the next film, The Purge: Election Year, in which presidential candidate Senator Charlene "Charlie" Roan (Elizabeth Mitchell) promises to end the Purge.

In the beginning of the film, young Charlene Roan is forced to watch as her family is Purged in 2022 (when The Purge took place). Then it jumps to 2040, three years after the events of the second season of The Purge series. That same girl from the beginning has grown up and become a U.S. Senator (Elizabeth Mitchell) running for president on an anti-Purge platform. Leo Barnes (Frank Grillo) from The Purge: Anarchy is her head of security.

The majority of the film focuses on Roan’s fight to stay safe on Purge night, as well as other members of resistance against the NFFA, like Dante Bishop (Edwin Hodge) from The Purge: Anarchy. Not only is the Purge going strong, but the U.S. is flooded with tourists hoping to join in on the violence of the annual event. You also get a look at the depths of corruption involving the Purge, like insurance companies raising Purge coverage astronomically mere hours before the event. Deli owner Joe Dixon (Mykelti Williamson) is forced to risk his life to protect his shop, since he no longer has coverage. 

Dixon's assistant Marcos (Joseph Julian Soria) and triage EMT Laney Rucker (Betty Gabriel) join the group, as they all try to ride out the night in an anti-Purge hideout with Bishop. However, they're forced to continually be on the run thanks a paramilitary force that is trying to execute Senator Roan and save the Purge.

By the end of the film, it seems the Purge may be done for, thanks to Roan’s victory, though there are violent uprisings across the country by angry NFFA supporters. 

By The Forever Purge, viewers know that Charlene Roan’s run was successful, and for eight years the country was able to live without the horrible Purge. However, after her two terms are over, the New Founding Fathers once again gain control, and reinstitute the annual Purge. Racial supremacy and nativism run rampant, thanks to the hateful party’s re-election. Meanwhile, others are concerned that the re-election and reintroduction of the Purge will make more problems for the country than anything else.

Juan (Tenoch Huerta) and Adela (Ana de la Reguera), a migrant couple, illegally cross the border into Texas in order to escape a drug cartel, and create a new life in the States. Juan gets a job on the farm of the Tucker family. The day after the Purge in 2049, Juan and Adela return to work as normal, but notice most of their co-workers are not there. The missing farmhands take the Tucker family hostage, while news broadcasts can be heard across the country, with reporters wondering why people have not stopped celebrating the Purge after the alarm.

A white Nationalist group calling themselves the “Purge Purification Force” or PPF, drive around aiming to kill anyone they deem “un-American.” Ironically, Canada and Mexico have temporarily opened their borders to protect non-Purging citizens trying to escape what is being called “The Forever Purge.” The NFFA doesn’t support “The Forever Purge,” now that they’re the ones being targeted, so they invoke martial law. A Native American tribe near Juan and Adela offer them shelter, as well as a guide back across the border to Mexico. 

The NFFA is blamed for the prolonged violence and massive destruction of the nation. News reports share that more than two million Americans have crossed both the Canadian and Mexican border as refugees. The Forever Purge remains one of the most timely, in-your-face, and terrifying entries in the franchise.