Avatar Movies in Order: Release Dates, Runtimes, Story Gaps and What Comes After Fire and Ash

James Cameron has made three Avatar films over 16 years, and the third, Avatar: Fire and Ash, reached US theaters in December 2025. The series has no prequels, so the order they came out in is the order of the story. The planning details are where it gets more useful: the gaps in the story don’t match the gaps in real life, the first film exists in three different cuts, and a full marathon runs past nine hours.

This guide covers James Cameron’s films set on Pandora. It is not about Avatar: The Last Airbender, which is a separate franchise.

Avatar movies in release order

US theatrical release dates come from 20th Century Studios. Runtimes come from the BBFC’s timed 2D cinema classifications, rounded to the nearest minute, with the exact time in the last column. Cameron directed all three.

#	Film	US release	Runtime (min)	BBFC cinema time
1	Avatar	Dec. 18, 2009	162	161m 34s
2	Avatar: The Way of Water	Dec. 16, 2022	192	192m 25s
3	Avatar: Fire and Ash	Dec. 19, 2025	197	197m 7s

Total for all three theatrical versions: 551 minutes, or about 9 hours 11 minutes.

Where these numbers come from:

• Release dates are on the studio’s pages for Avatar, The Way of Water and Fire and Ash. Rotten Tomatoes lists the same wide-release dates for Avatar, The Way of Water and Fire and Ash.
• Running times are from the BBFC records for Avatar, The Way of Water and Fire and Ash. The studio pages round a little differently. 20th Century lists Avatar at 2 hr 41 min, The Way of Water at 3 hr 12 min and Fire and Ash at 3 hr 15 min. The gaps are small, but the BBFC figures are the exact timed lengths.

Is there a chronological order that differs from release order?

No. Every Avatar film so far moves forward in time from the one before it. There are no prequels or side stories in the film series, so the release-order table above is also the story order.

Which Avatar movie should you watch first?

Start with Avatar (2009). The studio’s synopsis sets it in 2154 and follows Jake Sully, a former Marine sent to the moon Pandora in a remotely controlled Na’vi body, who is drawn to the Na’vi way of life as a clash with a human mining consortium builds. Both sequels build directly on Jake’s choice at the end of that film and on his relationship with Neytiri.

Time between the films: story vs real life

This table sets the time that passes on Pandora against the time fans waited between films. Story gaps are included only where the studio or Cameron has described them. Real-life gaps are counted between US release dates.

Gap	Time passed in the story	Time passed in real life	Story source
Avatar to The Way of Water	More than a decade	13 years, minus two days (Dec. 2009 to Dec. 2022)	20th Century Studios
The Way of Water to Fire and Ash	Picks up soon after	3 years and 3 days (Dec. 2022 to Dec. 2025)	Variety
Fire and Ash to Avatar 4	A large jump forward, according to Cameron	About 4 years, if the Dec. 21, 2029 date holds	TODAY, citing Cameron’s 2022 Entertainment Weekly interview
Avatar 4 to Avatar 5	Not announced	About 2 years, if the Dec. 19, 2031 date holds	None yet

The two clocks line up more closely than you might expect. The longest real-world wait, 13 years, matches the longest jump in the story, and the second film finds Jake and Neytiri raising a family. The short three-year wait for Fire and Ash covers very little story time, because Cameron split material that was first planned for The Way of Water into the third film. He told Empire that the second film had “too many great ideas packed into act one,” as Variety reported. That split is why the second and third films are so tightly linked.

According to TODAY, Cameron said the jump before Avatar 4 is meant to let the young cast grow into adult versions of their characters.

Which version runs how long

The first film comes in three cuts, and both Avatar and The Way of Water have returned to theaters since their original runs. Here is what the official records show.

Version	When	Running time	Source
Avatar, original theatrical cut	Dec. 2009	161m 34s (2D), 161m 51s (IMAX)	BBFC
Avatar, Special Edition theatrical re-release	2010	Total length not published by Fox or the BBFC	Box Office Mojo
Avatar, Collector’s Extended Cut (home video)	Nov. 16, 2010, in North America	16 minutes longer than the theatrical cut, so about 178 minutes	Fox announcement
Avatar, 2022 3D theatrical re-release	Sept. 23, 2022	163m 55s and 165m 50s (two 3D versions)	BBFC, Rotten Tomatoes
The Way of Water, theatrical	Dec. 2022	192m 25s (2D and 3D)	BBFC
The Way of Water, 3D home and streaming version	2023	192m 49s	BBFC
The Way of Water, theatrical re-release	Oct. 3, 2025	195m 35s to 197m 33s, depending on format	BBFC, Rotten Tomatoes
Fire and Ash, theatrical	Dec. 2025	197m 6s to 197m 7s (2D, 3D, ScreenX)	BBFC
Fire and Ash, 3D home and streaming version	2026	197m 5s	BBFC

Fox’s 2010 Extended Collector’s Edition put all three cuts of the first film in one set: the original theatrical version, the Special Edition re-release and the new Collector’s Extended Cut with an alternate opening on Earth, according to the studio’s announcement. The BBFC doesn’t say why the 2022 and 2025 re-release timings run a few minutes longer than the originals, so treat those as separate theatrical packages, not new cuts of the films.

Marathon with the extended first film: 178 + 192 + 197 = 567 minutes, or about 9 hours 27 minutes. That is roughly a quarter of an hour more than the theatrical-only total.

How long is Avatar: Fire and Ash?

About 3 hours 17 minutes. The BBFC timed the cinema version at 197 minutes 7 seconds, and Box Office Mojo also lists 3 hr 17 min. The studio’s own page says 3 hr 15 min. In March 2025, Cameron said the third film would run slightly longer than The Way of Water, as Deadline and Variety reported, and it is: by about five minutes.

Marathon planning

Three films at more than nine hours is a full day. Here is a practical split.

Plan	What to watch	Screen time
One-day marathon	All three theatrical cuts	551 min (9 hr 11 min), plus breaks
Three evenings	Night 1: Avatar. Night 2: The Way of Water. Night 3: Fire and Ash	162 min, then 192 min, then 197 min
Fastest catch-up before Avatar 4	The Way of Water and Fire and Ash	389 min (6 hr 29 min)
Completist	Avatar extended cut, then both sequels	about 567 min (9 hr 27 min)

If you can only fit in two films, don’t skip The Way of Water. It introduces the Sully children and the Metkayina clan, and Fire and Ash picks up their story almost straight away.

The Avatar films, one by one

Avatar (2009)

Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is recruited for a mission on Pandora and has to live there through an avatar body. After Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) saves his life, he is drawn into the Na’vi’s world and a fight over its future, per the 20th Century Studios synopsis. The film opened Dec. 18, 2009. Across its original run and its re-releases, it has earned about $2.92 billion worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo. Deadline noted that the 2022 re-release put it back at No. 1 on the all-time chart. Keep: essential.

Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)

The studio describes it as set more than a decade after the first film. It follows Jake, Neytiri and their children as danger follows the family and they fight to keep each other safe, per 20th Century Studios. Concept art on Avatar.com shows the Sullys flying to the home of the Metkayina clan, the ocean-dwelling Na’vi the film introduces. It opened Dec. 16, 2022, and Box Office Mojo lists about $2.33 billion worldwide. Keep: essential, and the direct lead-in to film three.

Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025)

The third film returns to the Sully family and brings in new Na’vi. Variety reported that Oona Chaplin plays the leader of the Ash People, and David Thewlis also joins the cast. Avatar.com lists her character, Varang, among the new sequel characters. Fire and Ash opened Dec. 19, 2025, rated PG-13. Its worldwide total stood at about $1.49 billion on Box Office Mojo when we checked. Keep: essential.

When is Avatar 4 coming out?

Avatar 4 is scheduled for Dec. 21, 2029, and Avatar 5 for Dec. 19, 2031. Disney set both dates in June 2023, when it moved the third film to 2025, as Deadline reported. Before that, Avatar 4 had been dated for Dec. 18, 2026, and Avatar 5 for Dec. 22, 2028.

Film	Scheduled US release	Status as of Oct. 30, 2026	Source
Avatar 4 (working title)	Dec. 21, 2029	Listed under 20th Century Studios on The Numbers’ 2029 release calendar	The Numbers, Deadline
Avatar 5 (working title)	Dec. 19, 2031	Listed under 20th Century Studios on The Numbers’ 2031 release calendar	The Numbers, Deadline

In July 2025, Variety reported that Cameron felt healthy enough to direct both himself and was not ruling it out, that the scripts are written through the fifth film, and that both dates were still on track. Then, days before Fire and Ash opened, he told The Hollywood Reporter that making the last two films depends on how the third one does at the box office, as TODAY reported. Release dates this far out often move. These are scheduled dates, not guarantees.

Will Avatar 4 continue the Sully family story?

Yes, but older. Cameron’s planned time jump means Jake and Neytiri’s children should be adults by the fourth film, per TODAY’s summary of his comments. No plot details have been officially released.

More franchise watch orders

If you want another long sci-fi series to sort out, our guide to where to watch the Alien movies covers another sci-fi series with several versions and a few release-order puzzles. For a much bigger timeline, try the Marvel movies in order. Families who liked the banshee flights on Pandora can move on to How to Train Your Dragon. And to find out which stars share your birthday, use our Famous Birthdays Finder or start with October 30.