How to Watch Every Star Trek Series (and Movie) in the Right Order

Star Trek: Enterprise was made to be a prequel to The Original Series and is, to this date, the earliest series by timeline. 

The story revolves around the U.S.S. Enterprise NX-01, Earth’s first-ever warp five capable ship. It is captained by Jonathan Archer, who takes his crew deep into space. During the adventure, humans encounter many Star Trek alien staples for the very first time. 

Star Trek: Discovery is the first series to feature an officer as the main character. In this case, it’s Michael Burnham, the science specialist of the U.S.S. Discovery NCC-1031. In the first season, Michael and crew deal with a galaxy on the brink of war. In the second, they chase a mysterious entity known as “The Red Angel.” 

Star Trek: Discovery streams exclusively on CBS All Access in the United States and is distributed concurrently by CBS Studios International on Netflix in 188 countries and in Canada, airs on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel and streams on Crave.

Spoiler alert: the end of the second season sees the Discovery jumping over 900 years forward in time. For timeline reasons, we have put this season further down the list.

Strange New Worlds will follow Christopher Pike’s adventures with Spock and Number One aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise. This series will fill in the decade of time between Discovery and The Original Series.

The series that started it all is the third chronologically. It starts in 2265 and follows the five-year journey of the U.S.S. Enterprise. 

Star Trek follows the adventures of Captain Kirk and his First Officer Spock as they explore strange new worlds, and boldly go where no one has gone before. 

The Animated Series takes place directly after The Original Series following the same characters. It is voiced by the main cast. 

Some episodes act as sequels to stories from the first series, while others are concepts Star Trek’s creator Gene Roddenberry didn’t get to use before The Original Series ended. 

Approximately three years after his adventures aboard the Enterprise, Kirk is now an Admiral at Starfleet headquarters in San Francisco. 

When a mysterious cloud of energy begins wreaking havoc in space, Kirk reunites the Enterprise crew and blasts off to investigate.  
 

Twelve years later, Kirk and the Enterprise run into a familiar foe, the genetically-engineered superhuman Khan Noonien Singh. 

They first encountered Khan around 2265, during their original five-year mission. Now, in 2285, Khan has been released from exile and is seeking revenge on Kirk. The Enterprise must prevent him from getting hold of a powerful space weapon known as the Genesis device. 

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock opens with the Enterprise returning from their mission against Khan. 

When McCoy begins to go insane, it’s revealed Spock has left his living essence inside the ship’s doctor. Kirk decides to take action, against Starfleet’s wishes, to save both of his officers. 

Kirk returns to Earth ready to take the heat for stealing and destroying the Enterprise in order to save Spock.

However, Starfleet has bigger problems. Problems that can only be saved by traveling back in time to San Francisco in 1986. 

One year later, Kirk and crew must take the brand new Enterprise-A into space to investigate the capture of Federation, Klingon and Romulan Ambassadors. 

When the perpetrator has a connection to Spock, the mission becomes infinitely more complicated. 

Six years later, Kirk and McCoy are framed for the assassination of the Klingon chancellor. 

Together, the Enterprise-A and Sulu’s U.S.S. Excelsior must investigate and save the galaxy from entering an all-out war.

Seventy years after the events of Star Trek VI, and nearly a full century after the initial five-year journey of the U.S.S. Enterprise, the U.S.S. Enterprise-D begins its own exploration mission. 

Although humans and Klingons have found peace, there are still a myriad of hostile alien life forms for Captain Picard and crew to encounter.

Approximately five years after the start of The Next Generation, the events of Deep Space Nine begin running concurrently with Picard’s voyage. Deep Space Nine does not take place aboard a Starfleet ship like the previous iterations.

Instead, it focuses on the political, defensive and commercial space station Deep Space 9. It follows Commander Sisko as he deals with everything from minor bar fights to the threat of Dominion War. 
 

Star Trek Generations opens in 2293, after the events of Star Trek VI, but most of it takes place in 2371. 

The film is not only meant to be a passing of the torch from Kirk to Picard, but also the epic conclusion of Picard and crew's adventures aboard the Enterprise-D.

Star Trek: Voyager begins in 2371. After setting out from the Deep Space 9 space station, the Voyager and the Maquis vessel they are chasing are transported 70,000 light-years away from home. 

Captain Janeway must unite the two factions and lead them on the long journey back to the Alpha Quadrant.

Star Trek: First Contact is the second Star Trek film to feature The Next Generation crew. When Picard disobeys orders and takes the newly-commissioned U.S.S. Enterprise-E into battle with the Borg, they find themselves 300 years in the past. 

There they must help preserve Earth’s first-ever contact with alien life forms, thereby protecting their future. 

The mission: save the peaceful planet Ba’ku from being exploited for resources by the Federation during the Dominion War. The Dominion War is covered extensively during the final two seasons of Deep Space Nine. 

Four years later, with the events of Deep Space Nine and Voyager already concluded, Picard and the Enterprise take their final mission together. 

Romulan’s new leader is wreaking havoc on the Federation. When the Enterprise investigates, they find he is a genetic clone of Picard. 
 

Star Trek: Lower Decks is a forthcoming animated series that focuses on the junior officers of the U.S.S. Cerritos. It takes place after the events of Nemesis and premiered Aug. 6, 2020 on the CBS All Access streaming service.

Star Trek: Lower Decks streams  exclusively on CBS All Access in the United States and in Canada on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel and streams on Crave.

Twenty years after his faceoff with Shinzon, Picard is retired and working his family’s vineyard. He mourns the loss of his friends and the planet Romulus (which was destroyed when its sun went supernova in 2387). 

Star Trek: Picard streams on CBS All Access in the United States,  in Canada on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel and streams on Crave, and on Amazon Prime Video in more than 200 countries and territories.

When a stranger with a connection to Picard’s past shows up asking for help, Picard is pulled into one last mission. 
 

Discovery’s third season has not yet been released, but we are enthralled by the setup. Burnham and the gang have traveled approximately nine hundred years into the future. No series has taken place this far in the future, it’s exciting to see what the Discovery crew will encounter. 

Now things get complicated. Remember when the planet Romulus was destroyed in 2387? A Romulan mining ship was sucked into the ensuing black hole, emerging in the year 2233. 

There, its captain, Nero, destroys the U.S.S. Kelvin. This creates an alternate reality known as the Kelvin Timeline (the former timeline is known as the Prime Timeline.) The following trilogy of films takes place in this new reality, which we recommend viewing after the entirety of the Prime Timeline. 

In 2258, a more rebellious, fatherless Kirk is convinced by Captain Pike to join Starfleet. On the Enterprise’s very first mission, Kirk, Spock, and the rest encounter a vengeful Nero. 

The new crew must work together to prevent Nero’s Romulans from destroying the Federation. Along the way, they meet a familiar face from a different time. 

A year later, Kirk is demoted after violating the Prime Directive in order to save Spock and the people of the planet Nibiru from a volcano.

Kirk is reinstated to chase down a terrorist, who has destroyed a key Starfleet facility. This is someone familiar to the Enterprise crew in a different timeline, Khan. 

In the Kelvin Timeline, Kirk and the Enterprise start their five-year mission to boldly go where no one has gone before in 2260. 

Beyond takes place in 2263. When the Enterprise is destroyed by a swarm of alien ships, the crew must regroup and defeat their powerful mutated leader. 

Short Treks is a series of mini-stories in the Star Trek universe. They serve primarily as a companion to Discovery and Picard. 

Star Trek: Short Treks stream exclusively in the United States on CBS All Access and in Canada on Bell Media's CTV Sci-Fi Channel and OTT service Crave.

The short stories take place anywhere from 2239 to well beyond 3300. We recommend enjoying them last or sporadically throughout your viewing journey.