Star Trek Movies Guide: All 13 Films Explained in Release Order

The Motion Picture (1979)

Star Trek: The Motion Picture reached theaters on December 7, 1979, ten years after the television series ended. Robert Wise directed, Gene Roddenberry produced, and the screenplay is credited to Harold Livingston from a story by Alan Dean Foster. A vast alien cloud called V'Ger is approaching Earth and destroying whatever is in its way. Admiral James T. Kirk takes command of the refitted Enterprise to find out what it is.

The film is slower and more contemplative than anything that follows it, and fans tend to either love that or struggle with it. As a starting point it asks for patience. As a way to see how the franchise began on the big screen, it is the logical first stop, and the six-film run that follows is quite different in pace.

The Wrath of Khan, The Search for Spock and The Voyage Home (1982-1986)

These three form a continuous story. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan came out on June 4, 1982, directed by Nicholas Meyer. It is a sequel to the 1967 television episode "Space Seed," in which Kirk exiled Khan and his followers to Ceti Alpha V after they tried to seize the Enterprise, and the film picks up fifteen years later. Ricardo Montalbán plays Khan Noonien Singh, a genetically engineered tyrant who escapes and sets out for revenge against a Kirk who, now an admiral, is feeling his age.

Leonard Nimoy directed the next two films. The Search for Spock (June 1, 1984) starts from the consequences of the previous film: Kirk learns that Spock's spirit rests in McCoy's mind, and the crew steals the decommissioned Enterprise to bring Spock's body home while Klingons led by Kruge hunt for the Genesis secret. The Voyage Home (November 26, 1986) has an alien probe disabling Earth's power grid and the crew traveling back to 1986 San Francisco to find humpback whales, whose song matches the probe's signal.

Nimoy directed both The Search for Spock and The Voyage Home, which gives the middle of the trilogy a consistent hand. Together these are the strongest case for the early films. The first is a revenge story, the second a rescue and the third a time-travel adventure, and the shift in tone between them is the series' widest.

The Final Frontier and The Undiscovered Country (1989, 1991)

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier opened on June 9, 1989. William Shatner directed it, and the plot involves a hostage crisis on Nimbus III that leads to Sybok, Spock's half-brother, a renegade Vulcan who wants to seize a starship for a quest beyond the galactic center. Of the six original-cast films, it is the one a viewer short on time is most likely to leave out. It is also a notable credit: Shatner, who plays Kirk, directed it, as Leonard Nimoy, who plays Spock, directed the two films before it.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country followed on December 6, 1991, with Meyer back as director. After an accident destroys the Klingon moon Praxis and devastates the Klingon homeworld, the Klingon Empire cannot afford war and seeks peace with the Federation. The Enterprise is assigned to escort Chancellor Gorkon to the negotiations. It is the sixth and last film of the original-cast group, and its story is a political thriller about a peace process.

Generations and First Contact (1994, 1996)

Star Trek Generations, released on November 18, 1994, hands the franchise from one crew to the next. David Carson directed. Captain Jean-Luc Picard, played by Patrick Stewart, teams up with Kirk, played by William Shatner, to stop Dr. Tolian Soran, played by Malcolm McDowell, from destroying a planetary system in his quest to reach the Nexus.

First Contact came out on November 22, 1996, and was Jonathan Frakes's debut as a feature director. Alice Krige plays the Borg Queen and James Cromwell plays Zefram Cochrane. Picard is haunted by his past assimilation by the Borg, and a new Borg threat against Earth draws the Enterprise-E into battle. The Borg use time travel to alter the past, and the crew follows them to 2063, the day before humanity's first contact with alien life. It is the cleanest entry point for The Next Generation and needs no background beyond the premise.

Insurrection and Nemesis (1998, 2002)

Star Trek: Insurrection, released on December 11, 1998, is the second Frakes-directed film in a row. The crew of the Enterprise-E uncovers a secret alliance between Starfleet officers and the Son'a to seize the Ba'ku's peaceful planet for its rejuvenating properties, and Picard defies his superiors to protect the Ba'ku.

Star Trek: Nemesis came out on December 13, 2002, directed by Stuart Baird. The crew faces Shinzon, a clone of Picard who has taken control of the Romulan Star Empire. Tom Hardy plays the role, years before he took the lead in Mad Max: Fury Road. It was the last film with this crew, and what followed was a break of seven years before the series returned.

Star Trek and Into Darkness (2009, 2013)

J. J. Abrams directed Star Trek, released in the US on May 8, 2009, from a screenplay by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. In 2233, a Romulan commander named Nero attacks the USS Kelvin, and George Kirk must decide how to protect his crew while his wife is about to give birth. Nero and an elder Spock have traveled back in time from 2387, and the attack changes history and creates an alternate timeline, and the three films set in it are known as the Kelvin timeline.

The cast is Chris Pine as Kirk, Zachary Quinto as Spock, Zoe Saldaña as Uhura, Karl Urban as McCoy, Simon Pegg as Scotty, John Cho as Sulu and Anton Yelchin as Chekov, with Leonard Nimoy appearing as Spock Prime. Abrams directed the follow-up too, Star Trek Into Darkness, in 2013. Kirk is demoted for violating the Prime Directive, and a terrorist attack in London draws the Enterprise crew into a hunt for a rogue agent called John Harrison, played by Benedict Cumberbatch.

Star Trek Beyond (2016)

Star Trek Beyond reached US theaters on July 22, 2016. Justin Lin directed it, and Simon Pegg co-wrote the screenplay with Doug Jung. After answering a distress call from a nebula, the Enterprise crew is ambushed and stranded on a hostile planet, where they face an alien named Krall who has designs on Starbase Yorktown.

It is the most recent theatrical Star Trek film at the time of writing. A direct sequel was planned and then dropped, and the franchise has continued on streaming since, including the Paramount+ film Section 31 in 2025. A film for theaters is back in development, as the introduction notes.