The Planet of the Apes timeline can either be really simple or really complicated, depending on how you approach it. We’re here to break it down for you so you can understand how and when the apes took control of our planet, and the best way to watch the movies.
Planet of the Apes is a franchise that just keeps on giving. Much like Star Wars, we’ve been treated (or cursed, depending on how you feel about some of the movies) to Planet of the Apes stories for decades now, and there are still more to come.
The Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes release date is on the way this year, which will see the highly-rated modern trilogy become a quadrilogy. But what came before that?
With 10 movies in total, it’s time to dive into the Planet of the Apes timeline and find out the best ways to watch all the films. Warning, some spoilers ahead!
The original Planet of the Apes timeline explained
The original five Planet of the Apes movies are far more complicated than the more modern five, with the classics involving massive time jumps due to space exploration missions and time travel.
It all starts in 1972 when, in Planet of the Apes (1968), astronauts Taylor, Landon, Stewart, and Dodge leave Earth behind and aim to travel 700 years into the future. However, they land in November of 3978, more than 2,000 years into the future, which is far from ideal.
Stewart perishes in the landing, but the rest of the survivors (who have only aged 18 months thanks to hibernation) find themselves on an alien planet ruled by walking, talking primates who keep humans as slaves. Again, far from ideal.
By the end of that first movie, via escape plans and a whole load of monkey mutiny, the astronauts find the Statue of Liberty buried on the beach and realize they are not on an alien planet at all, but a dystopian Earth that has seen humans slip down the food chain.
The next movie, Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970), is set just months after the first. A new astronaut named Brent lands on the planet tasked with finding the missing crew who came before him. More divisions in the monkey world emerge, mutants get involved, and, ultimately, a bomb is used to decimate the planet by the end.
Here’s where it gets interesting. The next three movies – Escape from the Planet of the Apes, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, and Battle for the Planet of the Apes – see the nice monkeys, Cornelius, Zira, and Dr. Milo, leave the planet behind to pass through a time warp back to Earth in 1973.
Essentially, they want to go back in time and put things right to avoid the planet being blown up, which is a worthy mission if we’ve ever heard one. Obviously, the inhabitants of Earth in 1973 aren’t ready to see intelligent apes walking around, so the trio are captured and imprisoned.
Eventually, they are able to reveal their vision of the future, but they still face great opposition. Over the next three decades, viruses plague the Earth, apes are forced into slave labor by the US military, and by 2001, the human race has collapsed in the wake of a nuclear war, leaving apes to rule once more under their new leader, Caesar.
Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes movie explained
This standalone effort sees an astronaut accidentally sending a monkey through time and space to a planet 3,000 years into the future, where apes rule over humans. More time travel, less fun, this one.
The less said about Tim Burton’s 2001 movie the better, so we’ll round this up swiftly. The story starts in 2029, when astronaut Leo Davidson (Mark Wahlberg) sends a chimpanzee named Pericles through an electromagnetic storm to gather data. The plan doesn’t work, obviously, and Pericles is missing without a trace.
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Leo follows him into the storm and ends up in the year 5021 on a planet called Ashlar that is, you guessed it, ruled by apes. Even worse is, when Leo manages to go back in time to Earth once more, he is too late, as the leader of the monkeys, Thade, beat him to it and enslaved the human race there, too.
The new Planet of the Apes timeline explained
This trilogy is soon to be a quadrilogy, and all three of the movies so far have focused on a monkey named Caesar, who is the first ape to develop speech and true sentience, and who leads an uprising on a modern day Planet Earth.
Finally, we come to the new series of movies, with a trilogy that delivers banger after banger. Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) shows the rise of Caesar (not that one), as he develops from a loving monkey into a genetic mutant due to research into a cure for a dangerous virus going drastically wrong.
After he learns to speak, the highly-intelligent Caesar leads the primate race into all-out war against the humans in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014). Years later, once monkeys have truly become the dominant species on Earth, all they have left to do is fight among themselves.
This ties into War for the Planet of the Apes (2017), where Caesar and his rival Koba, battle against one another for supremacy. The dystopian world has few human survivors, but one, known only as The Colonel (Woody Harrelson), is determined to use his dying days to destroy as many apes as he can.
Up next is Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, a story set 300 years beyond the timeline of Caesar’s rule. There’s a new leader, Noa, but he faces rebellion in the form of Proximus, who wants to do things a little differently, especially when it comes to the remaining humans on the planet.
How to watch the Planet of the Apes movies in release order
Watching the Planet of the Apes movies in release order is by far the easiest method to exploring this franchise, and is honestly the only route that makes sense, really.
There are essentially three separate strands of the Planet of the Apes timeline: the originals of the 1960s and ’70s, the Tim Burton remake, and the new quadrilogy. The good thing is none of these three timelines intertwine, so watching them as their own mini sagas is perfectly fine.
The Planet of the Apes movies in release order:
- Planet of the Apes (1968)
- Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)
- Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971)
- Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972)
- Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973)
- Planet of the Apes (2001)
- Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)
- Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)
- War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)
- Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024)
How to watch the Planet of the Apes movies in chronological order
So, you’re a fan of chaos and confusion? Trying to watch the Planet of the Apes movies in chronological order might be for you, then, but we can’t recommend it.
With space exploration, time travel, and reboots, sticking to the chronology of the Planet of the Apes timeline is a complex approach, but you can just about do it.
The Planet of the Apes movies in chronological order:
- Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971) – set in the year 1973
- Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) – set in the year 1983
- Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973) – set in the years 1997-2012
- Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) – set in the years 2010-2016
- Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) – set in the year 2026
- War for the Planet of the Apes (2017) – set in the year 2028
- Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024) – set in the year 2328
- Planet of the Apes (1968) – set in the year 3978
- Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) – set in the year 3979
- Planet of the Apes (2001) – set in the year 5021
We must warn you, though, that watching the movies in this order will spoil some of the big twists and turns of the original movie. Plus, dropping into the new quadrilogy in the middle of this marathon will not make a great deal of sense as the stories do not carry over from the original saga.
For more monkey business, check out our guide to the Godzilla x Kong release date, or if it’s simply talking animals you find interesting, how about learning more on Zootopia 2.
