Timeline of Fast and Furious

Timeline of Fast and Furious – Complete Chronological Guide

Street racing in L.A., a heist in Rio, a showdown in space, and a cliffhanger in Rome… The Fast & Furious saga has grown from a simple undercover cop story into a huge, interconnected universe spread across movies and shorts. No wonder the timeline feels a bit like trying to read a map at 200 km/h.

This guide is built for timeline lovers. You’ll see the story order, the release order, how the shorts plug into the main narrative, and what each era means for Dominic Toretto’s “family”. On timeline-s.com, this page helps you instantly map events to years and films without getting lost.

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Quick Chronological Timeline (Story Order)

First, here’s the in-universe chronological order of the main films and narrative shorts. This is the order that follows the story, not when the movies actually hit cinemas.

Approx. Story Year	Title	Type	Release Year
c. 2001	The Fast and the Furious	Feature film	2001
Shortly after 2001	The Turbo-Charged Prelude for 2 Fast 2 Furious	Short film	2003
Early 2000s	2 Fast 2 Furious	Feature film	2003
Mid-2000s	Los Bandoleros	Short film	2009
Mid-2000s	Fast & Furious (Fast & Furious 4)	Feature film	2009
c. 2011	Fast Five	Feature film	2011
c. 2013	Fast & Furious 6	Feature film	2013
Directly after F&F 6	The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift	Feature film	2006
Shortly after Tokyo Drift	Furious 7	Feature film	2015
Several years later	The Fate of the Furious	Feature film	2017
Same era	Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw	Spin-off film	2019
About 8–9 years after the first film	F9 (Fast & Furious 9)	Feature film	2021
Immediately after F9	Fast X	Feature film	2023

Key thing to notice: Tokyo Drift releases in 2006 but actually happens between Fast & Furious 6 and Furious 7. That one jump is what makes the whole timeline feel “out of order” at first glance.

Release Order vs. Story Order

If you’re watching for the first time, both orders work. Release order lets you feel the franchise grow over 20+ years. Story order gives you a clean narrative timeline with almost no jumps (except flashbacks in F9).

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1. Early Street Racing Era (2001–2003)

This is where it all starts: small-scale street races, DVD player heists, and a cop torn between duty and loyalty. The tone is gritty and grounded compared to the super-spy stories that come later.

The Fast and the Furious (2001)

Set in Los Angeles around 2001, the first film introduces Brian O’Conner, an undercover LAPD officer infiltrating the street racing world to investigate hijackings of trucks carrying electronics. He earns the trust of Dominic Toretto, a legendary street racer who leads a tight-knit crew, and falls for Dom’s sister Mia.

By the end, Brian lets Dom escape, sacrificing his badge for the man he once hunted. That single decision is basically the “spark plug” that ignites the entire saga.

The Turbo-Charged Prelude (2003 short)

This dialogue-free short follows Brian on the run after he lets Dom go. He races across the United States, winning pink slips, modifying cars, and slowly drifting toward Miami. The short acts as a bridge between the first and second films, explaining how Brian becomes a wanted man and why he’s no longer a cop.

2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)

Now an ex-cop living in Miami, Brian teams up with childhood friend Roman Pearce and undercover agent Monica Fuentes. The story dives deeper into the world of illegal racing, but the focus shifts to taking down a ruthless drug lord in exchange for clearing Brian and Roman’s records.

In the timeline, this is where Brian’s loyalty to friends over institutions really hardens. He chose Dom over the badge once; now he chooses Roman and Mia’s memory of him over any chance of a normal life.

Timeline note: By the end of this era, Dom is a fugitive somewhere off the grid, and Brian is a free man with a record cleared but a future that’s tightly tied to the racing world.

2. Exile & Dominican Jobs (Los Bandoleros & Fast & Furious)

The saga leaves Los Angeles and Miami behind and heads into international territory. Dom is hiding out, and the tone edges into heist-movie territory.

Los Bandoleros (2009 short)

Set in the Dominican Republic, Los Bandoleros shows Dom living as a fugitive, assembling a crew that includes Han Lue, Rico Santos, and Tego Leo. It sets up the oil tanker heist seen at the beginning of Fast & Furious (2009).

We also see Dom reunited with Letty Ortiz. Their relationship, which felt rough and implied in the first film, gets more emotional depth here. For the timeline, this short quietly explains why Han is already tight with Dom before Fast & Furious starts.

Fast & Furious (2009)

Now we return to the U.S.–Mexico borderlands. The events happen a few years after the original movie. Letty appears to be killed while working with the FBI and Dom to bring down a cartel-linked drug runner, Arturo Braga. This sends Dom on a revenge path and pulls Brian back into federal work.

By the finale, Dom chooses to sacrifice his freedom, accepting prison for Letty’s death and his past crimes. The last seconds show him being transported on a prison bus… and Brian, Mia, and the crew pulling up to free him. That bus rescue is replayed at the start of Fast Five, anchoring this movie’s place in the timeline with zero ambiguity.

3. Rio Heist Era (Fast Five)

Many fans see Fast Five as the turning point where the series moves from street-racing drama to globe-trotting heist blockbuster. The timeline reflects that jump in scale.

Fast Five (2011)

After breaking Dom from the prison bus, the crew flees to Rio de Janeiro. They take on a massive heist against corrupt businessman Hernan Reyes, pulling together characters from previous films: Roman, Han, Tej, Gisele, and more. At the same time, relentless DSS agent Luke Hobbs hunts them down.

In the story timeline, this movie cements the crew as a full-scale heist team rather than simple racers. They end up rich, scattered around the world, and technically still wanted—but living their dream lives.

It matters for later films because Reyes’ son, Dante Reyes, becomes the villain of Fast X, seeking revenge for what Dom’s crew did in Rio.

4. Global Operations & Tokyo Drift Switch (Fast & Furious 6, Tokyo Drift, Furious 7)

This era is where the timeline gets tricky. The films weave in flashbacks, mid-credits stingers, and a delayed pay-off for Tokyo Drift.

Fast & Furious 6 (2013)

Dom’s team is recruited by Hobbs to stop mercenary Owen Shaw. In exchange, they’ll get full pardons and can return home. Meanwhile, Letty is revealed to be alive but suffering from amnesia, working for Shaw.

The film ends happily enough, with the crew back at the Toretto home in Los Angeles… but the mid-credits scene changes everything. We see Han’s “accident” in Tokyo from a new angle, revealing that it wasn’t a random crash but a deliberate hit by Owen’s brother, Deckard Shaw. That scene re-labels Tokyo Drift as a future event in the timeline.

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006, but later in the story)

Although released in 2006, Tokyo Drift occurs after the events of Fast & Furious 6. It follows American teenager Sean Boswell in Japan, where he learns drift racing from Han. Han’s “death” is re-contextualized later, but in this moment in the timeline, it looks permanent.

The final scene includes a cameo from Dom, implying a long history with Han and tying Tokyo’s street-racing world back into the main saga. When watched in story order, this movie is not a side quest; it’s the emotional bridge that explains why Han matters so much afterwards.

Furious 7 (2015)

Furious 7 picks up right after Tokyo Drift, with Deckard Shaw launching a revenge campaign against Dom’s family for what they did to his brother. The team gets drawn into a global chase to recover surveillance tech called “God’s Eye”, working with covert operative Mr. Nobody.

This film is also where the real-world tragedy of actor Paul Walker intersects with the timeline. Brian drives off into the sunset in an emotional farewell, his character retiring from the high-risk life to focus on his family. The story timeline treats Brian as alive but off-screen from this point forward.

5. Shadow Wars & Betrayals (The Fate of the Furious & Hobbs & Shaw)

By now, the crew has gone from DVD player thieves to unofficial operatives in a kind of freelance war on cybercrime and terrorism. The stakes shift from local to global.

The Fate of the Furious (2017)

Set several years after Furious 7, Dom and Letty are living a quiet life in Cuba when mysterious hacker Cipher forces Dom to turn against his own family. We later learn she’s holding leverage tied to Dom’s hidden past and his son.

In the timeline, this film marks the point where family becomes literal as well as symbolic. Dom’s son, Brian Marcos, becomes a permanent part of the story. Cipher, meanwhile, quietly moves into the background as a “puppet master” villain who will resurface later.

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019)

This spin-off takes place after The Fate of the Furious. Luke Hobbs and Deckard Shaw are forced to work together against super-enhanced antagonist Brixton Lore and the secretive organization ETON. Dom and the core crew are off-screen, but the worldbuilding matters for the larger timeline: it hints that there are bigger forces in play beyond traditional government agencies.

The movie also expands the personal timelines of both Hobbs and Shaw, introducing Shaw’s sister Hattie and Hobbs’ extended Samoan family, which echoes Dom’s “family first” philosophy on a different continent.

6. Flashbacks, Space & Siblings (F9)

F9 is the most “timeline heavy” movie in the saga because it jumps between past and present constantly, filling in gaps about Dom’s early life.

F9 (Fast & Furious 9) – 2021

The present-day storyline sees Dom and his team trying to stop another global threat, this time involving weaponized satellite tech. The twist: the villain is Dom’s estranged brother, Jakob Toretto, who has history with Cipher.

At the same time, extended flashbacks reveal the death of Dom’s father on the racetrack, Dom’s jail time after beating the driver he thought caused the crash, and the deep rift that formed between Dom and Jakob. These flashbacks date back to the late 1980s and early 1990s, turning F9 into a partial prequel layered inside a sequel.

And yes, this is the film where Roman and Tej end up in orbit in a modified Pontiac Fiero. In timeline terms, it shows how far the tech and ambition of the saga have escalated since that first L.A. street race.

F9 also retcons the fate of Han: we learn that Mr. Nobody faked Han’s death, allowing him to stay hidden while protecting a young girl tied to powerful tech. This cleverly stitches together Tokyo Drift, Furious 7, and the later films, making Han’s “death” and “return” feel like part of one long plan instead of a loose thread.

7. Dante’s Revenge & Cliffhanger (Fast X)

Fast X is labeled as the first part of the saga’s grand finale, and its story leans heavily on events from earlier in the timeline, especially the Rio heist in Fast Five.

Fast X (2023)

In the story, we learn that Reyes’ son Dante survived the Rio incident and has spent a decade planning revenge. He doesn’t just want Dom dead; he wants to tear apart everything Dom cares about, particularly his family and friends.

The film jumps between locations like Rome, Rio, and Portugal, splitting the crew into multiple groups: Dom protecting his son, Letty stuck in a black-site facility, Roman’s team on the run, and a new ally, Tess, navigating the politics around Mr. Nobody’s agency.

From a timeline perspective, Fast X ends mid-story. Several characters are left in cliffhanger danger, and key relationships and alliances are unresolved. It feels like the first half of a two-part finale that will eventually tie together dangling arcs from every era of the saga.

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8. How to Use This Timeline When Watching

You don’t need a PhD in continuity to enjoy these movies. Still, knowing the timeline lets you appreciate small moments that casual viewers miss. Here’s how to put this to work when you rewatch.

Watch Order for Story Lovers

• Start with: The Fast and the Furious
• Then watch: Turbo-Charged Prelude & 2 Fast 2 Furious
• Move into: Los Bandoleros & Fast & Furious (2009)
• Follow with: Fast Five & Fast & Furious 6
• Then: Tokyo Drift & Furious 7
• Next: The Fate of the Furious & Hobbs & Shaw
• Finally: F9 & Fast X

Ask yourself as you watch: How did Dom’s choices in the early films ripple into this scene? When you know Dante’s motivation traces directly back to Rio, or why Han’s survival matters to the group dynamic, every callback feels sharper.

Using the Timeline for Character Arcs

Seen this way, the saga isn’t just about action scenes; it’s almost like a long-running family drama that happens to include vaults flying through city streets.

9. Short FAQ About the Fast & Furious Timeline

Why does Tokyo Drift come so “late” in the timeline?

Originally, Tokyo Drift looked like a distant spin-off with new characters. Later films retconned it as a mid-saga event, with Han’s death re-used as a plot point and Deckard Shaw revealed as responsible. That creative choice let the franchise bring back a fan-favorite character (Han) and tie a seemingly seperate story back into the main line.

Are the shorts essential?

You can follow the main narrative with just the feature films, but the shorts do valuable work:

• Turbo-Charged Prelude explains how Brian becomes a fugitive and reaches Miami.
• Los Bandoleros sets up the Dominican crew and gives emotional weight to Dom and Letty’s reunion.

If you like clean timelines, they’re worth watching at least once.

Where does Hobbs & Shaw fit?

It takes place after The Fate of the Furious and before F9. Think of it as a side road off the main highway: same universe, overlapping characters, but focused on a different corner of that world.

Is there an official “end” to the timeline yet?

Not yet. As of now, the last chronological entry is Fast X, which ends on a cliffhanger. The planned next film is expected to wrap up the main saga, but until it releases, the final chapter is still unwritten.

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10. Final Lap – Reading the Saga as One Big Timeline

Look back at the table at the top of this page for a moment. From 2001’s small L.A. races to 2023’s globe-spanning revenge plot, the Fast & Furious story covers decades of fictional history and real-world time. The franchise has grown alongside its audience; many people who watched the first film as teenagers now watch Fast X with their own kids.

That’s why a clear timeline matters. It turns the series from “a bunch of action movies” into one long, interconnected saga where choices echo across years: Brian sparing Dom, Dom stealing from Reyes, Deckard targeting Han, Cipher manipulating everyone from the shadows, Dante returning after a decade of planning.

Use this page on timeline-s.com as your map: jump to the film you’re about to watch, check its neighbors on the timeline, and notice how often the story calls back to earlier races, jobs, and betrayals. Once you see those connections, the saga feels less chaotic and more like a carefully tuned engine—messy at times, sure, maybe even a little definately over the top, but always powered by the same thing Dom talks about in every era: family.