There are 10 Saw movies, running from James Wan’s Saw (2004) to Kevin Greutert’s Saw X (2023). Add the 2003 short film that sold the idea, and the count of officially released Saw films reaches 11. Below you get release order, story order, where each film sits on the gore scale, and which ones are worth your evening.
How many Saw movies are there?
The franchise has ten feature films: seven yearly sequels between 2004 and 2010, a revival in 2017, a spin-off in 2021 and a prequel-style return in 2023. Jigsaw and Spiral: From the Book of Saw are the two entries without “Saw” leading the title. Both are still canon and still count.
If you want to be a completist, there’s also the 2003 proof-of-concept short, also called Saw. It runs under ten minutes and was made by Wan and writer Leigh Whannell to pitch the feature. Nobody counts it in the main ten, but it’s a great curiosity.
An eleventh film, widely called Saw XI, was announced and dated after Saw X did well. It was later pulled from Lionsgate’s release calendar. Trade reports in 2025 said Blumhouse had acquired the franchise from producers Twisted Pictures. More on that further down.
Here’s the quick count:
- 10 feature films (2004 to 2023)
- 1 proof-of-concept short (2003)
- 2 console video games (2009 and 2010)
- 1 film announced but without a current release date
Saw movies in release order
This is the order most fans recommend for a first watch. The twists stack on each other, and the films assume you saw the previous entry. Release dates below are US theatrical dates.
| # | Title | US release | Director | Runtime |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Saw | October 29, 2004 | James Wan | 103 min |
| 2 | Saw II | October 28, 2005 | Darren Lynn Bousman | 93 min |
| 3 | Saw III | October 27, 2006 | Darren Lynn Bousman | 108 min |
| 4 | Saw IV | October 26, 2007 | Darren Lynn Bousman | 93 min |
| 5 | Saw V | October 24, 2008 | David Hackl | 92 min |
| 6 | Saw VI | October 23, 2009 | Kevin Greutert | 90 min |
| 7 | Saw 3D (Saw: The Final Chapter) | October 29, 2010 | Kevin Greutert | 90 min |
| 8 | Jigsaw | October 27, 2017 | The Spierig Brothers | 92 min |
| 9 | Spiral: From the Book of Saw | May 14, 2021 | Darren Lynn Bousman | 93 min |
| 10 | Saw X | September 29, 2023 | Kevin Greutert | 118 min |
Notice the pattern. For seven straight years, Lionsgate dropped a Saw film on the last weekend before Halloween. The marketing line “If it’s Halloween, it must be Saw” became part of the brand. It’s the same October ritual that John Carpenter’s Halloween helped turn into a business model a generation earlier.
Runtimes listed are the theatrical cuts. Several entries got unrated “Director’s Cut” home releases with a few extra minutes of trap footage, so your copy may run slightly longer.
Saw movies in story (chronological) order
Story order is where Saw gets fun and slightly maddening. The series loves flashbacks, overlapping timelines and scenes you later learn were happening “off-screen” during an earlier film. This spoiler-free table places each film by when its main plot happens.
| Story position | Title | Where the main plot sits |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Saw | The bathroom game and the police hunt for Jigsaw |
| 2 | Saw X | Shortly after Saw, before Saw II |
| 3 | Saw II | Police finally close in on Jigsaw |
| 4 | Saw III | Follows directly from Saw II |
| 5 | Saw IV | Tied tightly to Saw III’s timeline |
| 6 | Saw V | Picks up right after Saw IV |
| 7 | Saw VI | Continues the same investigation |
| 8 | Saw 3D | Closes out the original storyline |
| 9 | Jigsaw | Roughly ten years after the original run |
| 10 | Spiral | A copycat case in Jigsaw’s shadow |
The only real reshuffle is Saw X. The filmmakers openly positioned it between the first two movies, so moving it up is no spoiler. Everything else mostly lines up with release order.
My advice: watch in release order the first time. Saw X lands much harder once you’ve spent nine films with John Kramer and Amanda Young. Story order is a rewatch project.
Spoiler warning
The next section spoils timeline twists in Saw IV and Jigsaw.
The two timeline twists that trip people up
Saw IV isn’t strictly “after” Saw III. Its final reveal shows that most of its events run alongside Saw III, ending at the same moment. If you’re doing a story-order marathon, IV is essentially a parallel track to III, not a sequel to it.
Jigsaw plays a similar trick. The barn game the audience watches turns out to be a flashback to a test from before the first film. The present-day investigation runs about a decade after John’s death. So Jigsaw sits in two places at once on any honest timeline.
The flashbacks in Saw III, Saw IV and Saw VI also fill in John Kramer’s life before he became Jigsaw. That’s why no simple linear order is perfectly “correct.” The table above follows each film’s main present-day plot, which is how most fan timelines handle it.
Box office and critics: how each Saw film performed
The Saw series is one of the most profitable horror franchises ever made. The original reportedly cost around $1.2 million and grossed over $100 million worldwide. Across all ten films, the franchise has taken in more than $1.1 billion globally.
Critics have been far less kind. Only one entry holds a Fresh Tomatometer score on Rotten Tomatoes, and it’s the newest.
| Title | Approx. worldwide gross | Rotten Tomatoes status |
|---|---|---|
| Saw (2004) | $103.9 million | Rotten |
| Saw II (2005) | $147.7 million | Rotten |
| Saw III (2006) | $164.9 million | Rotten |
| Saw IV (2007) | $139.4 million | Rotten |
| Saw V (2008) | $113.9 million | Rotten |
| Saw VI (2009) | $68.2 million | Rotten |
| Saw 3D (2010) | $136.2 million | Rotten |
| Jigsaw (2017) | $103 million | Rotten |
| Spiral (2021) | $40.6 million | Rotten |
| Saw X (2023) | $111 million | Fresh (around 80%) |
Saw III is the box office peak. Saw VI is the dip, and it’s a sad one, because many fans consider it the strongest of the original sequels. It opened against Paranormal Activity‘s wide expansion and got flattened. Spiral had the misfortune of opening in May 2021, when plenty of theaters were still half-empty.
Don’t read the critic column as a quality ranking. The original sits at roughly 50 percent and is a genuine modern classic. Saw has always played better with horror fans than with critics.
The scare-level comparison table
If you’re picking one or two films for tonight rather than doing the whole run, this is the table you want. Scare and gore ratings are ours, from repeated rewatches, not from marketing copy.
| Title | Year | Subgenre flavor | Scare level | Where to watch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Saw | 2004 | Psychological thriller, mystery | 4/5 | Rent or buy digitally |
| Saw II | 2005 | Ensemble survival horror | 3/5 | Rent or buy digitally |
| Saw III | 2006 | Grief drama, torture horror | 4/5 | Rent or buy digitally |
| Saw IV | 2007 | Police procedural horror | 3/5 | Rent or buy digitally |
| Saw V | 2008 | Cat-and-mouse procedural | 2/5 | Rent or buy digitally |
| Saw VI | 2009 | Satirical torture horror | 3/5 | Rent or buy digitally |
| Saw 3D | 2010 | Splatter spectacle | 2/5 | Rent or buy digitally |
| Jigsaw | 2017 | Whodunit horror | 2/5 | Rent or buy digitally |
| Spiral | 2021 | Crime thriller, copycat killer | 3/5 | Rent or buy digitally |
| Saw X | 2023 | Revenge horror | 4/5 | Rent or buy digitally |
All ten films are Lionsgate releases and are available to rent or buy on the major digital storefronts: Apple TV, Prime Video, Google Play and Fandango at Home. Subscription and free ad-supported homes rotate often and differ by country, so check a streaming tracker before you commit to a marathon night.
Saw (2004)
Two men wake up chained to pipes at opposite ends of a filthy industrial bathroom. Between them lies a corpse holding a gun and a tape recorder. Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes) and photographer Adam (Leigh Whannell) have to work out why they’re there and who wants them to play. Meanwhile, Detective David Tapp (Danny Glover) is obsessed with catching the killer the press calls Jigsaw.
Here’s the thing people forget: the horror film Saw is barely a torture movie. It’s a grimy mystery thriller with a few brutal moments, shot fast and cheap by two young Australians in roughly 18 days. Wan’s frantic editing, Charlie Clouser’s score (that “Hello Zepp” theme debuts here) and the creepy Billy the Puppet do most of the heavy lifting. Billy has since joined Pennywise the dancing clown in the hall of fame for horror mascots you never want to see in a hallway.
Who it suits: anyone new to the series, and viewers who can’t handle heavy gore. This is the gentlest entry on the body count and the best on suspense. Go in blind. The ending is one of the great twists of 2000s horror.
Saw II (2005)
Detective Eric Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg) tracks Jigsaw down surprisingly early in the film. The catch: eight people are locked in a house filling with nerve agent, and one of them is Eric’s son. Tobin Bell finally gets real screen time as John Kramer, and Shawnee Smith’s Amanda returns in a much bigger role.
Darren Lynn Bousman built this out of his own unrelated script, retooled with Whannell into a Saw sequel. It shows. Saw II has a different energy from the first film: louder, meaner and more of an ensemble survival game. It’s also where the series’ signature gross-out set pieces begin. The needle pit scene alone has ended more than one movie night.
Who it suits: viewers who liked the first film’s puzzle box and want to see more of Jigsaw himself. It’s a good group watch, because the house game plays like a horror escape room.
Saw III (2006)
John Kramer is dying and bedridden. Amanda kidnaps a doctor, Lynn (Bahar Soomekh), whose job is to keep him alive while another test plays out. That test belongs to Jeff (Angus Macfadyen), a father destroyed by grief after his young son’s death in a drunk-driving accident. Jeff has to decide whether to save or abandon the people he blames.
This is the most emotionally heavy of the yearly sequels and the goriest of the early run. A brain surgery scene performed without much cutting away earned the film a reputation. It’s also, for many fans, the end of the “core trilogy,” since it closes the John and Amanda arc in a way that feels deliberate.
Who it suits: fans who want the darkest, most character-driven sequel and don’t flinch at extreme gore. If you get queasy, skip the unrated cut.
Saw IV (2007)
With Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan taking over writing duties, Saw IV turns into a procedural. SWAT commander Daniel Rigg (Lyriq Bent) is put through a series of tests built around his compulsion to save everyone. FBI agents Strahm (Scott Patterson) and Perez (Athena Karkanis) join Detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) on the case, and we meet Jill Tuck (Betsy Russell), John’s ex-wife.
It’s the most confusing Saw film on a first watch, and that’s by design. The timeline games start here, and this is the entry most likely to send you to a fan wiki afterward. It opens with one of the franchise’s most memorable autopsy sequences. Bousman’s three straight films end here.
Who it suits: viewers committed to the full marathon who enjoy assembling clues. Casual fans can skip it, but you’ll lose the setup for V, VI and 3D.
Saw V (2008)
Two stories run side by side. Agent Strahm becomes convinced someone close to the case is continuing Jigsaw’s work. Meanwhile, five strangers (Julie Benz, Carlo Rota, Greg Bryk, Meagan Good and Laura Gordon) wake up in a group test that only works if they cooperate, which, this being Saw, they mostly don’t.
David Hackl had been production designer on Saw II through IV, and this was his directing debut. It’s the most workmanlike entry. The group game has a clever “you missed the point” angle, but the film exists mainly to move pieces into place. It’s the weakest of the original run on scares, though the opening pendulum trap is a classic.
Who it suits: marathon viewers only. It’s essential connective tissue and not much of a standalone movie.
Saw VI (2009)
William Easton (Peter Outerbridge) runs a health insurance company that uses a formula to deny coverage. You can guess what John Kramer, a cancer patient, thinks about that. William gets a game built around the life-and-death decisions he signs off on every day.
Kevin Greutert edited the first five films and makes an assured directing debut here. Saw VI is angry, pointed and often darkly funny, especially the carousel trap that literalizes “choosing who lives.” Tanedra Howard, who won her role on VH1’s Scream Queens, also appears. It flopped at the box office and has been steadily reclaimed by fans since.
Who it suits: fans who want the series at its most satirical. It’s my pick for the best sequel in the original run.
Saw 3D, aka Saw: The Final Chapter (2010)
Bobby Dagen (Sean Patrick Flanery) has turned a fake story of surviving Jigsaw into a bestselling book and a self-help tour. Real survivors gather for support. Bobby, inevitably, ends up in a real game. Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington has a memorable cameo, and the film was shot natively in 3D during the post-Avatar boom.
Greutert came back to direct, reportedly because Lionsgate held him to his contract after he’d been lined up for Paranormal Activity 2. The film feels rushed. Gore effects get cartoonish, the story crams in a lot of answers fast, and an opening trap staged in a public shop window plays like a carnival act. It’s still a hoot with the right crowd, and it brings back a character from the first film that fans had waited six years to see again.
Who it suits: groups who like loud splatter and are fine laughing at it. Watch it for closure, not for scares.
Jigsaw (2017)
Ten years after John Kramer’s death, bodies with Jigsaw’s signature start turning up again. Detectives Halloran (Callum Keith Rennie) and Hunt (Clé Bennett) team with medical examiners Logan Nelson (Matt Passmore) and Eleanor Bonneville (Hannah Emily Anderson) to work out whether Jigsaw is truly dead. In parallel, five people play a game in a barn.
The Spierig Brothers, Peter and Michael, directed after Daybreakers and Predestination. Josh Stolberg and Pete Goldfinger wrote it. It’s the slickest, brightest and least grimy Saw. That’s both its strength and why some fans bounced off it. Think of it as a polished mystery with traps, rather than the scuzzy grindhouse feel of the 2000s films.
Who it suits: people new to horror who want a self-contained Saw story with lighter gore. You can follow it without seeing the first seven, though the payoff is richer if you have.
Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021)
A copycat killer is targeting police officers in a city department. Detective Ezekiel “Zeke” Banks (Chris Rock), already an outcast for reporting a crooked colleague, catches the case with rookie partner William Schenk (Max Minghella). Samuel L. Jackson plays Zeke’s father Marcus, the retired chief whose shadow hangs over him.
Chris Rock developed the story and pitched it to Lionsgate himself, and Bousman returned to direct. Swap the pig mask for a spiral and add a heavy dose of buddy-cop grit, and you get Se7en by way of Saw. John Kramer exists in this world but stays offscreen. It’s the most divisive entry, but the traps are nasty and Rock is clearly having a ball playing against type.
Who it suits: crime thriller fans who never got into Saw and want a standalone entry point. Longtime fans should expect a spin-off, not a continuation.
Saw X (2023)
Set between the first two films, Saw X follows John Kramer as he travels to Mexico for an experimental cancer treatment that promises a miracle. When he suspects it’s a scam preying on desperate patients, he goes back to what he knows. Shawnee Smith returns as Amanda, and Synnøve Macody Lund plays Cecilia Pederson, who runs the clinic.
Greutert’s second return to the director’s chair is the franchise’s best-reviewed film by a distance, and it earns it. For the first act, it’s an intimate character drama about a dying man clinging to hope. Tobin Bell, after nearly two decades in the role, finally gets the lead, and it’s a fantastic performance. Then the traps arrive, and they’re some of the most punishing in the series.
Who it suits: fans who’ve seen at least the first three films. It technically works as a standalone, but it’s built as a love letter to John Kramer, and it hits harder if you’ve been along for the ride.
The 2003 Saw short film
Before the feature, Wan and Whannell shot a short proof-of-concept scene to show producers what they wanted to make. Whannell plays David, a man who wakes up in a reverse bear trap and has to dig a key out of a “dead” cellmate. If that sounds familiar, the scene was reworked for the 2004 film with Shawnee Smith as Amanda.
It runs under ten minutes and has appeared as a bonus feature on home releases. It isn’t counted among the ten Saw movies, but it’s a fascinating look at how the franchise’s most iconic image came from a near-zero budget demo reel.
Ranking all 10 Saw movies
Release order is the order of watching, not the order of quality. Here’s how we’d rank them after more rewatches than is probably healthy.
- Saw (2004): the purest, scariest and smartest.
- Saw X (2023): the best sequel ever made in this series, and Tobin Bell’s finest hour.
- Saw VI (2009): sharp, angry satire with great traps.
- Saw II (2005): the template for every sequel after it.
- Saw III (2006): brutal and emotionally serious.
- Spiral (2021): a bold swing that mostly connects.
- Saw IV (2007): confusing on purpose, rewarding on rewatch.
- Jigsaw (2017): fun and polished, but bloodless in spirit.
- Saw V (2008): necessary plumbing for the story.
- Saw 3D (2010): a messy finale that still entertains a crowd.
If you only have time for three
Watch Saw, Saw II and Saw X. That gives you the original mystery, the jump into ensemble trap horror, and the film that finally treats John Kramer as a full character. You’ll lose the Hoffman storyline, but you’ll understand why people love this series.
If you want the full original arc
Watch the first seven in release order, then decide whether you want the reboots. Saw through Saw 3D tells one long story, and it’s best consumed in a single October.
Who’s who: the faces of the Saw franchise
A big part of the series’ staying power is that its core cast kept coming back, sometimes in flashback and sometimes when nobody expected it. These are the names you’ll meet most.
| Character | Actor | Main films |
|---|---|---|
| John Kramer (Jigsaw) | Tobin Bell | Saw through Saw 3D, Jigsaw, Saw X |
| Amanda Young | Shawnee Smith | Saw through Saw III, Saw VI, Saw X |
| Dr. Lawrence Gordon | Cary Elwes | Saw, Saw 3D, Saw X |
| Mark Hoffman | Costas Mandylor | Saw III through Saw 3D, Saw X |
| Jill Tuck | Betsy Russell | Saw III through Saw 3D |
| Detective David Tapp | Danny Glover | Saw |
| Detective Eric Matthews | Donnie Wahlberg | Saw II through Saw IV |
| Peter Strahm | Scott Patterson | Saw IV, Saw V |
| Zeke Banks | Chris Rock | Spiral |
Tobin Bell is the icon here. He was in his early sixties when the first film came out, and what made Jigsaw unusual among slasher villains was that he barely moves. He talks. He explains. He believes he’s helping. It’s a long way from a silent masked killer stalking teenagers, and it’s why Saw is often grouped with slashers without fitting neatly inside the genre.
Behind the camera, two names stick. Charlie Clouser scored every film in the series, so “Hello Zepp” in some form has closed nearly all of them. And producers Mark Burg and Oren Koules of Twisted Pictures steered the franchise from 2004 onward, alongside Lionsgate as distributor.
Saw video games and spin-offs
Ecto-Web covers games too, so here’s the part most “Saw movies in order” pages skip. Jigsaw has had two dedicated console games, both from developer Zombie Studios and publisher Konami.
Saw: The Video Game (2009)
You play Detective David Tapp, trapped in an abandoned asylum after the events of the first film. The game mixes third-person puzzle-solving, clunky melee combat and trap set pieces lifted straight from the films’ aesthetic. Tobin Bell voices Jigsaw, which helps enormously.
It’s rough around the edges, and the combat hasn’t aged well. As a fan curiosity with genuinely tense puzzle rooms, though, it’s worth tracking down if you still have the hardware. Note that these games are old, and digital availability can be limited, so physical copies are the more reliable route.
Saw II: Flesh & Blood (2010)
The sequel puts you in the shoes of Michael Tapp, David’s son, investigating what happened to his father. It refined the puzzle design a little and leaned harder on the “test” structure. It sold modestly and ended the game series.
Saw in Dead by Daylight
The franchise’s longest-lived gaming presence is in Behaviour Interactive’s asymmetrical multiplayer horror game Dead by Daylight. Its Saw chapter added Amanda Young as a killer called The Pig, complete with reverse bear traps, and Detective Tapp as a playable survivor. If you want to play Saw with friends, this is the easiest way to do it on current platforms.
Saw XI and the future of the franchise
After Saw X turned out to be both a hit and a critical win, Lionsgate announced a follow-up with Greutert returning to direct. It was dated, then moved, then pulled from the schedule entirely. Trade outlets reported that creative and business disagreements behind the scenes stalled the project.
In 2025, trade reports said Blumhouse had acquired the Saw franchise from Twisted Pictures. Blumhouse merged with James Wan’s company, Atomic Monster, in 2024, which means the series is now connected again to the director who started it. As of this writing, no new Saw film has a confirmed release date, cast or director. Treat any specific Saw XI plot details floating around social media as rumor until a studio confirms them.
What would we like to see? Honestly, more of what Saw X did. Smaller stories, real characters, John Kramer at the center, and traps that serve the theme rather than just topping the last one.
How Saw changed horror
It’s hard to overstate how much the 2004 film shifted the genre. Along with Eli Roth’s Hostel (2005), it kicked off a wave that critic David Edelstein labeled “torture porn,” and a decade of imitators followed. Studios learned that a tiny-budget horror film with a hook could make 100 times its cost.
Saw also launched careers. James Wan went on to Insidious, The Conjuring and Aquaman. Leigh Whannell co-created Insidious with Wan and later directed Upgrade and The Invisible Man. Darren Lynn Bousman became a cult favorite with Repo! The Genetic Opera. The franchise is a family tree of modern horror.
If you liked this
Cube (1997): strangers in a deadly maze of trap rooms, years before Saw.
Escape Room (2019): a PG-13 trap puzzle for viewers who want the games without the gore.
Insidious (2010): Wan and Whannell’s supernatural follow-up, with the same knack for twists.
FAQ
How many Saw movies are there in total?
There are 10 Saw feature films: Saw, Saw II, Saw III, Saw IV, Saw V, Saw VI, Saw 3D, Jigsaw, Spiral: From the Book of Saw and Saw X. If you include the 2003 short film, there are 11 released Saw films. An eleventh feature was announced but does not currently have a release date.
What order should I watch the Saw movies in?
Watch them in release order the first time, from Saw (2004) to Saw X (2023). The twists build on each other, and Saw X plays best once you know the characters. Save story order, with Saw X moved to second place, for a rewatch.
Do I need to watch all the Saw movies to understand Saw X?
No. Saw X is set between the first two films and works on its own. Still, seeing at least Saw, Saw II and Saw III first makes John Kramer and Amanda’s story land far better.
Is Spiral part of the Saw franchise?
Yes. Spiral: From the Book of Saw takes place in the same world, references John Kramer and was distributed by Lionsgate as part of the series. It follows a copycat killer, though, so it’s a spin-off rather than a direct sequel.
Which Saw movie is the scariest?
The original Saw is the scariest in terms of dread and suspense. Saw III and Saw X are the most brutal in terms of gore. If you’re sensitive to gore, start with the first film or Jigsaw, which are the lightest on graphic violence.
Which Saw movie is the best reviewed?
Saw X is the best-reviewed entry and the only one with a Fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes, sitting around 80 percent. Every other film in the series is rated Rotten, though the original still has a devoted fanbase and a strong reputation among horror fans.
Who plays Jigsaw?
Tobin Bell plays John Kramer, aka Jigsaw, across the main series, including Saw X. He also voiced the character in both console video games. He does not appear on screen in Spiral.