Insidious: The Red Door arrived in 2023 and brought the Insidious timeline forward by a decade, but the chronology of James Wan’s chilling supernatural franchise isn’t simple. The Insidious movies have an unclear timeline, and this is mainly because the original Insidious ends with the death of Lin Shaye’s Elise. Since Elise is a pivotal character who appears in every film, working out when each Insidious movie takes place can be tricky.

Some Insidious sequels jumped back and forth in time to fill in the details of Elise’s life before the original. Others, such as Insidious: The Red Door take place after Insidious – though this doesn’t stop Lin Shaye from making the cast list. James Wan’s horror franchise has come a long way since Insidious released in 2011. With two prequels and two sequels in the mix (with a spin-off series and Insidious 6 incoming), the Insidious timeline amounts to a fleshed-out cinematic universe packed with lore that spans decades.

Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015)

Takes Place In 2007

The Insidious timeline starts with 2015’s Insidious: Chapter 3, which is set in 2007. Insidious: Chapter 3 takes place during Elise’s short-lived retirement, and of all the Insidious movies is the least connected to the Lambert family. Instead, the third Insidious movie focuses on Elise after she is approached by Quinn, a teenager hoping to contact her mother’s spirit.

Elise tells Quinn she shouldn’t try this since the spirit speaking to her isn’t her mother but rather a demon. This demon, a withered elderly man, haunts Quinn. Quinn’s family hires Specs and Tucker, two opportunistic fake mediums. However, Insidious franchise heroine Elise returns to save the day when Quinn is possessed. Elise successfully saves Quinn but meets a red-faced demon during this misadventure. Elise, Specs, and Tucker start to work together as real paranormal investigators, thus setting up the events of Insidious and Insidious: The Last Key.

The bulk of the plot of Insidious: Chapter 3 focuses on the Quinn Brenner case and Elise leaving retirement prior to working with the Lamberts. It doesn’t skip backward and forward in time nearly as much as some other Insidious sequels, and so framing it in the wider timeline is relatively straightforward. Aside from some flashback sequences in other films, such as Insidious: The Last Key, everything in Chapter 3 takes place before the rest of the franchise. It’s the first Insidious movie fans should watch if they want to view the franchise in chronological order.

Insidious: The Last Key (2018)

Takes Place In 2010 (With Flashbacks To The 1950s)

The second movie in the Insidious timeline is the fourth in release order – 2018’s Insidious: The Last Key. However, as with every film in the series, there are several time jumps, flash-forwards, and other moments that make examining exactly when Insidious: The Last Key takes place essential. The majority of The Last Key is set before the events of Insidious and takes place in 2010, several years after the events of Insidious: Chapter 3. It also covers the childhood of Elise Rainier and her first experiences with her supernatural abilities.

Technically, the opening scene of Insidious: The Last Key is the first event of the franchise in chronological terms. As a child in the 1950s, Elise (played by Ava Kolker) displays an ability to commune with the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ. She uses this ability to open a red door, at which point a demon kills her mother. Her abusive father does not take this well. He begins kidnapping and imprisoning young women in his home and tells Elise that she imagines ghosts when encountering one of his victims. Elise leaves home, leaving her brother behind.

Insidious: The Last Key then skips forward to 2010, when Elise (now working with Specs and Tucker) is approached by Ted Garza. Garza has been experiencing unexplained goings on in his house and wants Elise to investigate – and it just so happens he lives in her childhood home. This is when the bulk of the plot of The Last Key takes place in the Insidious timeline. However, there is a flashforward at the end to Elise receiving a call from Lorraine asking her to help her grandson Dalton (which leads directly into the events of Insidious.

Insidious (2010)

Takes Place In 2010

Insidious, the first movie in the franchise by release order, is the third in terms of chronological order. The entirety of Insidious takes place in 2010, the then-present day when the film debuted. It is the first movie in the Insidious timeline to focus heavily on the Lamberts, and in many ways the events of that transpire still anchor the wider narrative of the sequels and prequels.

In the year 2010 of the Insidious timeline, Josh and Renai Lamberts’s happy marriage is disrupted when demons haunt their young son Dalton. They move out of their new house, ᴀssuming that the spirits of the new home are responsible for Dalton’s haunting. Dalton falls into a coma, and Elise explains that his consciousness is in the Further. While Dalton’s mind is trapped in the Further, his body can be possessed by the red-faced demon mentioned earlier. Josh finds out about his repressed childhood experiences from Elise. This sets up one of the most impressive jump scares ever.

After Insidious’s infamous demon corner scene, Josh visits the Further via astral projection. He successfully retrieves Dalton from the red-faced demon’s lair. However, before he can leave the Further, he is accosted by the Bride in Black. The Bride in Black seemingly lets Josh go, but the closing scene of Insidious sees Josh strangle Elise. Possessed by the Bride in Black, Josh unknowingly kills the Insidious franchise’s heroine. This leads directly into the events of Insidious: Chapter 2, wherein Specs, Tucker, Josh, Renai, and Dalton all team up to take down the Bride in Black once and for all.

Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013)

Takes Place In 2010 (With Flashbacks To 1986)

The fourth movie in the Insidious timeline is 2013’s Insidious: Chapter 2, which is a direct sequel to Insidious and mostly takes place the same year. However, there are also significant flashback segments. The opening reveals why Lorraine Lambert had called Elise about her son, and what happened to Josh Lambert in his childhood. By 1986, Elise had become an active medium. It’s during this part of the Insidious timeline that she helps a young Josh banish the Bride in Black.

Insidious: Chapter 2 explains that the Bride in Black is the spirit of a deceased serial killer who haunts the young Josh in the 1980s, decades before the spirit made its appearance at the end of Insidious. Elise hypnotizes Josh and leads him to forget his ability to astral project into the Further, a dimension where ghosts and demons roam. Meanwhile, Elise’s husband takes his own life, leading her to retire from working as a medium. She visits the Further to commune with her husband’s ghost but encounters the Bride in Black instead. The Bride in Black says they will someday kill Elise.

This works for a while, allowing Josh to live a normal life, marry Renai, and have a son named Dalton. However, 24 years after Josh had been freed from the Bride in Black, he falls victim to her once again. This was briefly glimpsed at the end of Insidious with the death of Elise, and is the primary focus of the sequel. In Insidious: Chapter 2, Josh is continuously possessed by the Bride in Black. Tucker and Specs discover the Bride in Black is a serial killer named Parker Crane, born in the 1920s who was driven to murder due to his childhood abuse. Josh, as a child, witnessed Crane’s suicide in 1986, and Crane continued to target him as a spirit in the Further, becoming the Bride in Black.

Parker’s ghoulish mother haunts Renai while Tucker and Specs attempt to contain Josh while he is still possessed. Trapped in the Insidious franchise’s netherworld, the Further, Josh meets Elise’s spirit (enabling the return of Lin Shaye to the cast). Elise helps Josh defeat the spirits of Crane and his mother. Josh and Dalton both have their memories repressed again so that they can live a normal life, which they manage for a few decades prior to the events of Insidious: The Red Door.

Insidious: The Red Door (2023)

Takes Place In 2019

The last Insidious movie in chronological order is also the most recent in terms of release, this of course being 2023’s Indious: The Red Door. Insidious: The Red Door is set in 2019, almost a decade after Josh, Renai, and Dalton forgot their experiences in the Further at the end of Insidious: Chapter 2. Insidious: The Red Door begins as Josh drops Dalton, now a young adult, off to college, optimistically hoping that his terrifying nightmares aren’t a harbinger of grim things to come.

However, when Dalton arrives at college, the demons from his past return to haunt him and his father. Although Elise is long ᴅᴇᴀᴅ by this point in the franchise timeline, Lin Shaye is still listed among Insidious: The Red Door’s cast, and once again makes an appearance as a spirit in the Further. The plot of Insidious: The Red Door takes place almost entirely within 2019 from this point. However, there are also times in the Further, and flashbacks to Josh’s father, that dart back to earlier points in the Insidious timeline.

There are further movies in the Insidious franchise planned, though it’s unclear when these will take place in the chronological order. There’s also the spin-off, Thread, which will soon be added to the Insidious timeline. Whether these will take place before or after the events of Insidious: The Red Door is unknown, especially since the 2023 release seemed to hint that Lambert’s time in the story had drawn to a close.