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Apart from the Fast and Furious franchise, Vin Diesel is also known for his intense and brooding role as the bald reluctant anti-hero, Riddick. It’s a film series he likes so much that he had a hand in producing sequels. Consequently, there are quite a handful of Riddick movies, and if you want the full experience as Vin Diesel intended, we’re here to guide you with a Riddick movies watch order.
And we also won’t be limiting our scope to movies as there are a couple of Riddick games and other media as well which are canonically part of the character’s backstory. After all, Riddick’s past invites inquiry– and he’s not exactly keen on sharing how the hell did he get those eyes.
You don’t have to play the games, by the way. There are video summaries of their cinematics on YouTube, which should help.
Here’s our Riddick movies watch order in preparation for the eventual arrival of Riddick 4: Furya—something Vin Diesel has been teasing since 2014.
The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay (2004 Video Game)
If you want the very first Riddick story in the chronology and his timeline of “criminal activity,” then Escape from Butcher Bay precedes every other Riddick story.
It’s a 2004 video game that you can play in first-person view, and of course, you assume the role of Riddick, who was imprisoned in Butcher Bay during his early days as a fugitive and pariah.
Escape from Butcher Bay is thus a prison break story where you can utilize Riddick’s signature brand of stabby stealth to progress the storyline though there’s also a fair amount of gunplay involved.
Butcher Bay, according to some of Riddick’s conflicting stories, was where he got his “Eyeshine” surgery which allowed him to see in the dark though rendering him blind in regular light environments.
Butcher Bay was also where Riddick met William J. Johns, one of his captors in the films.
The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena (2009 Video Game)
Shortly after the events of Escape from Butcher Bay, Riddick will immediately find himself in hot water again.
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During his escape, Riddick’s vessel was ensnared in space by a large mercenary ship called Dark Athena.
He managed to elude them and ended up on a besieged planet though he immediately surmised that the only way he can escape the predicament is to climb back on Dark Athena and take over the ship in a rather epic and bloody climb to the mercenary hierarchy. This cutscene collection ought to provide a good watch experience.
Pitch Black: Slam City (Flash Comic)
Here is where Riddick’s Eyeshine origin story started getting weird. Pitch Black: Slam City is a short flash comic uploaded decades ago on the Pitch Black website, and like the two video games mentioned above, it also serves as a prequel story to the films.
Pitch Black: Slam City details Riddick’s sentence in the Ursa Luna Penal Facility, where Riddick underwent Eyeshine surgery for a pack of Kool cigarettes. It seemingly retcons Escape from Butcher Bay’s Eyeshine origin, where a man named Pope Joe tampered with his eyes after treating his arm injury.
By the end of Pitch Black: Slam City, Riddick was being hunted by Johns instead of escaping with him from Butcher Bay.
It’s still unclear which of Riddick’s Eyeshine origin stories is the most reliable one; even certain characters in the films have called out Riddick for seemingly lying or perhaps merely mixing up his prison stories seeing as he’s had so many prison escapades.
Pitch Black (2000 Movie)
Pitch Black is the very first mainline Riddick movie, and it’s what kicked off the whole franchise. The film is sort of a callback to the Alien movies of the past with some oppressive sci-fi world-building twists.
Riddick here was somehow captured by Johns and another bounty hunter, but while he and the other crew were being transported across space, their ship was hit by a comet tail and crash-landed on a nearby planet with three suns.
Unluckily for them, the planet was home to a carnivorous alien horde which is allergic to sunlight. And wouldn’t you know it, their crash landing coincided with the planetary three-sun eclipse.
Here’s where Riddick’s Eyeshine surgery became invaluable as a survival tool.
To date, this is still the highest-rated Riddick movie ever and a certified classic for the fans.
The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury (2004 Short Film)
Dark Fury is a 35-minute short film that bridges the gap between Pitch Black and the next mainline Riddick movie.
In this short chapter of Riddick’s life, he again was captured by a big mercenary group with their own ship, Kublai Khan. Were he alone, he could have easily wiggled out of their grasp, but Riddick was acting as a guardian and protector for a couple of survivors he escaped with from Pitch Black, so it’s do-or-die for him in this film.
Dark Fury’s animation style and clever use of Riddick’s own form of violence make it a worthwhile refresher and an explanation for why he’s alone again in the 2004 Riddick movie.
The Chronicles of Riddick (2004 Movie)
Perhaps the most popular Riddick movie, The Chronicles of Riddick solidified Vin Diesel as an irreplaceable action hero for Riddick as a character.
It takes place several years after the events of Pitch Black and Dark Fury, where Riddick is once again on the run from mercenaries who want the juicy bounty on his head. During his escape, he managed to reunite with the former survivors/friends from Pitch Black.
Their reunion was cut short after an invading armada of Necromongers attacked, seeking to wipe out the last remaining descendant of an enemy alien race called the Furyans, who were prophesied to defeat the Necromonger Lord. This final Furyan descendant just happened to be none other than Riddick.
The stakes were certainly higher and went from the first film’s survival plot to an epic war.
Riddick (2013)
The latest Riddick movie to date– at least until Vin Diesel’s Riddick 4: Furya with its unannounced release date, Riddick 2013 was a labor of love from the actor himself. He bought the rights to Riddick by appearing in The Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift because he liked it so much.
This was mostly Diesel’s undertaking and effort. Riddick 2013 sees the titular character at odds once again after being betrayed and left to die on yet another crushingly hostile planet. It’s practically a soft remake of the first film, Pitch Black.
Riddick, after being dumped on the planet, was being hunted by mercenaries once more and must now find a way to escape and possibly fulfill his prophecy as the last of the Furyan race.
With Riddick 4: Furyan going along smoothly with its production, we might finally see a conclusion to that part of Riddick’s story. Sadly, it’s still possible that Riddick won’t fully set the record straight on how he got those eyes.