Exorcist Movies in Order
Six films, one of them made twice by two different directors from the same script — and both versions released. The full order, and the two entries actually worth your evening.
WhatScares · August 2026 · Runtimes, directors and IMDb scores from IMDb's published datasets
The Exorcist series is the messiest in mainstream horror. Six films have been released, two of them competing versions of the same prequel, and the 2023 entry ignores everything between it and 1973. Ratings across the series swing by more than four points.
Every film, in release order
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01
The Exorcist 1973
The one everything else is measured against, and by a distance the best-rated horror film in this guide.
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02
Exorcist II: The Heretic 1977
IMDb 3.8 — the lowest score of any film across all three franchises here. Its reputation is not a rumour.
Not in our catalog yet — we have not scored this one. -
03
The Exorcist III 1990
The original novelist directing his own sequel. The series’ cult favourite, and the only sequel that rates anywhere near the first film.
Not in our catalog yet — we have not scored this one. -
04
Exorcist: The Beginning 2004
The reshot prequel. Released first, though it was made second.
Not in our catalog yet — we have not scored this one. -
05
Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist 2005
Schrader’s original version of the same script, shelved by the studio, then released a year after the film that replaced it. Same story, same lead, different film.
Not in our catalog yet — we have not scored this one. -
06
The Exorcist: Believer 2023
A legacy sequel that follows the 1973 film and disregards the four in between.
Not in our catalog yet — we have not scored this one.
Story order
Release order and story order barely differ here, and the prequels are the only complication. If you want events in sequence:
- Exorcist: The Beginning or Dominion — the prequel, in either of its two versions — pick one, they tell the same story
- The Exorcist — 1973
- Exorcist II: The Heretic — four years after the original
- The Exorcist III — fifteen years after the original, ignoring the second film
- The Exorcist: Believer — the present day, ignoring everything except the first
Most of the series disowns most of the rest of it, so there is no continuity to protect. Watch the 1973 film, then The Exorcist III, and you have seen the good ones.
Questions people actually ask
- How many Exorcist movies are there?
- Six have been released: The Exorcist (1973), Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Exorcist III (1990), Exorcist: The Beginning (2004), Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist (2005) and The Exorcist: Believer (2023). The Pope’s Exorcist (2023) is a different film and not part of this series.
- Why are there two Exorcist prequels?
- One script was filmed twice. Paul Schrader delivered a version the studio rejected as insufficiently frightening, so Renny Harlin reshot it with much of the same cast. Harlin’s Exorcist: The Beginning came out in 2004; Schrader’s Dominion was released the following year. Both are finished films, and they rate identically at IMDb 5.1.
- What order should I watch the Exorcist movies in?
- Release order, and you can stop early. The 1973 original is self-contained, and The Exorcist III is the only sequel with a real following. Nothing after that depends on anything before it.
- How scary is The Exorcist?
- We score the 1973 film 5 out of 5 for jump scares, 3 out of 5 for gore and 4 out of 5 for dread — one of very few films in our catalog at the top of the jump-scare scale. The sequels are not in our catalog, so we have not scored them.
- Which Exorcist movie is the worst?
- Exorcist II: The Heretic, and it is not close. At IMDb 3.8 it is the lowest-rated film in this guide by more than a point.
Every film we rate gets three scores, not one. Jump scares, gore and dread are different things, and a film can be brutal on one and harmless on the other two. That is the whole idea behind WhatScares.
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