The Omen Movies In Order

Although The Omen franchise might seem complicated, watching The Omen movies in order perfectly aligned until 2024’s prequel The First Omen. 2024’s The First Omen is the latest addition to The Omen series. The Omen franchise began in 1976 with director Richard Donner’s seminal classic The Omen, which follows the story of an American diplomat who begins to fear that his son is secretly the Antichrist. The Omen was a box office hit, resulting in 1978’s sequel Damien: Omen II.

The series continued throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s, ending in the early ‘90s with Omen IV: The Awakening. The series was then dormant until 2024’s prequel The First Omen, which complicated the timeline of the franchise by flashing back to the years before the original movie. The First Omen takes place before The Omen, with its final scenes leading directly into the original horror hit. The rest of the series follows on from the 1976 movie, covering Damien’s exploits before moving on to his potential replacement in its final outing.

The Omen Movies In Release Order

The Omen Series Began With The Omen In 1976

After the success of The Omen, Damien: Omen II followed the title character’s teenage years as he came to terms with his status as the Antichrist, while 1981’s The Final Conflict saw a now-adult Damien attempt to evade assassination and bring about the apocalypse. 1991’s critically panned Omen IV: The Awakening focused on a new child, Asia Vieira’s Delia. Since Omen IV: The Awakening wasn’t well received, the sequel failed to spawn another trilogy like its predecessor. Similarly, The First Omen’s box office underperformance makes a sequel unlikely.

The Omen Movies In Chronological Order

The Omen Franchise Added The First Omen In 2024

In chronological order, The Omen franchise begins with its most recent outing. 2024’s The First Omen covers Damien’s birth, revealing that he was the offspring of a nun who was herself born from a demonic jackal and a human.

The First Omen leads into The Omen, ending with an homage to the original movie’s opening scene. There’s a short time jump between the ending of The Omen and Damien: Omen II, with Damien going from childhood into his teens. The Final Conflict picks up in his adulthood, followed by Omen IV: The Awakening after that sequel’s ending.

The First Omen (2024)

2024’s The First Omen’s big twist ending reveals that the film’s heroine is Damien’s mother, unbeknownst to herself. A young novitiate, Nell Tiger Free’s Margaret moves to a convent in Rome when the movie begins. Strange circumstances convince her that the convent’s nuns are conspiring to impregnate a child with the antichrist, but she realizes too late that they have already targeted her instead.

Margaret escapes with her life, but she can’t stop the cult of Catholic nuns and priests from bringing Damien into the world and ensuring he will try to bring about the apocalypse. This movie answers the question about who Damien’s mother really was and how she ended up giving birth to the antichrist, something only mentioned in the original 1976 film. The First Omen received mostly positive reviews, averaging 81% on Rotten Tomatoes, but only receiving a lukewarm box office response.

The Omen (1976)

1976’s The Omen begins where The First Omen ends with Robert Thorn replacing his wife’s baby, who supposedly died in childbirth, with Damien. He was offered the new baby, not realizing it had been stripped from his mother, and he agreed instantly. The movie then jumps forward a few years as a string of grisly incidents begin to convince Thorn that his adopted son is the Antichrist. The First Omen changed The Omen’s lore somewhat, but the first movie’s story remains largely unaltered in the prequel.

Mrs. Baylock, who was sent in to protect Damien, kills Katherine, Thorne’s wife. Thorn finally realizes the truth when he sees the birthmark and has to kill Mrs. Baylock to get a chance to stop Damien. However, when he takes Damien to the cathedral to kill him and end the threat of the apocalypse, the police show up and shoot him before he can kill the child. Thorn is stopped seconds before he could have defeated Damien, resulting in his son rising to political power after his death.

Damien: Omen II (1978)

In Damien: Omen II, Damien begins to realize his destiny and make use of his supernatural powers. Taking place seven years after the first Omen movie, the teenage Antichrist spends most of the sequel’s story getting his head around his abilities. The film mostly sees Damien as a pre-teen living with his aunt and uncle who is considered a bad influence on his cousin. His aunt is right, as the bodies start to pile up around him of the people who realize the evil living inside the boy.

By the end of Damien: Omen II, the Antichrist kills his own cousin when he refuses to join him in his destiny to take over the world. This leads to Damien once again eliminating the people who stand in his way, and he is finally ready to take on the world and bring about its end after his graduation. This sets up 1991’s The Final Conflict, wherein Damien is a fully grown adult who has used his late father’s power and privilege to carve out a name for himself in the world of politics.

The Final Conflict (1981)

Sam Neill’s hilariously smug Damien is The Final Conflict’s antihero. Unlike his troubled teenage self, this Damien has no qualms about causing the apocalypse. His role here is not yet in a position of political power, as he is instead the CEO of an international corporation. He uses his powers to cause the death of the U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom so that he can take that office, and it finally leads to the position of power that he needs to fulfill his ultimate plan.

He tries to use his powers and political acumen to do so, but Damien’s story ultimately ends without the franchise’s antihero successfully bringing about the end of the world. The movie received poor reviews, sitting at 29% on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics complaining that the final battle between the Antichrist and the second coming of Christ was a disappointment, as it was simply about stabbing Damien in the back. A sequel was canceled after the poor reviews of this release.

Omen IV: The Awakening (1991)

Omen IV: The Awakening tried to reinvent the Omen franchise with a new lead character. In this maligned outing, two adoptive parents fear their daughter Delia is fated to become Damien’s replacement. Unlike the original Omen movie, this one sees a Virginia congressman and his wife adopt a child from a nun-run orphanage when they realize they can’t have a child of their own. When the little girl develops violent tendencies and people start dying, her true nature is revealed.

There is a big twist in the movie when mother Karen learns that her adopted daughter, Delia, is actually Damien’s daughter, which means she carries on his role as the Antichrist after his death. However, Delia’s story remains unfinished since Omen IV: The Awakening never spawned a sequel due to its critical unpopularity (17% on Rotten Tomatoes). As a result, it marks the current ending point in The Omen timeline. What happens to Delia remains a story that likely will never be finished.

Which Order To Watch The Omen Movies In

The Omen Movies Work Best In Chronological Order

Viewing The Omen movies chronologically works best since the series has a fairly straightforward storyline. The First Omen adds more context to the original movie and fleshes out its world, while The Omen and Damien: Omen II perfectly establishes the plot that ends in The Final Conflict. As its reviews suggest, Omen IV: The Awakening is utterly inessential, but the movie’s plot does follow through from the original trilogy. As such, The First Omen is the best place to start for viewers new to The Omen franchise.

How The Omen Book Series Differs From The Movies

The first three novels in The Omen book series were novelizations of the movies, as the films were original stories. As a result, the authors of the books based their stories on what happened in the films. However, changes were made to deepen the tale for the written word. Interestingly, The Omen screenwriter David Seltzer wrote the novelization based on his script and changes include character names and minor plot points concerning Damien’s mother (she wasn’t a jackal in the book).

The biggest change in the first novel was that the written word allowed a much slower buildup to the dread of the eventual ending, which made it even scarier than the screen. The second book is also based on the movie and goes into more detail about the Thorn family’s privileged life that collapses as their business falls apart. The third movie’s novelization was also based on the film’s script.

The big change came after that with two more The Omen novels without movie counterparts. Omen IV: Armageddon 2000 (1982) and Omen V: The Abomination (1985). That first novel was similar to the story later told in Omen IV: The Awakening, albeit with a boy (born to Kathleen, who died) raised to replace the deceased Damien. The novel has The Abomination preparing to follow his father’s lead as he finally brings about Armageddon, with a fifth book, Omen V: The Abomination, focusing on the fallout.