Star Trek Series in Order

Why this order?

Star Trek is the rare franchise where "what order do I watch this in" has two equally valid, equally famous answers, and which one you pick changes the whole experience. The two orders below cover the eleven main TV series; the thirteen feature films are a separate track worth tackling once a series has hooked you.

Release order is the way most fans grew up with the franchise, and it is our default. You start with The Original Series (1966), follow the 1980s-90s golden age of The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager, then the prequel Enterprise, and finally the modern streaming era of Discovery, Picard, Lower Decks, Prodigy, and Strange New Worlds. This order lets the production grow up in front of you and preserves callbacks and cameos in the order writers intended.

Chronological (in-universe) order rearranges everything by when the stories happen on the timeline. Enterprise sits earliest, roughly a century before Kirk. Discovery's first seasons and Strange New Worlds come next, then The Original Series and its Animated Series, then The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager, with Lower Decks, Prodigy, and Picard in the relative present, and Discovery's later seasons leaping far into the future. It is tidy on paper but spoils some reveals and forces you through the franchise's rough early production first.

Newcomers should ignore both and start with an entry point. Strange New Worlds is the friendliest modern doorway: gorgeous, episodic, and warm. The Next Generation is the classic on-ramp once you skip its bumpy first season. Lower Decks, an animated comedy, rewards fans but lands harder after you know the universe; Prodigy, an animated series pitched at younger and newer viewers, is a gentler animated way in. If you love the world after that, branch into Star Wars only for contrast, because tonally these are very different sci-fi neighbors.