This article contains spoilers for the Saw franchise.Saw was a tremendously influential film. People give credit to the Saw films and the Hostel films as the start of a new genre of horror, simultaneously as the New French Extremity movement, that features extreme and graphic depictions of torture and murder, with images of people suffering in agony from their tortures. However, Saw is much more complicated than being mere ’torture porn.’ In each film, there are lessons to be learned, such as about valuing your own life and valuing the lives of others.

In the films, Jigsaw (played by Tobin Bell) aka John Kramer, the serial killer, makes his subjects play deadly games where it is imperative that the rules be followed. Jigsaw got his name for carving a puzzle piece from his victims’ flesh, indicating that there is something missing in their lives. The people targeted are guilty of being selfish, deceitful, harmful, and disrespectful to others. They are usually given 90 minutes to solve their dilemma or else they all die. What makes the series interesting is that it continues even after Jigsaw dies, because he has recruited several followers to continue his work; however, Jigsaw (and other characters) return in flashback, which makes it difficult to map out the Saw franchise in chronological order.

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There are several reasons why the films are not quite in chronological order. The movies are non-linear, full of both flashback scenes and flash-forward scenes. Thus, Jigsaw appears in films that take place chronologically after his death, which happens in Saw III. Likewise, his wife dies early on in the series, but she appears in flashbacks throughout the series. An additional problem is that Saw III and Saw IV appear to start at the same point, but have different ending points, as we follow his two disciples, Amanda and Detective Hoffman.

The first example of this appears in the film Jigsaw, which exists simultaneously at the beginning of the chronology and at the end. Part of the events of Jigsaw take place before the first Saw film, where we see the titular character when he is still healthy and leading a normal life. But other events take place a decade or so after Jigsaw’s death, such as a gruesome experiment taking place before the beginning of the first Saw. Nonetheless, this is our attempt to arrange the Saw films in chronological order, even though Jigsaw, Saw III, and Saw IV all have many events which take place before the original Saw. If you’d like, you can watch the Saw movies in order of release.

Saw Movies in Chronological Order

  • Saw IV Jigsaw Saw Saw II Saw III Saw V Saw VI Saw: The Final Chapter Jigsaw (Again) Spiral: From the Book of Saw

Saw IV

     Lionsgate

The logical starting point is Saw IV. The series is about a serial killer. What was his life like before he was a killer, and what made him become a killer? These questions are answered in Saw IV. We meet John Kramer and his pregnant wife Jill, who runs a clinic for drug addicts. The two are deeply in love and are very excited about their baby. But one night, a client, Cecil, tries to rob the clinic and smashes a door into Jill’s stomach, causing an instant miscarriage. Cecil becomes Kramer’s (aka Jigsaw’s) first victim.

John sinks into a depression and starts ignoring his wife. He is diagnosed with cancer and gets progressively worse, so desperate that he decides to take his life by getting into a car accident; after almost dying, John has to fight to survive, which he actually does. This realization of his desire to live completely changes him, and he becomes obsessed with making people value their lives. He begins to construct elaborate execution devices and set up “games” where people fight for their lives. We also see Detective Mark Hoffman here, who is tasked with investigating the Jigsaw murders but uses them for his own nefarious ends in scenes which happen concurrently with Saw III.

Jigsaw

The next film to watch is Jigsaw (or at least half of it), which takes place in two time frames and thus is both the second and second to last film in the series. It has one of the first chronological appearances of Jigsaw, and the rest of the film takes place ten years after his death. Jigsaw takes place both before the first Saw and also years after Jigsaw’s death and the films Saw III and Saw IV, which is why it is listed here twice. It contains part of the origin story of Jigsaw and one of the killer’s first games long before the first film in the franchise, where six people have buckets attached to their heads, and their bodies are held in place by a chain around their necks in a barn.

Saw

     Lions Gate Films

The Saw films are best known for the elaborately constructed torture devices and execution machines, and the violence that they create. These films are not for the squeamish and there are all types of bodily destruction and cruel tortures inflicted on the characters, and the very first Saw. The film was released in 2004, and was so massively popular that a sequel came out every year until 2010, when Saw: The Final Chapter was released.

In Saw, two men are trapped in a slimy bathroom (both with their feet cuffed to the walls) with a dead bloody body lying on the floor, unmoving. There is a saw, so if they wish to survive, they will have to cut their feet off (as we learned in the film Mad Max, it is much quicker to cut off a foot then cut through a set of steel cuffs). One of the characters, Dr. Lawrence Gordon (played by Cary Elwes), desperate to save his family, does indeed cut off his foot, and then limps away from the scene. The dead body stands up; he is not only alive, but he is Jigsaw, and was with his two victims the whole time as they played his game.

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Saw II

Saw II starts out with the aftermath of Saw. The most significant event of the movie is that John Kramer’s insurance denies him money for his cancer treatment based on a technicality. He will later get revenge on those responsible (in Saw VI) as well as learn that there is a price to life, and that some people don’t value their lives (seen most explicitly in Saw VII). Amanda is one of the participants in the game that is played in Saw II, although we learn she had been working with Jigsaw and was there as a plant to make sure the other victims followed the rules. She will go on to take Jigsaw’s place.

Each person has a number written on the back of their heads, and these numbers are the keys for them to escape. They do not follow the rules and several of them are brutally killed by intricate devices in some of the best death scenes in the movies’ series. The victims (except for one) all have something in common - they were framed for crimes by Detective Eric Matthews, played by Donnie Wahlberg, whose duty it is to solve the case and keep everyone alive. The one exception among the victims is the son of the police officer who framed the rest of the participants. There is poison released into the air and the people have just two hours to escape, or they will die.

Saw III

One could technically watch Saw III before the original Saw for some background, but really it’s the next film to watch after Saw II for two reasons. Saw III is the film where Jigsaw dies, though as stated, he appears throughout the franchise in flashbacks. Flashbacks occur in this film as well, because we see the setup for the game played in the original Saw. This is made even more confusing though, because Saw III also takes place after the first Saw (and concurrently with parts of Saw IV), as we see Amanda breaking the rules of the game and killing Adam, who survived Saw.

Not only does Jigsaw die, but so does his disciple Amanda. She had broken the rules of Jigsaw’s games, ensuring that no matter what the outcome, the victim would die. One victim frees herself by putting her hand into a jar of acid to get a key to unlock the trap around her head. She succeeds but dies anyway as a Jigsaw created device rips her to shreds. Meanwhile, Jack, a man whose son was killed by a drunk driver (whose only punishment was a short prison term) is put through a series of tests where he must attempt to save the people who wronged him, from the judge who handed down a lenient sentence to the drunk driver himself and a witness who kept silent.

Saw V

Saw III ends and the story continues directly to Saw V. Jigsaw and Amanda are dead, and Detective Hoffman emerges from the building that was the site of Jigsaw’s last game, carrying a little girl, claiming he saved her and there are no more survivors. However, there is one survivor, an FBI agent whose head is put in a box filled with water. Hoffman leaves him to die, but he performs a tracheotomy on himself and survives, much to the surprise of Hoffman.

There are several particularly significant moments in Saw V. We learn more about Detective Hoffman, who is carrying on Jigsaw’s legacy. Years earlier, Hoffman’s sister was brutally murder, which changed Hoffman into an angry and bitter man. In Saw V, Hoffman first meets Jigsaw and starts working with him on various traps. This confuses the timeline even more because by Saw V, Jigsaw is dead, and his interaction with Hoffman is told in flashback. In the present, Jigsaw’s wife watches a videotaped deposition given by Jigsaw at his lawyer’s office. His message is simple - she must continue his work. She is also given a box of files, presumably of people who will be the next targets. At the same time, a game is going on with a group of strangers with ropes around their necks. There are keys in glass boxes and spinning saws on the wall. One by one the victims are killed.

Saw VI

Saw VI is largely Detective Hoffman’s story and mostly occurs right after Saw V. After Jigsaw’s death, Hoffman picks up where Jigsaw left off. However, Hoffman mostly targets other cops. Hoffman and Jigsaw’s wife become mortal enemies, with both carrying on Jigsaw’s work competitively, and Hoffman trying to kill her after they initially tried to work together. In the game that is played in Saw VI, members of the insurance company that refused to pay for Jigsaw’s experimental cancer treatment are pitted against each other and die horrific deaths.

In the end, William Easton, the insurance company’s executive, sees six of his co-workers tied to a circular device, and he is forced to kill four of them and choose just two to survive. Jigsaw of course is dead, but we see a video of him talking to his victims. In Jigsaw’s will, he instructs his wife to kill Hoffman, and she puts a trap over his head; however, he is able to escape it and survive, although his face gets partially mutilated by the execution device.

Saw: The Final Chapter (Saw 3D)

Saw: The Final Chapter (or Saw 3D) starts out right after the end of the first Saw, and we see Cary Elwes’ character Dr. Lawrence limping away after sawing off his foot. In the present, Jigsaw’s wife Jill goes to the internal affairs division of the police department and reports that Detective Hoffman is a serial killer who is keeping Jigsaw’s legacy alive by planning various games where everybody ends up dead.

Bobby Dagan is the ‘antagonist’ (or victim) of Saw 3D. He had falsely claimed to be a Jigsaw victim, which earned him tremendous media attention. He wrote a very popular book about his fabricated experiences, and he heads a group of Jigsaw survivors who meet to discuss what happened to them, what lessons they learned (or did not learn), and what current problems they are having. Hoffman abducts Dagan and puts him through several tests, and finally kills Jill. Then comes the big surprise, as Detective Hoffman is taken out by three people wearing pigs’ heads. We see that the leader of the gang is the character from the first Saw film, Dr. Lawrence, who had apparently become a follower and disciple of Jigsaw since after his escape.

Jigsaw (Again)

Parts of Jigsaw take place a decade after the simultaneous events in Saw III and Saw IV (and Jigsaw, or John Kramer’s, murder), but through the use of flashbacks and pre-recorded videos, Jigsaw still appears in the film as a character (hence its chronological place at the beginning of the franchise). In this film, the very first game involves the aforementioned barn game. They must shed their own blood to survive.

One of the participants had stolen a purse, causing the purse’s owner to suffer a fatal heart attack. There is less than $4 in her purse, and Jigsaw points out that she places little value on a human life. For her punishment, she is injected in the neck with acid which violently kills her. In the ‘present’ (10 years after Kramer’s death), Detective Halloran is framed by another cop who is in charge of the newest game. Logan Nelson, a pathologist, is revealed to be the real killer and the latest disciple of Jigsaw. The film is extremely jumbled, alternating between events before the original Saw and events after Saw: The Final Chapter.

Spiral: From the Book of Saw

In a further great example of the comedian taking on dramatic roles, Chris Rock is Zeke, a police officer in Spiral: From the Book of Saw whose father, played by Samuel L. Jackson, was a former cop who is widely respected. In this spinoff from the Saw series, there is another Jigsaw imitator on the loose, setting up a series of deadly and gruesome murder traps (his first victim, for instance, has to tear his tongue out but as soon as he does he is hit by a speeding train and splattered all over the place.

At the conclusion of the film, police officers find Samuel Jackson’s character, and, seeing his gun and thinking he is a threat, they shoot him to death in front of his son. Spiral has nothing to do with the first eight Saw movies in the sense that none of the recurring characters are present and there is no Jigsaw, just an imitator. However, it is thematically linked with the other Saw films, even if it deals with some different themes like racism.

Saw Movies in Order of Release Date

  • Saw - October 29, 2004 Saw II - October 28, 2005 Saw III - October 27, 2006 Saw IV - October 26, 2007 Saw V - October 24, 2008 Saw VI - October 23, 2009 Saw: The Final Chapter (Saw 3-D) - October 29, 2010 Jigsaw - October 27, 2017 Spiral: From The Book of Saw - May 14, 2021

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