The Right Way To Watch The Divergent Series In Order

In the early 2010s, teen dystopian dramas were everywhere. After the runaway success of Suzanne Collins' novel "The Hunger Games" and its two sequels "Catching Fire" and "Mockingjay" — all of which earned film adaptations, which were also crazy successful — everyone wanted to cash in on the phenomenon, which is how adaptations like "The Maze Runner," "The Giver" (which briefly features a very young Taylor Swift), and "Ender's Game" got off the ground. That includes the "Divergent" series, which, to be honest, crashed and burned spectacularly after the first movie was a modest success.

So wait — what happened here? It's actually a pretty wild trajectory. The first "Divergent" movie, which came out in 2014 and was based on Veronica Roth's bestselling young adult dystopia of the same name, features a spectacular cast that includes Shailene Woodley, Zoë Kravitz, Ansel Elgort, Miles Teller, Theo James, Tony Goldwyn, Ashley Judd, and Oscar winner Kate Winslet, and the subject matter is actually pretty interesting. There are four other movies, though, and the titles don't exactly clarify the right order, so we're here to help. What's the right order for the "Divergent" film franchise? How and why did they flame out? Will there be any more "Divergent" adaptations in the future? (Probably not, but we'll discuss.)

The first thing you need to know about the "Divergent" universe is that it's sort of like if "The Hunger Games" and "Harry Potter" had a strange, twisted baby. This is because we first meet Beatrice "Tris" Prior (Shailene Woodley), she's about to undergo an aptitude test triggered by a serum that will tell her which "faction" best suits her, at which point she'll pledge her loyalty to that faction forever and forsake anyone who belongs elsewhere in the Choosing Ceremony. Despite the fact that Tris' entire family is in Abnegation (which represents selflessness) — her father Andrew (Tony Goldwyn) is actually the faction's leader — Tris' aptitude test reveals that she actually is "divergent" and could fit into any of the four remaining ones: Dauntless (bravery), Erudite (intelligence), Candor (honesty), and Amity (kindness).

Tris essentially betrays her family by choosing Dauntless, which means she's cut off from them forever — and when she gets to their compound, she realizes she may have bitten off slightly more than she can chew. Alongside other transplants — including Christina and Peter from Candor (Zoë Kravitz and Miles Teller) — Tris trains to be a bold, fearless fighter under the direction of the faction's intimidating leader Eric Coulter (Jai Courtney) and his right-hand man Four (Theo James). Luckily for Tris, Four sees her potential — though he's still tough on her as she undergoes frequent "fear simulations" (along with the other recruits) to toughen her up.

This is when Tris and the others learn that the factions are actually at war, and the Erudite leader Jeanine Matthews (Kate Winslet) attempts to brainwash multiple Dauntless recruits to murder people in the Abnegation faction. Here's the thing: the serum Jeanine uses to brainwash the Dauntless doesn't work on anyone who's divergent. Tris and Four, both divergent, manage to foil Jeanine's attempt, though Tris loses both her father and her mother Natalie (Ashley Judd) in the process before she and her allies escape.

One year after the first "Divergent" movie hit theaters — earning middling reviews but cleaning up nicely at the box office — the sequel, "The Divergent Series: Insurgent" hit theaters in 2015. In the aftermath of Jeanine Matthews' attempted attack, she declares that anyone in the Dauntless faction is an enemy, sending Tris and Four on the run; as they dodge attacks from their enemies in Erudite and other factions, they have to try and figure out why Jeanine wanted to attack Abnegation in the first place and why Erudite is so hellbent on waging this war. Along the way, Four and Tris visit the Factionless camp, an impoverished area meant for anyone who doesn't belong to any of the factions, and the oppressed people there join the duo's cause.

Unfortunately for Tris, her brother Caleb (Ansel Elgort) has fully defected to Erudite and fights back against her, forcing Tris to undergo a series of trials at Jeanine's command to prove that she's truly divergent. Though Tris and Four uncover the truth — which is that everyone in any faction is just part of an isolated experiment — and put Jeanine in prison, the plotlines of "Insurgent" still set up the third and final installment, "The Divergent Series: Allegiant."

Lionsgate made an attempt to split the "Allegiant" story into two movies — which was the style at the time after "Harry Potter" and "The Hunger Games" both released their final installments in two parts — but this is when the franchise officially perished. The first part of "Allegiant" focuses on Four and Tris discovering the world beyond their walled experiment and the dangers it holds, and "Allegiant — Part 1" bombed at the box office so hard that the franchise fizzled out immediately. "Allegiant — Part 2," which was renamed "Ascendant," was never released, and even the idea of turning it into a miniseries for Starz failed.

Truthfully, the likelihood of any new entries in the "Divergent" franchise is really, really low. In fact, it's basically impossible. Shailene Woodley said that she thought the decrease in quality in the movies was so bad that she almost quit acting entirely. In a 2018 interview with Net-a-Porter, Woodley said she "wouldn't change the films for the world" but also said "Allegiant" made her rethink her whole career. "The last one was a bit of a hard experience for everyone, and that was really what made me think I need to have some human experiences outside of this industry and fall in love with acting again," Woodley said, citing her HBO series "Big Little Lies" as a project that made her fall back in love with acting. 

Woodley's co-star Zoë Kravitz agreed; in a 2020 interview with Dax Shepard on his "Armchair Expert" podcast, Kravitz said of the "Divergent" movies, "Those films, [with] all due respect, those weren't my favorite films that I've made, and I think as we went on, the story really kinda got lost and nobody really knew what we were doing anymore, and that makes it really hard. I'm happy to go wherever [as an actor], if I know what we're making and why, but once you lose sight of that, it becomes really hard." None of this indicates that there will ever be any future "Divergent" projects, and not only is the heyday of dystopian young-adult content basically in the rearview mirror, but the hit Lionsgate took on "Allegiant" probably means that no studio will ever try to revive this franchise again. 

Maybe — just maybe — someone will try a remake at some point, but the only franchise to really survive the teen dystopian era of the 2010s is "The Hunger Games," which is still going strong (the prequel "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" performed well critically and commercially, and a new book focused on the character Haymitch Abernathy is forthcoming). In any case, now you know that you want to start with "Divergent," follow that with "Insurgent," and conclude with "Allegiant," though unfortunately, the story arc of that movie remains unfinished.