With the release of Black Adam around the corner, here’s your guide to watching all movies of the DC Extended Universe.

Since the release of ‘Man of Steel’ in 2012, there is a timeline that the DC Extended Universe (DCEU) movies are following. Although, the structure and hype around the DCEU’s releases isn’t as much as Marvel, however, it has its own fanbase. So, if you’re wondering how to watch the DC movies in order, we have you covered. Below we’ve put together a list of how to watch all the DC movies in a chronological order.

For the purposes of this list, we’re only including movies that are part of the “DC Extended Universe” – meaning only films that were made to be expressly connected by events and characters. So that means, Tim Burton’s Batman, Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy and Matt Reeve’s The Batman are not on this list. Also, movies whose characters aren’t a part of the Justice League because the universe of those movies don’t cross over with the universe of these Snyder-led movies are also not on the list.

Here’s how the watch-order looks like in the chronology of events:

1 – Wonder Woman (2017)
The events of Wonder Woman pre-date the events of all the other DC movies by a wide margin. The film flashes way back to show the creation of the Amazon women warriors by Zeus, who all live on the secret island of Themyscira. The movie is bookended by “present day” scenes that take place sometime after Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

2 – Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)
Aside from a prologue set during Diana Prince’s childhood, the sequel Wonder Woman 1984 takes place largely in the year 1984. Don’t hold your breath for many DCEU tie-ins, however, as the Patty Jenkins-directed sequel mostly stands on its own.

3 – Man of Steel (2013)
Director Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel is the film that started it all, and largely takes place in present day (circa 2013) – although the film opens with a prologue that shows the destruction of Kal-El’s home planet Krypton, and we subsequently see scenes of Clark Kent as a child and teenager growing up in Kansas before we get to “present day” where he’s somewhere in his twenties – so about 20 years after the destruction of Krypton.

4 – Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)
Timeline-wise, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice kind of runs the gamut. There are flashbacks to Bruce Wayne’s childhood in 1981 when his parents were killed, flashbacks to show the ending of Man of Steel from Bruce Wayne’s perspective, and there are flashforwards to a desolated Earth that’s been overrun by villain Darkseid (those “Knightmare” scenes). But the bulk of the film’s story takes place about 18 months after the events of Man of Steel, with Ben Affleck’s Batman now extremely hardened and harboring a grudge against Superman.

5 – Suicide Squad (2016)
The events of Suicide Squad take place about a year after the events of Batman v Superman, as the death of Superman is referenced in the film and we even get a cameo of Ben Affleck’s Bruce Wayne meeting with Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) having now taken on a more leadership role among the superheroes. But there are also flashbacks to Batman tracking down Joker (Jared Leto) and Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) that take place before Man of Steel.

6 – Justice League (2017)
The bulk of Justice League takes place about two years after the events of Batman v Superman and one year after Suicide Squad, but we also get a big flashback sequence to thousands of years ago when the villainous Steppenwolf attempted to take over Earth and was foiled by an alliance between Amazons, Atlanteans, humans, and Olympian Gods.

6.1 – Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021)
Although non-canon, the four-hour epic Zack Snyder’s Justice League is a more complete, more compelling version of the theatrical cut of Justice League. It also fits into the timeline exactly the same.

7 – Aquaman (2018)
The standalone Aquaman movie takes place primarily several months after the events of Justice League, as we watch Jason Momoa’s titular hero protect his own kingdom. But there are flashbacks that show Aquaman’s origin story back in 1985.

8 – Shazam! (2019)
Most of the standalone film Shazam! takes place over Christmas in 2018, but the film opens with a flashback to 1974 to reveal the origin story of its villain Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong).

9 – Birds of Prey (2020)
This standalone Harley Quinn movie takes place about four years after the events of Suicide Squad. In the wake of Batman v Superman and Justice League, the DCEU continued to get more disconnected, to the point that Birds of Prey has only very few references to Harley Quinn’s actions in Suicide Squad.

10 – The Suicide Squad (2021)
The James Gunn DC movie The Suicide Squad takes place an indeterminate amount of time after the events of the first Suicide Squad movie, and presumably after the events of Birds of Prey, but in truth the film is wholly unconcered with DC interconnectivity. What we do know is Harley Quinn has landed herself back in jail (hence her involvement in Task Force X’s latest assignment), and Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) is an old hat at enacting these “Suicide Squad” missions.

11 – Black Adam (2022)
And latest to release in the list is the 11th Film in the DCEU, ‘Black Adam’ starring Dwayne Johnson aka by his ring name, ‘The Rock’. Johnson was attached to Shazam! early in development and confirmed to portray the villain Black Adam in September 2014, but the producers later decided to give the character his own film. After nearly five thousand years of imprisonment, Black Adam, an antihero from the ancient city of Kahndaq, is unleashed into modern times. His brute tactics and way of justice attract the attention of the Justice Society of America, who tries to stop his rampage, teach him how to be a hero more than a villain, and must team up to stop a force more powerful than Adam himself.