Pirates of the Caribbean Film Series by Order

Axel Dash

Hollywood - Pirates of the Caribbean stands as one of the most successful film franchises of the 21st Century. Inspired by the Disney Theme Park ride of the same name, it’s also the 14th highest grossing film series of all time. Currently, the franchise has a total of five films, with a sixth in early production stage. If you haven’t seen the franchise and want to start from the beginning, here is a chronological list of the Pirates in the Caribbean films:

2003: The Curse of the Black Pearl - An intrepid blacksmith teams up with an eccentric pirate captain to save his love from an undead pirate crew.

2006: Dead Man’s Chest - Jack Sparrow races to recover the heart of Davy Jones to avoid enslaving his soul to Jones’ service, as other friends and foes seek the heart for their own agenda as well.

2007: At World’s End - Will Turner, Elizabeth Swann, Hector Barbossa, and the crew of the Black Pearl try to rescue Jack Sparrow from Davy Jones’s locker, and prepare to fight Lord Cutler Beckett, who controls Davy Jones and the Flying Dutchman.

2011: On Stranger Tides - Jack Sparrow and Barbossa embark on a quest to find the elusive fountain of youth, only to discover that Blackbeard and his daughter are after it too.

2017: Dead Men Tell No Tales: Captain Jack Sparrow searches for the Trident of Poseidon to rule the sea while being pursued by old rival Captain Salazar and a crew of deadly ghosts who have escaped from the Devil’s Triangle. 

The film series was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and set primarily in the Caribbean. Although none of the movies were filmed specifically in the USVI, locales were spread out among various Caribbean Islands. There was extensive filming in the Bahamas and Puerto Rico, Dominica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, with some scenes shot in the BVIs and St. Lucia. 

The stories are based on a fictionalized version of  the Golden Age of Piracy 

(c. 1650-1726). The series is noted for its high quality of acting talent with Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow and Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Swann. The visual and practical effects are considered some of the best ever done on film, so much so that audiences believed certain Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) elements of the films were real. However, the plots of the four sequels have received mixed reviews, with the general consensus that they are too bloated and convoluted to follow. The five movies have grossed over $4.5 billion.