The Fast and the Furious franchise eventually transcends its humble origins as a turn-of-the-century Point Break re-do centered around the relationship between Dominic “Dom” Toretto (Vin Diesel) and Brian O’Connor (Paul Walker). But here, it starts small: Director Rob Cohen, in his first and only work with the franchise, leads a diverse cast through a fast-paced movie about cops and criminals on the hunt for thrills. And while the bleached hair and Ja Rule-heavy soundtrack may seem dated today, you can still see why it became a hit — the seeds for a successful franchise are in there.

The Fast and the Furious franchise is so largely synonymous with its star, Vin Diesel, it’s hard to remember that he’s mostly absent from this one. Instead, Boyz n the Hood director John Singleton takes up the reins and adds Ludacris and Tyrese to the cast in a story that centers on the character of Brian and his life post-law enforcement.

Remember the character of Sean, played by Lucas Black? What about Twinkie, played by Bow Wow? This movie — the first of a run of four directed by Better Luck Tomorrow‘s Justin Lin — moves the action to Asia and focuses mostly on characters that are only tangentially related to the rest of the franchise, so it’s the one that’s the least connected to the others. The true star is the drifting, a.k.a the way the cars skid around tight corners. The other best thing to come out of this one is Sung Kang’s character Han — sometimes referred to as Han Seoul-Oh, get it? — who does return in other movies.

After a few movies that headed in different directions, this one is back to basics: Both Dom and Brian are in it, Brian is back in with the FBI and Dom and his crew are back to doing crimes. And while it feels good just to have the old band together, the action sequences start to get more ambitious here, too — as you can see in the famous scene where they hijack an oil tanker together — which is a precursor for what’s to come.

With the crew firmly in place, Fast Five is free to up the ante when it comes to heists and stunts, culminating in an action sequence on the streets of Rio de Janeiro that’s up there with the best in the whole series. In this one, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson jumps in as agent Luke Hobbs, adding another huge name to the series’ set of returning stars.

WATCH ON PRIME VIDEO WATCH ON APPLE TV

In this one, Michelle Rodriguez’s Letty has fallen in with a bad crowd — namely Owen Shaw (Luke Evans), a London-based bad guy with a dangerous device that he’s ready to sell to the highest bidder. It’s up to the team again to stop Shaw in his tracks and hopefully save Letty in the process. How? Mostly through bananas driving stunts, but they also have to team up with Gisele, a former Mossad agent played by Gal Gadot. (And for eagle-eyed fans, who’s the flag girl who starts the race in London? It’s Rita Ora!)

This is the only Fast and Furious movie directed by franchise guru James Wan, who has also had success directing long-running series like Saw, Insidious and The Conjuring, along with two Aquaman movies. He takes the series to Abu Dhabi, where Shaw 2.0 — Deckard Shaw, played by Jason Statham — is out for revenge against Dom’s family. Dom won’t let helicopters, drones or even luxury high-rise buildings stand in his way as he seeks to protect the ones he loves. Sadly, this one was marred by a behind-the-scenes tragedy when Paul Walker died in a single-vehicle car accident. His brothers were used as stand-ins to complete the filming of the movie. In a touching tribute, his character of Brian was not killed in the movie to explain Walker’s future absences — he’s just presumably living out his life peacefully off-screen.

You’d think after seven movies that they wouldn’t be able to add any more big-name stars to the already-full roster, but you’d be wrong. The Fate of the Furious — get it, “fate,” or “F8,” after the eighth movie — gets Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron as the new big bad, Cipher. Cipher blackmails Dom into stealing dangerous weapons on her behalf, making him the family’s antagonist for once.

This spin-off movie sees two bad-guys-turned-good teaming up while still maintaining a rivalry. Dwayne Johnson’s Luke Hobbs and Jason Statham’s Deckard Shaw have to combine forces to track down a pilfered super-virus. Watching this one, you kind of get the sense that Johnson and Statham are contractually obligated to have an equal number of zingers in the script, but there’s an element of mismatched buddy comedy that works, and there are plenty of action scenes worthy of a movie presented by The Fast and the Furious.

Yes, the Fast and Furious franchise is big enough to have not one but two wrestler-turned-actors among its cast. This time, John Cena shows up as Dom’s foil — and someone from his past, who may be involved with Cipher. Meanwhile: Tej and Roman fly their cars into outer space!

Jason Momoa plays a villain that can only be described as extra — though he has good reason to get revenge on Dom and his family. This one sees a new director, though one who has car cred: Louis Leterrier, who previously directed Statham through The Transporter franchise.

Lots of the Fast and the Furious movies refer to previous Fast and Furious movies, especially when it comes to villain backstories, so the timeline does loop around on itself. If you want to see the events in chronological order, watch them like this:

1. The beginning of F9: The Fast Saga
2. The Fast and the Furious
3. 2 Fast 2 Furious
4. Fast and Furious
5. Fast Five
6. The beginning of Fast X
7. Fast and Furious 6
8. The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
9. Furious 7
10. The Fate of the Furious
11. Hobbs & Shaw
12. The rest of F9
13. The Rest of Fast X