How to watch The Walking Dead and spin-off shows in order

AMC’s hit zombie apocalypse TV series, The Walking Dead, has finally come to an end after 11 seasons. There’s more Walking Dead content hitting screens, however, with multiple spin-offs led by stars from the original show. The Walking Dead: Dead City and The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon have both recently premiered, and there have been other spin-offs since The Walking Dead debuted in 2010, like Fear The Walking Dead and The Walking Dead: The World Beyond.

So, it’s a perfect time to jump into the Walking Dead Universe. You could watch each show in the order they were released, but it’s always more fun to watch on-screen TV universes in chronological order. That’s a little complicated with The Walking Dead, as the time in which each TV series is set can change by the season, along with year-long time jumps.

For instance, the Tales of the Walking Dead anthology series features a new story, every episode set in a different time of the apocalypse. On top of that, there are online shorts that fill in many background details about the Walking Dead universe. To make it easy for you to watch every bit of Walking Dead content available, we’ve made a chronological watch guide.

Watch The Walking Dead in order: Full chronological timeline of all the shows

Our guide features The Walking Dead and its spin-off shows listed in chronological order – or in order of how events happened during the zombie apocalypse. You can find a spoiler-free version at the bottom of our guide, which is more complete because it includes optional content to watch, like the online shorts and Tales from the Walking Dead.

Fear the Walking Dead – seasons 1 through 3

The first spin-off of The Walking Dead is a bit of a prequel. The original series opens with Rick waking from a coma in an abandoned hospital after the events that led to the zombie apocalypse. So, we never really see what it was like as society collapsed in The Walking Dead universe. That is, until Fear The Walking Dead is released. It follows Madison Clark (Kim Dickens), a high school guidance counsellor in Los Angeles who has to navigate the early days of the zombie plague while also keeping her splintering family together.

The first three seasons of Fear the Walking Dead take place at the beginning of the outbreak and show us up to around the time Rick reunites with his family in the first season of the Walking Dead.

The Walking Dead – season 1 through 8

The Walking Dead stars Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes, a Georgia sheriff’s deputy who falls into a coma after being shot at during a pursuit. He awakens weeks into a full-blown zombie apocalypse and immediately sets out to find his family.

The first eight seasons happen pretty much consecutively, with some short time jumps between seasons. It adds up to about two years since the zombie outbreak in 2010, placing the end of season 8 (when Rick finally defeats the Saviors) in 2012. If you want to watch chronologically, stop watching The Walking Dead here, as season 9 features multiple time jumps.

Fear the Walking Dead – season 4 through 7

After the finale of season 3, Fear the Walking Dead skips ahead late 2012 – or just after season eight of The Walking Dead. Madison returns as the star of the series for the fourth season. Let’s just say she’s not the star for long without getting too deep into spoilers. Morgan (Lennie James) also arrives in season 4 of the series after being an important character in The Walking Dead and soon finds himself leading a group of people determined to help those in need.

There’s an 18-month time jump between seasons eight and nine of The Walking Dead, and that’s where the events of these three Fear the Walking Dead seasons take place. The eighth and final season of Fear the Walking Dead features a seven-year jump that puts it around the time of the final seasons of The Walking Dead.

The Walking Dead: The World Beyond – seasons 1 and 2

The Walking Dead: The World Beyond is AMC’s third Walking Dead spin-off. The events of both seasons take place over the course of a few months in 2020. The World Beyond is centered around a community in Omaha that’s been relatively unscathed by the zombie apocalypse. When one of their parents goes missing, a group of teens led by Iris Bennett (Aliyah Royale) leave the safety of their home behind and venture into a world they don’t know.

The World Beyond expands the world of The Walking Dead by establishing a much larger group of communities working together throughout the US. The series also reveals that France is the origin of the zombie virus.

The Walking Dead – season 9

Season 9 of The Walking Dead sees the departure of Andrew Lincoln’s Rick Grimes, as well as numerous time jumps.

The season opens with a time jump – after a victory over Negan and the Saviors at the end of season eight. Five episodes in, there’s a longer time jump of six years, which then places The Walking Dead around 2020. At that time, the surviving members of Alexandria, including Rick’s daughter Judith (Cailey Fleming), face a new threat known as the Whisperers.

Fear The Walking Dead – season 8

As we previously mentioned, the final season of Fear the Walking Dead features a seven-year time jump. This places season eight around 2020 in The Walking Dead timeline. Currently, only the first six episodes of season 8 of Fear the Walking Dead have been released, with the final six releasing weekly starting October 22.

The first half of season eight is centred around Morgan taking down the organization known as Padre, which is responsible for kidnapping his daughter and many more children. In the latest episode, Morgan and his daughter Mo (Zoey Merchant) set out for Alexandria and a reunion with Rick Grimes. We’ll have a better idea of where exactly to place this series when, or if, they ever reach Alexandria. Regardless, this will either fit in before or after the final two seasons of The Walking Dead.

The Walking Dead – seasons 10 and 11

The final seasons of The Walking Dead take place 10 to 12 years into the zombie apocalypse, as the residents of Alexandria and the Hilltop band together to defeat the Whisperers and a massive undead horde. While there are a few time jumps that skip a couple of months at most throughout the final two seasons, the largest jump comes on the final episode.

We see a rebuilt Alexandria moving on after its destruction by a massive zombie horde, and Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) sets off on a mission from Maggie to discover more about what’s left of the world.

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon (2023)

The Walking Dead stars Norman Reedus and, as you guessed it, Daryl Dixon. Daryl has been a mainstay on the original Walking Dead series from its onset. Now, the character finds himself across the Atlantic stranded in France. The series takes place shortly after the conclusion of The Walking Dead – putting it around 2022 or 2023 in The Walking Dead timeline.

We’re still not totally sure how Daryl got to France yet (other than some bad men put him on a boat, and then he escaped). But The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon is currently airing new episodes every week, so we’ll likely find out in a matter of time.

The Walking Dead: Dead City (2023)

Dead City is our furthest glimpse yet into the Walking Dead timeline. The series follows two unlikely compatriots, in Lauren Cohen’s Maggie and Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Negan. Set 15 years into the apocalypse, or around 2025, Maggie’s son Hershel has been taken by a man known as the Croat (Željko Ivanek), who leverages him to ensure the Hilltop do what he wants.

He used all the same tactics Negan and the Saviors had used on her years earlier, which leads Maggie to track down Negan in the hopes he might be able to help get her son back from the Croat’s base of operations in Manhattan.

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live

We don’t know much yet about the Rick and Michonne-led spin-off other than it’s set to debut sometime in 2024. We’re assuming the series will touch on everything Rick has been up to since he left The Walking Dead in season 9. Thanks to Dead City, we also know that Rick still hasn’t returned to Alexandria 15 years into the zombie apocalypse.

Spoiler-free version: The Walking Dead chronological timeline (plus bonus content)

Below, we’ve included spoiler-free versions of this guide. We’ve created another that also includes when to watch the online shorts as well as an anthology series episodes – all in chronological order.

The Walking Dead and other spin-offs in chronological order

Here’s the list from above, but in a spoiler-free bulleted list. We’ve added the in-universe dates the series occurs in parentheses. The zombie plague began on August 25, 2010, which is where our list starts. We have more exact dates at the beginning, as the dates will get much less precise later on in the series.

• Fear the Walking Dead – season 1 through 3
• The Walking Dead – season 1 through 8
• Fear the Walking Dead – season 4 through 7
• The Walking Dead: The World Beyond – seasons 1 and 2
• The Walking Dead – season 9
• Fear The Walking Dead – season 8
• The Walking Dead – seasons 10 and 11
• The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon
• The Walking Dead: Dead City
• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live

Optional: The full Walking Dead Universe with bonus content in chronological order

This list includes absolutely everything from the Walking Dead universe. We’ve bolded the online shorts (which you can check out on YouTube) and all six episodes of Tales from the Walking Dead (an anthology series that started in 2022).

• Fear the Walking Dead – season 1 through 3
• Tales from the Walking Dead – episode 2 (anthology series)
• Fear the Walking Dead: Dead in the Water (online short)
• Fear the Walking Dead: Flight 462 (online short)
• Fear the Walking Dead – season 2
• Fear the Walking Dead: Passage (online short)
• Fear the Walking Dead – season 3
• The Walking Dead – season 1
• Tales from the Walking Dead – episode 1 (anthology series)
• The Walking Dead: Torn Apart (online short)
• The Walking Dead season 2
• The Walking Dead: Cold Storage (online short)
• The Walking Dead season 3
• The Walking Dead: The Oath (online short)
• The Walking Dead – seasons 4 through 7
• The Walking Dead: Red Machete (online short)
• The Walking Dead – season 8
• Tales from the Walking Dead – episode 3 (anthology series)
• Fear the Walking Dead – seasons 4 through 7
• Tales from the Walking Dead – episode 6 (anthology series)
• The Walking Dead: The World Beyond – seasons 1 and 2
• Tales from the Walking Dead – episode 4 (anthology series)
• The Walking Dead – season 9
• Fear The Walking Dead – season 8
• The Walking Dead – seasons 10 and 11
• The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon
• Tales from the Walking Dead – episode 5 (anthology series)
• The Walking Dead: Dead City
• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live