Jumanji Watch Order: What to See Before Open World

You need two films before Jumanji: Open World: Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) and Jumanji: The Next Level (2019). Sony’s new film continues that pair. The 1995 movie is the origin of the board, and it is worth seeing. It is not the minimum. Zathura is a cousin, not a prerequisite.

The new trailer arrived on October 28, 2026. The trailer breakdown covers the preview, the billed cast and the country dates. This guide is the viewing path underneath that news.

The short version

US theatrical history, for placement only: Jumanji opened December 15, 1995; Zathura: A Space Adventure opened November 11, 2005; Welcome to the Jungle opened December 20, 2017; The Next Level opened December 13, 2019. Open World is December 25, 2026 in the United States, December 25 in Canada, and December 23 in the United Kingdom. Streaming catalogues are separate and change by country. This guide does not assign a current streaming home to the older films.

What Open World assumes you already know

Sony’s synopsis says the heroes have escaped Jumanji’s jungles before, and that the game now breaks out of its console into our world. That sentence points at the Kasdan films, not at a cold start.

Welcome to the Jungle turns the board into a video-game cartridge and introduces the avatars played by Johnson, Hart, Black and Gillan. The Next Level remixes who is inside those bodies and, in a mid-credits scene, lets the animals out. Open World is the film about that escape. Watching only the 1995 movie will not explain Bravestone, a life counter, or why a broken console matters.

If you remember the 2017 and 2019 films clearly, you can go straight to the new one. If “Mouse,” “the jewel” and “Eddie’s diner” are fuzzy, rewatch The Next Level at least. The avatar swap is the joke, and the tag is the setup.

The 1981 book, and why the movies leave it

Chris Van Allsburg’s Jumanji is a 1981 picture book. Judy and Peter find a board game. Each roll drags the jungle into their house: a lion, monkeys, a monsoon, a rhinoceros. They have to reach the golden city of Jumanji and finish the game before the house stays that way. When they do, the danger snaps back. They dump the game, and two neighbor boys find it.

That is the whole engine the films keep: an ordinary game, a real-world invasion, and a finish line that undoes the damage. The book does not contain Alan Parrish, a 26-year imprisonment, video-game avatars, or Dr. Smolder Bravestone. Reading it will not spoil Open World, and it will not replace The Next Level.

Zathura (2002) is Van Allsburg’s sequel picture book. The neighbor boys, Danny and Walter, find Jumanji and choose a space game on the same board instead. Finishing Zathura is what restores their house. The book connection is real. The 2005 film adaptation does not show the Jumanji board and does not use those neighboring children as a bridge back to Judy and Peter.

Jumanji (1995): the origin, with the ending that matters

Joe Johnston’s film expands the picture book. In 1969, Alan Parrish is pulled into the game and stays there. In 1995, Judy and Peter Shepherd free him as an adult, played by Robin Williams, and the jungle comes with him: rhinos, a monsoon, a hunter, carnivorous plants. Sarah Whittle, the girl who played with Alan in 1969, is pulled back in as an adult.

The rule is the book’s rule, made louder. The players have to finish the game. Until the last move, the house and the town stay under attack.

Ending, because the sequels depend on it. Finishing the game rewinds time to 1969. Alan and Sarah are children again, with their memory of the game intact, and they dispose of it. The 1995 disasters never happen to Judy and Peter’s parents. The film then shows an adult Alan and Sarah who grew up outside the game and meet the children in the repaired timeline. Welcome to the Jungle treats this as the same world’s past: the board survived, and about twenty-two years later it has become a cartridge. You can follow the 2017 film without this rewind. You will miss why the game is a cursed object with a history, rather than a gadget invented for the reboot.

Kirsten Dunst and Bonnie Hunt played Judy and Sarah. Jonathan Hyde played both Alan’s father and the hunter Van Pelt. Bebe Neuwirth played Aunt Nora. None of that casting is required knowledge for the new trailer. Nora is the thread some later reporting has tried to pull forward. She is not on Sony’s current Open World billing, so do not assume a 1995 reunion is part of the confirmed plot. The March 2026 Variety date story named Neuwirth among returning actors; the October 28 film site does not.

Zathura and the animated series can wait

Zathura: A Space Adventure (2005), directed by Jon Favreau, follows two brothers whose house is thrown into space by a board game. The studio has placed it beside Jumanji, and Van Allsburg’s Zathura book is a sequel to his Jumanji book. The film itself does not mention Jumanji, and Favreau publicly discouraged calling it a direct sequel. Nothing in Sony’s Open World synopsis refers to a space game, a robot or the Budwing family. Watch it if you want the other Van Allsburg adaptation. Skip it if you are only getting ready for December.

The animated Jumanji series ran three seasons from 1996 to 1999 and continued Alan, Judy and Peter inside the game. It is a television continuation of the 1995 film, not a bridge into the Kasdan trilogy. No Open World material cites it.

There are also licensed video games from 1996 through Jumanji: Wild Adventures in 2023. They are products, not plot chapters. None of them is required viewing.

Welcome to the Jungle (2017): the rules Open World still uses

Jake Kasdan’s film picks up the board in the video-game era. Four teenagers in detention — Spencer Gilpin (Alex Wolff), Anthony “Fridge” Johnson (Ser’Darius Blain), Martha Kaply (Morgan Turner) and Bethany Walker (Madison Iseman) — start the cartridge and wake up as the characters they chose.

The game gives each avatar strengths, a weakness and a visible life count. Lose the last life inside Jumanji and that player dies. The way out is to complete the adventure and call the game’s name. They also meet Nigel, the in-game guide played by Rhys Darby, and a new Van Pelt played by Bobby Cannavale. Alan Parrish is part of the backstory, not a character Johnson is playing.

Ending. The teens finish the game, return to their own bodies, and the friendship survives the body-swap comedy. Alex, who has been missing since the 1990s, returns to a life that continued without him. The group breaks the cartridge. The Next Level starts from Spencer digging those pieces back up. If you only remember “The Rock and Kevin Hart in the jungle,” rewatch this one for the life rule and for who Spencer, Martha, Fridge and Bethany actually are. Open World bills all four actors. The new trailer appears to put other people in the avatar bodies, which only lands if you know the original mapping.

The Next Level (2019): the swap, and the scene Open World continues

One school break later, the friends are in college and Spencer feels smaller than Bravestone ever was. He repairs the game and goes back in. Martha, Fridge and Bethany follow. Spencer’s grandfather Eddie (Danny DeVito) and Eddie’s estranged friend Milo (Danny Glover) are sucked in from upstairs. Bethany is left outside at first and goes to Alex for help.

The game deals the wrong bodies:

• Eddie starts as Bravestone. Johnson spends the early reels playing DeVito’s rhythm inside the explorer’s body.
• Milo starts as Mouse.
• Fridge starts as Professor Oberon.
• Martha is Ruby again.
• Spencer is not Bravestone. He is Ming Fleetfoot, a new avatar played by Awkwafina.
• Bethany later enters as Cyclone, a horse, rather than as Oberon.

The mission is a drought and a stolen Falcon Jewel, held by Jurgen the Brutal (Rory McCann). A river can move players between avatars, so Spencer, Fridge and Bethany eventually return to Bravestone, Mouse and Oberon, while Eddie and Milo take Ming and Cyclone. Milo, who is dying in the real world, chooses to stay in the game. Everyone else gets out. Eddie and Nora, from the old neighborhood, find each other again.

Mid-credits, because this is the Open World premise. Spencer’s mother, Janice (Marin Hinkle), lets a repairman into the house. He switches the broken console on. Outside, a herd of ostriches from the game appears in the real world, in front of the friends. The 2019 film already started the breach. Sony’s 2026 synopsis — the game breaks free of its console — is that scene continued, not a disconnected reboot. The October 28 key art, with giant birds on a city street, is the same idea in the marketing.

Open World has not confirmed that Jurgen, Ming or Cyclone return. Dwayne Johnson said in 2019 that Jurgen was himself an avatar and that a sequel could reveal the player. That was an interview comment about a possible story, not a scene in the new trailer. Awkwafina, Danny Glover and Marin Hinkle are not on the current official cast list. DeVito is. The grandfather can return without the film repeating the 2019 swap beat for beat.

Open World: what is confirmed before you buy a ticket

Kasdan directs again, from a script with Pinkner and Rosenberg. The official billed cast on October 28 is Johnson, Black, Hart, Gillan, Wolff, Turner, Blain, Iseman, Jonas and DeVito. The premise is the real-world outbreak. Sony calls it the final installment of the trilogy, meaning this Johnson-era trio of films.

The US date is December 25, 2026, after Sony moved the film off December 11. Canada states December 25. The UK states December 23. Those are cinema dates, not a simultaneous worldwide unlock and not a streaming date. No runtime or rating was on the official site when this guide was checked.

The trailer shows the avatars in our world and, in descriptions of the preview, new players inside them, including Spencer’s mother and a younger relative. It also plays a line about no reset and no second chance. Until the film is out, that line is a threat in a trailer. The 2017 and 2019 movies used a visible life count. Do not write the old life rule out, and do not treat the trailer as a replacement rulebook.

If you want the adjacent December movies, Avengers: Doomsday and Dune: Part Three are both dated December 18 in North America, a week before the US Jumanji opening. Their catch-up guides are separate: what to watch before Doomsday and the Dune: Part Three date and IMAX screenings. Nothing in those films is required for Open World.

A practical order for the week you have

1. If you have one evening: The Next Level. You get the avatar joke, Eddie, and the mid-credits breach.
2. If you have two evenings: Welcome to the Jungle, then The Next Level. This is the real minimum.
3. If you have a weekend: add the 1995 film first. Release order of the Jumanji-titled films is then 1995 → 2017 → 2019 → Open World.
4. If you want the book as well: read Van Allsburg’s Jumanji before or after the 1995 film. Read Zathura after it if you want his sequel. Neither book contains the Kasdan plots.
5. Skip, unless you are collecting: the animated series, the 2005 Zathura film, and the licensed games.

The dates and the new preview are tracked on the release calendar and in the October 28 trailer article. When Open World is out, the mid-credits question to check is simple: did the film finish the outbreak the 2019 tag started, or did it leave another game still running?