How Many Star Trek Movies Are There?

It’s been to a decade since we last had a Star Trek movie and we’re long overdue for a good one. The current showrunners of “New Trek” are doing their best to run the brand into the ground and with over budgeted dud after dud, it’s in some dangerous waters these days.

From its humble beginnings as a simple sci-fi show in 1966, to a worldwide and genre-defining franchise that inspired generations Star Trek has quite the legacy. And for a while, we got a lot of pretty good, odd, and awful movies along the way. Here’s how many Star Trek movies there were.

How Many Star Trek Movies Are There?

So over the decades, we’ve got a lot of Trek. There are tons of spin-off shows, books, Star Trek games, and all sorts of ways to enjoy Gene Roddenberry's original vision for life in the far future. On the movie front, we’re looking at a very eerie, yet respectable 13 Star Trek films.

That may seem like quite a lot to non-Trekkie fans, but it’s really not. There are three distinct eras with the movies as they cover Shatner's run as Kirk, Patrick Stewart as Picard, and Chris Pine as Kirk again in whatever it was that J.J. Abrams and Justin Lin were trying to do.

They’re not all worth watching as some of them are just so awful. But there are a couple classics in there as well that are highly recommended, primarily Wrath of Khan, Search for Spock, and First Contact. But we’ll run through them all briefly so you can see how the series evolved over the years.

Worth mentioning is Galaxy Quest. Whilst it isn’t a Trek movie, it lampoons everything about Star Trek , especially Shatner’s Era and takes shots at the man himself. It's worth adding to your watch list if you’re blasting through all those classic films.

Warning: Mild Spoilers for every Star Trek movie are below.

Kirk's Era

First up in our coverage of the feature-length Star Trek Films we have Shatner’s run as the Captain of the USS Enterprise. We got six films in total with Captain Kirk, which is still the most movies we had of a particular Captain and Crew.

The first was Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979. Whilst the last was the now-infamous Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country in 1991. A film marginally better than the one that came before it (Final Frontier), but still full of flaws. On the positive side, it did at least give a nice send-off to the original Enterprise Crew.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Our first outing of Shatner’s crew was back in 1979 for a cool 45 million dollar budget. Star Trek: The Motion Picture was directed by Robert Wise with a script by Alan Dean Foster and produced by Gene Roddenberry. It had a positive reception as it landed a worldwide return of 139 million dollars and kicked the movie franchise off with a bang.

To summarize the plot, a massive energy cloud appears from deep space one day and carves a path of destruction as it makes its way to Earth. The Enterprise is sent to intercept and it’s discovered that the cloud houses Voyager 6, an old 20th Century NASA Space Probe. After being lost in a black hole it was damaged and then repaired and improved by a race of living machines.

There’s a lot of fan theory that implies that this was a version of the Borg, but space is big and weird so it could have been anyone. The probe gained sentience and after merging with a member of the Enterprise crew known as Decker, it creates a new form of life and vanishes off into deep space again.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture had notorious production problems due to the intense special effects segments. It brought the film massively over budget and seriously behind schedule. To the point the production team were eventually given a blank cheque and told to just: “Get it done”.

Stark Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan

Arguably the best, if not at least in the top three best Star Trek films to be made. Wrath Of Khan came out in 1982 and was a deep cut for Roddenberry's original fans as it brought back an old villain from exile, Khan.

This time around Nicholas Meyer was at the directorial helm and Robert Sallin produced, so no more Gene. He'd been removed from the project and "promoted" to a ceremonial position within the studio due to bad ideas for the movies and meddling in production.

Unlike the previous movie, the team was seriously handicapped with a budget of just 12 million, substantially smaller than the first film. But they managed to pull it off and saw a return worldwide of 95 million and a place in the heart of Trek fans worldwide for Ricardo Montalban in his performance as Khan.

It’s a completely unforgettable performance as a vengeance-fueled Khan. Who’s returned to kill Kirk after his wife died when the Enterprise crew put Khan and his allies into Exile back in the original TV show.

Wrath Of Khan brought us the death of Spock and the legendary Shatner yell of: "Khaaaan!"

Star Trek III: The Search For Spock

Released two years later in 1984, The Search For Spock hit our screens with a budget of 16 million behind it and for its efforts landed a return of 87 million worldwide and 76 million at the US and Canadian box offices.

What made this movie so special is that it brought back Spock after he died in the last movie. It was an agonizing two year wait for fans, and it was directed by Leonard Nimoy himself. Plus, Harve Bennet was behind the screenwriting, story and production.

So it had all the hallmarks of classic Trek right out of the gate and boy did it deliver.

Despite a few stuttering moments in the overall plot, it’s a great story with emotional gut punches at the right moments. Plus, it builds a bridge between McCoy and Spock after all these years of being snippy with one another.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

Oh where to start on this one. The black sheep of the Star Trek movies and a bizarre film from top to bottom. Released in 1986, after another two-year wait, The Voyage Home had all the best green flags in the world back then.

It was directed by Leonard Nimoy again, we had Harve Bennet and Nimoy writing the story with Harve doing production work again. Plus, there were four screenwriters, so the story could have some legs.

Then the movie came out and all everyone remembers it for is its obsession with Whales. And some lore from Scotty about how starship windows are apparently made from transparent Aluminium.

Boasting a budget of 21 million dollars, it surprisingly hit 133 million worldwide and 109 million at home. Now on the surface, this may seem like a big win, but I think it was a lot of people expecting what we got in Search For Spock, and instead, we got The Voyage Home.

The following Star Trek film after Voyage Home pulled in just 52 million at the US box office and 70 million worldwide. So it seems audiences were cautious about going to another Trek film at the time.

To summarize the lunacy briefly, Kirk and the crew are facing a court-martial on Earth for their reckless actions in saving Spock. But suddenly the Earth is approached by a probe so gigantic it dwarves the entire planet. The probe sends out a destructive signal that’s threatening to destroy the world, and it turns out the intended recipients of this weird wave are Humpback Whales.

However, in this era they’re extinct. So Kirk and the gang go back in time to grab a mating pair, bring them back to the present, and have the whales talk to the probe for them. See what we mean by it’s an odd one.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

If The Voyage Home was the red light warning on Star Trek's metaphorical dashboard, Final Frontier was the sputtering, leaking cough of an engine that was on its way out the door. Star Trek was looking like a brand that was past its prime and becoming worryingly mismanaged, out of touch, and veering off course.

Even though it had a bigger budget than Voyage Home with 30 million behind it. The Final Frontier only pulled in just 70 million at the box office worldwide and a concerning 50 million in the US. What made it perform so dismally is a mix of trepidation from the audience after Space Whales, and the fact that Final Frontier was directed by William Shatner.

By this point, William Shatner's ego was in full swing and he made working with him an absolute nightmare.

What we got was a very, very Star Trek-feeling film that had some questionable scenes, some unique and interesting approaches to storytelling, and an overall feeling that this was a bit of an ego piece for Shatner behind the scenes.

To go into the madness, The Final Frontier has Spock's half-brother Sybok turning up and taking control of the Enterprise through a type of Vulcan mind-control. The purpose, to go and meet God through a section of space known as the Great Barrier.

It of course turns out that it’s not God. It's just some god-like alien being with a very big special effects budget that somehow requires a Starship to leave the planet it's trapped on. But that's revealed after Kirk catches it out with a very good, if kind of obvious question.

To quote the Captain: “What does God need with a Starship?”

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

Our last outing for all of the Kirk-era crew was in 1991. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country was released with a budget of 27 million and it pulled in 98 million worldwide and 74 million at the US box office. So it performed relatively well.

Shatner was out of the directing chair this time and instead, we had Nicholas Meyer taking the helm whilst also screenwriting with Denny Flin. The story was written by Nimoy again, but he also had help from Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal.

Harve Bennet was also no longer in charge of production and instead, that role went to Ralph Winter and Steven Jaffe. And you can tell, we get a lot of very janky and poorly aged CG throughout, with the worst being the shapeshifter and zero-gravity grape juice Klingon blood.

The Undiscovered Country has the Klingons doing something nobody in the universe would have expected, asking for peace. But after Kirk and McCoy are blamed for the assassination of the Klingon Peace Envoys, it’s up to them and the crew of the Enterprise to unearth the conspiracy, preserve the peace treaty, and prove their innocence.

Fun Fact: Kurtwood Smith plays the Federation President. The majority of people may remember him as Eric’s Dad Red Foreman from That 70’s Show. Or Clarence Boddicker in Robocop.

Picard's Era

Next up we have Patrick Stewart's run at the helm of the Enterprise during Star Trek: The Next Generation. The show proved to be popular with fans after a slightly rocky first season, but there's many that now prefer it over the Trek of Shatner’s era. Ever since then, Patrick Stewart's Picard became iconic and a fan favorite for many.

Unfortunately, that success didn’t translate well into the movies, and the crew we got in the films were not the characters from the show, at all. So many are content to consider the movies to be in its own little universe where “Movie Picard” is the machismo, action-man version of “TV Show Picard”.

If you compare and contrast the two you’ll notice pretty quickly how different they are. Still, we’ll be diving through them anyway as there’s some stuff worth talking about.

Star Trek: Generations

First up in Picard's outing on the big screen, we got Star Trek: Generations. A movie that tried to end the fan debate around which Captain was better, Picard or Kirk, by having the two on the screen at the same time. Turns out the answer was, neither. They’re both equally useless in the film.

Firing out the gate with a budget of 38 million dollars, Star Trek: Generations grossed 118 million worldwide, but just 75 million at the US and Canadian box offices. A little stumbling start, but they were still finding their legs with the Picard films back then.

The story we got was an attempt to join both the old and the new Trek with a metaphorical torch pass from one Captain to another. Kirk and Picard try to stop a scientist known as Soren from destroying star systems that host millions of innocent lives, but one of the Captains perishes.

You can probably guess who.

Soren's goal was to reach an " extra-dimensional wish fulfillment plane" known as The Nexus where he could be with his dead wife and child again.

Generations canonically killed off Kirk and it was the last time we saw Shatner in the role.

Star Trek: First Contact

After the poor reception of the somewhat confusing story in Star Trek: Generations, the studio handed the reins off to more suitable hands that knew what they were doing. In this case, Jonathan Frakes, a.k.a Commander Riker. A decision that went down pretty well with fans as Frakes can be a good Director when he gives a damn.

He was handed a 46 million dollar budget, and for his first outing as a director of the Star Trek films First Contact pulled in 146 million worldwide and 92 million in the US and Canada. So it did pretty well.

With Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga reprising their roles as screen and story writers for the movie, it seems this time around we had a more concise and coherent plot to follow. Plus, it involved the Borg and they’re always enjoyable.

Encounter At Farpoint was the first introduction of the Borg in the Next Generation TV show.

The general outline for First Contact is that the Enterprise is sucked back in time whilst pursuing a Borg Escape ship after a battle with Starfleet. The Borg are defeated in the initial skirmish, but through time travel shenanigans they’re able to stop Earth from making First Contact with the Vulkans and assimilate the entire planet instead.

So the Enterprise crew goes back in time after the Borg ship to stop it and make sure the events in history surrounding First Contact with the Vulcans play out as they should.

A highlight of First Contact is the grizzly assimilation scenes where the captured crew members of the Enterprise are converted into Borg drones.

Star Trek: Insurrection

On his second outing behind the wheel, Frakes was given a budget of 70 million dollars. A substantial increase from before and at least a sign that the studio had trust in him to make that back. Which he did as Insurrection landed 112 million worldwide, but barely scraped even in the US with 70 million.

The writing and story in Star Trek Insurrection is what drags it down for the majority of people . It’s still shot and directed well, so Frakes tried his best at least.

Speaking of the plot, it’s a little silly and very Star Trek as it follows the Enterprise getting involved in a violation of the Prime Directive by Data.

We get introduced to a seemingly immortal race of humans and a plan involving Starfleet and a second alien race that will harvest the planet's natural rejuvenating radiation for their own gains. Whilst the Enterprise crew uncover the conspiracy and try to stop it.

Star Trek: Nemesis

After Insurrection's abysmal performance in the US box office. It seems that investors may have been hesitant as on his final outing as a Star Trek director, Jonathan Frakes had a slightly smaller 60 million dollar budget for Star Trek: Nemesis.

Which unfortunately translated into 67 million worldwide in returns and an abysmal 43 million in the US making it another box office failure.

Tom Hardy was the villain this time around and we also saw the death of Data, which was handled so hamfistedly that it caused problems for Data’s “return” in Star Trek: Picard. A dreary and grim movie all around that could have been so much more, Star Trek Nemesis slammed the door shut on any future Star Trek: Next Generation movies.

Plus, it was a sour note for the franchise to go out on for fans as the movie was a commercial failure, and the overall plot was badly written and not the right tone for Star Trek.

Worth mentioning is that the Picard-era Star Trek films all had the same producer , Rick Berman.

To summarize the plot, a clone of Picard (played by Tom Hardy) assassinates the Romulan Senate, takes control, and lures in the Enterprise with the prospect of peace with the Romulans. But of course, it’s the Romulans, so it’s a ruse and chaos ensues quickly.

The release dates for the Next Generation Star Trek movies were 1994, 1996, 1998, and 2002 .

J.J Abram's And Justin Lin Era

Even though J.J. Abrams and Justin Lin meant well. Abrams's eye-searing lens flares, mystery box plots, retcons, and re-imaginings, plus a general approach of all action all the time brought us a very different kind of Star Trek. You could call it the Joss Whedon effect of making everyone an ass-kicking, quip-throwing character in stories that really didn’t do much overall.

We got an entire timeline retconning in the first film, a rewrite of Wrath Of Khan in the second movie, and an attempt to do classic Trek but through the filter of The Fast And The Furious.

None of it worked, and many are glad they’re consigned to the ash heap of history alongside The Voyage Home and Nemesis. But here’s a rundown of the last Star Trek films we ever got.

The one silver lining we got out of Abrams Trek is Karl Urban as McCoy.

Star Trek

J.J. Abrams' first outing behind the wheel of what was considered “New Trek” had all the red flags in the universe. Abrams at the helm, a script from Alex Kurtzman, plus an eye-watering 150 million dollar budget.

But surprisingly, it landed 385 million worldwide and 257 million at the box office. So it squeaked by on returns, despite Kurtzman's script dragging it down by the neck with his usual dross-filled dialogue.

For those that missed it, in the 24th Century Spock from the Roddenberry Kirk timeline fails to stop the Romulan sun from going supernova. It wipes out Romulus, possibly a stab by Abrams at Star Trek Nemesis, and Spock along with a 24th Century Romulan Mining Ship are dragged into a black hole and spat back out in the 23rd Century.

It creates a new timeline where there are two Spocks, and we follow a young Kirk getting his captaincy and dealing with the new threat of this future tech-filled Romulan ship.

Vulcan is destroyed in the J. J. Abrams timeline and it’s something old Spock watches from another planet . Even though he shouldn’t be able to physically see something like that.

Star Trek: Into Darkness

After the surprisingly high return of Abrams's first attempt at Star Trek, the folks funding him decided to toss another, much larger, 190 million budget in his direction to see what he would produce. Turns out it was his version of Star Trek: Wrath Of Khan.

Which in turn caused the movie to rake in 228 million dollars worldwide, and 467.4 million dollars at the US and Canadian box office. So it did well financially, but was received abysmally by critics and fans alike for its retreading and retconning of old, and now seemingly sacred ground.

Here’s what I mean, in Into Darkness the Enterprise crew are tasked with hunting down a renegade Starfleet Operative. But surprise, it’s just a new timeline version of Khan that worked for Starfleet building weapons and being a generally eugenic-brained maniac. He rebels and the Enterprise have to clean up the mess.

Star Trek: Beyond

After Star Trek: Into Darkness put the future of Star Trek movies into a tailspin once again, it seems after a bit of chaos internally it was decided to boot J.J. to the curb and bring in someone new. Step forward, Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift Director, Justin Lin.

After being handed a budget of 185 million dollars and a script from Simon Pegg and Doug Jung; Lin turned it into 347 million at the worldwide box office, and only 158 million at the US and Canadian box office. So just like Star Trek: Nemesis, this one was another box office flop for Star Trek in the States.

It was also the last Trek movie we got as it nailed the coffin shut on any further movies and caused the franchise to reverse course back to the TV shows and spin-offs to try and survive.

In the plot, we see the Enterprise ship ambushed and shredded to pieces as it crashes on an unknown, far-flung, and strange new world. Here they meet a new foe and his alien crew that despise the Federation, but surprise, they’re part of an old Federation crew that crashed on the planet decades ago.

They kept themselves alive with alien-made life-extending suits, but after repeated use, it warps their DNA, degrades their sanity, and generally is extremely painful each time it’s used. Kirk of course stops them and the crew gets a new Enterprise built for them in the finale after breaking their last one. Something that they routinely seem to do in every movie of the new timeline.

I guess Starfleet have a great lend-lease policy.

J. J. Abrams has producer credits on Star Trek: Beyond . So he didn’t go too far after Into Darkness.