The Jack Ryan franchise is an action-thriller based on fictional characters and books written by Tom Clancy. Ryan is a CIA agent who gets pulled into all sorts of daring and desperate missions, usually to save the United States and its government from some large threat, and no one else is suited for the job. Filled with tons of action scenes and a lot of high stakes, the franchise has thrilled audiences ever since the first movie was released. The franchise used to be a staple of action movie cinema but has now migrated to streaming as audiences can tune into Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan on Prime Video, whose final season will premiere on July 14, 2023.
When it comes to the movie’s order, however, it becomes a little unclear. Whether it’s the fact that Ryan is played by several different actors or that they switched the movie order from the book order, many people find it easy to be unsure of where to begin. Luckily, we’ve gathered the movies here for you in chronological order.
6 Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is the most recently released movie and the second attempt at a reboot of the franchise. It’s also the only one not based on a book, instead being its own original story that acts as a prequel for some of Ryan’s earlier years, even if it’s set further in time than some of the other movies. Chris Pine fills in the title role here, showing the early years of his time as a Marine as well as when he was first recruited to join the CIA.
The assignment that takes up most of the plot here is a covert one, where Ryan is busy at work on Wall Street and looking for suspicious financial transactions as he does. After Russia loses an important vote in the United Nations, Ryan notices billions have disappeared that belonged to Russian business interests, so he investigates it further and ends up in a plot to stop a terrorist attack that will end in a financial collapse.
5 The Sum of All Fears
Again things get tricky here. The Sum of All Fears is technically a reboot of the franchise featuring a younger Jack Ryan. So theoretically, it would not be part of the same continuity as the original films, but it does make hints at the later films implying it is also a prequel despite technically taking place in the then-present day 2002. The novel it is based on is a sequel to Clear and Present Danger but is now reworked as an origin story. It is very confusing, but following the movie's progression of Ryan's career, this would be the second entry.
This time, Ben Affleck takes on the role of Jack Ryan. An old, intact nuclear bomb is found and sold on the black market to Neo-Nazis looking to turn Europe into a fascist superstate. To do this, they plan to start a war between the US and Russia using the bomb as a catalyst. When the bomb is detonated in Baltimore, and the Russians attack an aircraft carrier around the same time, war seems imminent. However, Ryan seems to be the only one to believe the bomb was not actually Russian. It’s up to him to find proof as well as the real owners before the impending war can begin.
4 The Hunt for Red October
The first release in the Jack Ryan film franchise was The Hunt for Red October. Jack Ryan, played in this movie by Alec Baldwin, is working as a CIA analyst when news of a missing Soviet submarine named Red October comes in. It has new technology that makes it undetectable to sonar and is being tested out before one of the crew kills the captain and hijacks it.
With almost all of the Soviet and US submarines out there looking for Red October, it’s only Ryan that thinks there’s a possibility that Ramius is not hiding the submarine to launch a nuclear strike against the US but is actually hiding because he intends to defect. Ryan believes this is the case after discovering that Ramius doesn’t have many personal ties left to the Soviet Union. Though reluctant, the National Security Advisor gives Ryan three days to confirm his theory, sending him out into the field to find and contact the submarine before it can be destroyed.
3 Patriot Games
Patriot Games is next in the franchise and is the first of two Harrison Ford films. Ryan has now left the CIA and instead teaches history at the United States Naval Academy. However, his previous training and years of service have never quite left him, and while in London with his family, he ends up intervening in a terrorist kidnapping attempt of Lord William Holmes. He disarms and subdues one terrorist and kills the others, and believes the matter to be solved.
However, when the terrorist he subdued is broken out by some more of his co-conspirators, Ryan is under threat once more as the man vows revenge. With Ryan’s life on the line, as well as the life of his family, he is convinced to rejoin the CIA in order to recapture the terrorist and put a stop to both their plans for him and their plans for Lord Holmes.
2 Clear and Present Danger
The second Harrison Ford Jack Ryan film is Clear and Present Danger. Ryan ends up appointed as Deputy Director of Intelligence and immediately finds himself caught in the middle of a Colombian drug war. The Coast Guard had intercepted and boarded a US yacht in the Caribbean only to find the previous American occupants were murdered by the current Colombian crew. As Ryan finds out, the American was murdered for embezzling drug money from a Colombian drug lord.
Ryan requests an increase in funding from Congress to support the Colombians fighting the drug cartels but is unaware the money is going to be used by some of his colleagues who were secretly authorized by the president to intervene directly in the war. As Ryan tries to set up a plan with the Colombian government, he realizes that he’s not the only one there and starts to realize there’s a lot more trouble here than he expected. With the two Jack Ryan films released after this being prequels and reboots, this is the final film in the franchise chronologically despite taking place in the 1990s, while the other two are set in the present day.
1 Jack Ryan Movies Release Order
For anyone who wants to watch the movies in the order in which they were released, here is a rundown of their release dates. The longest gap between entries was the 12 years between The Sum of All Fears and Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit.
The Hunt For Red October-March 2, 1990
Patriot Games-June 5, 1992
Clear and Present Danger-August 3, 1994
The Sum of All Fears-May 31, 2002
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit-January 17, 2014