With nine films spread out over nearly two decades, and a release order that jumps all
around the chronological timeline, it's fair if Fast & Furious fans need a bit of a refresher
on where we wound up after each one. Here's the ending of every Fast and Furious film, explained.
Despite functioning for most of its runtime as practically a beat-for-beat "Point Break" remake,
"The Fast and the Furious" notably diverges from the iconic surfer thriller in its ending.
While the 1991 film sees protagonist Johnny Utah release sympathetic antagonist Bodhi only
to certain death, "The Fast and the Furious" has its law enforcement hero, Brian O'Conner,
let his law-skirting frenemy go free. He even gives him an assist on his way out.
After initially getting close to Dominic Toretto only as a means to ferret out the details of his
high-speed heist operation, Brian eventually comes to realize that he genuinely cares about
Dom and his crew. Dom and his sister Mia feel betrayed when they learn Brian's true identity,
and subsequently attempt to cut ties with him.
However, Brian chases Dom down in a winner-takes-all quarter-mile race,
with the implied stakes being that, if he wins, Dom will cooperate with being arrested. Instead,
even though Dom crashes his car and Brian wins the race, Brian opts to give Dom his own car,
allowing him to escape instead of arresting him. The film ends with Dom driving free in Mexico,
and Brian having chosen their friendship over his career as a police officer.
Following his decision to facilitate Dom's escape at the end of "The Fast and the Furious,"
Brian goes on the run, making a living competing in underground street races.
Eventually, Brian is arrested, but cuts a deal with the FBI to go undercover and help
bring down a drug lord in exchange for a clean criminal record. To assist him, Brian recruits
his estranged childhood friend Roman Pearce, who is on parole and could use a similar deal.
Brian and Roman take down the drug lord with the help of U.S. Customs agent Monica Fuentes,
leading to his arrest and full pardons for the two ex-convicts. Unbeknownst to the FBI,
though, Roman sets aside some of the drug lord's laundered money for himself,
although he does turn over the rest. Free once more, Brian suggests the two of them use the
money to open a garage together in Miami... although that doesn't wind up happening.
The only main Fast and Furious film not to center around Dom or Brian,
"Tokyo Drift" follows teenager Sean Boswell, who is sent to Tokyo to live with his dad after
destroying most of a residential construction site in a drag race in Arizona. Relocating to a
different continent doesn't do much to curb Sean's speedster ways, and he quickly falls in love with
the Japanese street racing scene. The Japanese drivers all employ the technique of drifting,
which allows cars to maneuver around curves and corners using controlled skids.
After initially failing at drifting, Sean eventually masters the skill with the help
of a local racer named Han. Unfortunately, not long after Han has taken Sean under his wing,
the Yakuza come after Han for stealing from them. A high-speed chase ensues, and it appears
that Han is killed. The final act of "Tokyo Drift" sees Sean challenging a Yakuza member's
nephew to a race, which will determine which of them is allowed to remain safely in Tokyo.
Using his newfound drifting skills, Sean wins. Now established as the Drift King of Tokyo,
Sean continues racing, and the film closes with an American arriving to
challenge him to a race — Dominic Toretto, who claims that he used to work with Han.
Along with the next two films, the fourth film in the franchise actually takes place between "2 Fast
2 Furious" and "Tokyo Drift." After "Tokyo Drift" ended with the reveal that Dom and Han used to
work together, "Fast & Furious" cuts back to that time, five years after the end of the first film.
The film opens with Dom stealing fuel tankers in the Dominican Republic with a crew that
includes Han as well as Dom's girlfriend, Letty. Meanwhile, after getting his criminal
record expunged at the end of "2 Fast 2 Furious," Brian O'Conner is now working as an FBI agent.
Dom and Brian's paths eventually cross when Dom hears that Letty has been killed, and the
search for her killer leads him to a Mexican drug lord that Brian is also attempting to track down.
Together, the two team up to apprehend the drug lord, and Brian manages to arrest him, with Dom's
help. In the process, Dom kills one of the drug lord's henchmen whom he blames for Letty's death,
making Brian's attempts to clear his name futile. The film ends with Dom being sentenced to 25 years
to life in prison. Unable to accept this outcome, Brian resigns from the FBI and teams up with Mia,
along with a couple members of Dom's crew, to break him out of prison.
The film ends with Brian leading a group of cars to intercept Dom's prison bus.
Picking up directly on the heels of "Fast & Furious," "Fast Five" opens with Brian
and his accomplices breaking Dom out of prison. Together with Mia, they flee to Rio
de Janeiro. By this time, Brian and Mia have rekindled their romance from the first film,
and during the course of the film, Mia makes a game-changing revelation.
"We have no choice but to split up."
"I'm pregnant."
In order to build a new life, Dom and Brian hatch a scheme to steal $100 million from
a major crime lord, which requires them to recruit a crew to help pull off the heist.
This includes Han from "Tokyo Drift" and Roman from "2 Fast 2 Furious,"
along with Tej, Gisele, Leo, and Santos. Meanwhile, Diplomatic Security Service Agent
Luke Hobbs and local Brazilian police officer Elena Neves are in pursuit of Brian and Dom.
However, after the crime lord's men murder Hobbs' team, he and Elena agree to join forces
with Brian and Dom to help with the heist. In a spectacularly destructive series of events that
involves dragging a safe through the city behind fast-moving cars, the group is successful in
stealing the money. After killing the crime lord, Hobbs agrees to give Brian and Dom a 24-hour head
start, provided they leave the money. The duo agree, but only because they've already secretly
swapped out the money. The real loot is divided amongst the crew, who scatter across the globe,
each with a hefty pile of cash. At the end of the film, Dom and Elena, who are now a couple,
relax on a beach with Brian and Mia. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to them, Monica Fuentes from "2
Fast 2 Furious" gives Hobbs a file that shows that Letty is actually still alive.
Living large following their successful heist at the end of "Fast Five," Dom's crew is eventually
reunited by Luke Hobbs, who reaches out to Dom for assistance in capturing a terrorist
named Owen Shaw. Working as a member of Shaw's crew is Letty, who has completely lost her
memories of her life before she disappeared in the fourth movie. Motivated by a desire to find Letty
and restore her memories, Dom's crew teams up to track down Shaw, although he eventually gets away.
In the process, Dom saves Letty's life, prompting her to decide to switch sides and stay with him.
The final act of the film sees Dom's crew pursuing Shaw to a runway, where Dom's group is determined
to keep Shaw's plane from taking off with its weapons of mass destruction. They're
successful in stopping Shaw, but Gisele is killed in the process of saving Han. Shaw is grievously
injured after being thrown from the plane and is subsequently arrested by Hobbs, who secures
pardons for Dom and his crew as payment for their assistance. At the end of the film, although Letty
still doesn't have her memories, Elena graciously steps aside to allow her and Dom to be together.
Meanwhile, a grieving Han decides to take his Fast Five money to Tokyo,
where he and Gisele had once talked about moving, which is what puts him there at the
beginning of "Tokyo Drift." In a mid-credits scene, it is revealed that the person whose
car crashed into Han in that film was driven by Owen Shaw's brother, Deckard,
who is now seeking vengeance on the people who injured and captured his brother.
The seventh "Fast and the Furious" film picks up just before the sixth film ends,
showing Deckard Shaw stealing information on Dom's crew from Hobbs' office, injuring Hobbs
in the process. Shortly after that, Shaw attacks Han in Tokyo, which we previously saw both in the
middle of "Tokyo Drift" and at the end of "Fast & Furious 6." As Shaw targets the rest of Dom's
crew, a mysterious government operative named Mr. Nobody offers to help Dom stop Shaw if Dom's team
can assist him. Mr. Nobody needs help recovering a computer tracking program, called God's Eye,
as well as its creator, a hacker named Ramsey, who has been kidnapped by terrorists.
After rescuing Ramsey, Dom's team manages to help Mr. Nobody stop the terrorists and subdue Shaw,
who is taken into custody by Hobbs. In the process, Letty finally regains her memories,
revealing that she and Dom actually got married before they parted ways in the fourth film.
Meanwhile, Mia has announced that she's pregnant again, and Brian decides that it's finally time
for him to walk away from his dangerous life in order to be with his family. The film ends with
the crew bidding a fond farewell to Brian as he drives off into the sunset, and Dom
thinking back on all the happy memories they've shared together. This ending also served as an
emotional eulogy for Paul Walker, who died in an unrelated accident during the film's production.
After regaining her memories of their wedding, the eighth Fast and the Furious film opens with
Dom and Letty taking their long-overdue honeymoon in Havana. Unfortunately, while they're there,
Dom is confronted by a cyberterrorist named Cipher, who blackmails him into betraying
his crew and helping her steal weapons. The rest of Dom's crew — along with Hobbs and,
surprisingly, Deckard Shaw — are recruited by Mr. Nobody to help them stop Cipher.
Eventually, it's revealed that Cipher has captured Elena and her infant son;
it turns out that Elena was pregnant when she and Dom split up, and she never told him. However,
while outwardly cooperating with Cipher, Dom quietly tries to undermine her, which leads to
Cipher having Elena executed. Ultimately, though, Dom is able to get the upper hand by helping the
Shaw brothers' mother, who repays the favor by tasking her sons with rescuing Dom's son.
Once the Shaws have recovered the baby, Dom turns on Cipher, thwarting her plans
to incite nuclear war and reassuring his team that he'd never really turned on them after all.
Unfortunately, though, Cipher manages to escape before she can be apprehended.
At the end of the film, Dom finally names his son,
while Hobbs decides to walk away from his job with the Diplomatic Security Service for good.
"Everyone, meet Brian."
Following the events of "The Fate of the Furious," Deckard Shaw learns that his sister,
Hattie, has disappeared along with a programmable supervirus,
and is tasked by the CIA to team up with Hobbs in order to find her. Once they locate Hattie,
who is an MI6 agent, they learn that she only infected herself with the virus in order to
keep it from falling into the hands of Brixton Lore, a terrorist who has been cybernetically
augmented with superstrength. Brixton frames both Shaw siblings, along with Hobbs, as terrorists,
and the trio flees to Hobbs' childhood home in Samoa to figure out their next steps.
There, they prepare to make their stand against Brixton's organization,
Eteon, alongside Hobbs' brothers. As they work to defeat Brixton and his soldiers,
one of Hobbs' brothers figures out how to extract the virus from Hattie,
even if the process is frustratingly slow. After his defeat, Brixton is killed remotely by the
unseen director of Eteon, who then insinuates that they'll be coming after Hobbs and Shaw.
"You don't remember me, do you Hobbs? You will. It's gonna be a hell of a reunion."
However, Hobbs and Shaw are unintimidated by Eteon's threats.
The film ends with the Shaw siblings breaking their mother out of prison
and Hobbs learning about the existence of another, potentially even more dangerous supervirus.
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