The Only Hunger Games Timeline Breakdown You Need
"The Hunger Games" came, saw, conquered, and left — and now, lo and behold, it's back. After spawning an entire subgenre of dystopian teen cinema and then falling out of cultural favor due to a controversial final installment, the billion-dollar film series based on Suzanne Collins' acclaimed young adult novel trilogy will take center stage again thanks to "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes."
The upcoming film adapts Collins' prequel novel about the 10th Hunger Games and the youth of the original series' villain, Coriolanus Snow. Its marketing cycle is already stirring up major nostalgia and reappraisals for, when all is said and done, one of the strongest and most interesting blockbuster film franchises of the 2010s. Like every prequel, "TBOSAS" also, of course, raises questions among casual fans and the uninitiated about when it's supposed to take place, and how it connects to the saga of Katniss Everdeen, et al. To help matters, we've prepared a complete — and very spoiler-heavy — guide to the "Hunger Games" universe's 100-year known timeline, as detailed in Collins' novels and the rather faithful films released so far.
The end of the world as we know it
Like every post-apocalyptic story, "The Hunger Games" books and the franchise they spawned are set, well, after the apocalypse. As it happens, the books are as notable for their spare, evocatively curt prose as for their narrative in and of itself; Suzanne Collins made a choice to keep details of the transition period between our world and her story's world as vague as possible.
Therefore, we know that "The Hunger Games" takes place in an indeterminate future, on an Earth that was ravaged by climate change to the point of societal calamity and global resource scarcity, which in turn led to massive world wars. We don't know what those wars looked like, nor how they affected each of the planet's nation-states individually, but we get that nothing was ever the same: With the human population drastically reduced and chains of supply for basic human needs completely reconfigured, old governments fell apart, and with them the entire political world order. The remaining few people and organizations scrambled for access to and control of the remaining resources, creating new governments and sociopolitical corpora in the process. At some point, all that also became true of the United States, which ceased to exist as we know them.
Panem rises from the ashes
Later, a new nation-state was founded in North America, encompassing the people who still lived there after the old world's destruction: Panem. Little has been revealed about Panem's establishment and how its government was instituted, but it either was born as or became a totalitarian dictatorship, with a political order enforced by brutal policing.
Canonically, Panem was born in the range of the Rocky Mountains and gradually expanded outward until it became a continental-sized country divided into 13 districts, plus a central, controlling city-district in the original Rockies area — though we also don't know how that expansion took place, nor if it involved the annexation of any other new nations. Several attempts have been made by "The Hunger Games" fans to map out Panem based on Suzanne Collins' descriptions, but, as far as the media franchise is concerned, there is an "official" map, which appears in "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire," the Facebook game "The Hunger Games Adventures," and several official social media posts. That map places District 12 in the Appalachian Mountains and also includes portions of what used to be Mexico and Canada.
Coriolanus and Tigris Snow are born into a repressive regime
In the years leading up to the creation of the Hunger Games, roughly a century before the events of "The Hunger Games" trilogy, President Ravinstill ruled Panem, securing power over the 13 districts with an iron fist. The system that remained almost until the end of the books' story was already in place at that time: The government extracted resources from all the districts by force, and those resources funded the affluent society of the city-district where the government was located. That city-district became known as the Capitol.
The Capitol itself was founded at some point during Panem's expansion process, when several of the country's richest and most powerful families came together to build an entire city just for the Panem elite. One family was the Snows, and two of their children, cousins Tigris and Coriolanus Snow, were born into wealth and privilege during Ravinstill's presidency, a few years before the rebellion that would lead to the creation of the Games.
The rebellion and the Dark Days
Naturally, the citizens of the districts were unhappy living miserable existences under the constant threat of military repression, all just to have the fruit of their labor snatched away to prop up the lavish lifestyles of the Capitol. Three years before the first Hunger Games, that widespread social dissatisfaction sparked the First Rebellion against the Capitol, which then became a full-blown civil war.
The rebels' side of the war was headed up by District 13, Panem's leading manufacturer of weaponry and military technology, located just north of District 12. While the Capitol had no qualms about resorting to inhumane tactics and technologically enhanced violence to quash uprisings, the rebels managed to gain ground over time with a combination of guerilla tactics and the technology supplied by District 13. Eventually, they were able to mount a two-year siege on the Capitol, causing ruin and mass starvation among the Panem elite.
Eventually, however, the rebels made the tactical mistake of attempting to invade the Capitol itself, and their attempts to scale the Rocky Mountains left them utterly vulnerable to retaliation from Capitol aircraft, resulting in enormous casualties and a loss of their control over the Capitol — a period that became known as the Dark Days. At that point, not wanting to escalate matters into a nuclear war, District 13 withdrew its support for the rebellion and signed a ceasefire with the Capitol in exchange for its independence. But the entire war effort collapsed.
The Treaty of Treason is signed and the Hunger Games begin
As part of District 13's secession agreement with Panem, its citizens were relocated to a massive underground infrastructure, while everything above the surface was carpet-bombed to make it appear as though 13 had been decimated by Capitol forces. Regaining control over each of the remaining 12 districts, the Capitol launched a massive propaganda effort to convince the populace that any new attempts at rebellion would end in destruction, using the "ruins" of District 13 as a cautionary tale.
To decisively mark the rebellion's conclusion, the Panem government wrote the Treaty of Treason, introducing a new set of national laws intended to nip any future subversive activity in the bud. The most notable of those laws created the Hunger Games. Idealized by former University student Casca Highbottom (Peter Dinklage) during a drunken rant as part of a project for Dr. Volumnia Gaul's (Viola Davis) military strategy class, and later dug up and presented to the government as a serious proposal by Gaul herself, the Games would be an annual event in which two teenagers aged 12-18 from each of the districts, one male and one female, would be "reaped" (i.e., randomly drafted) into a nationally televised fight to the death. Each competitor would be known as a "tribute," and the eventual winner of each edition of the Games would be rewarded with great wealth and national celebrity.
The 10th Hunger Games
Thus, the Hunger Games started being held annually in the Capitol Arena, the same amphitheater used for public executions during the war. The first editions were somewhat rudimentary, lacking many of the features that would come to define future Games, such as mentors, tribute interviews, tracking devices, massive high-tech arenas, muttations (i.e., genetically modified animals released into the arena as additional hazards), and uniforms.
The 10th Hunger Games — the first to introduce several of those features — included mentors, with 24 seniors from the Academy, the Capitol's most prestigious high school, being called upon to train the 24 new tributes. One mentor was Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth), the son of late Capitol general Crassus Snow, who was assigned to mentor District 12 tribute Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler) and eventually fell in love with her. It was at Coriolanus' suggestion that the 10th Games introduced sponsorships and betting, which would contribute to consolidating them as a major event in Capitol pop culture and economy.
Under Volumnia Gaul's supervision, the 10th Games proved disastrous, with some tributes murdering their mentors and being executed before the Games even began. Things got even more out of hand when mysteriously placed bombs went off during a tour of the arena, killing several more tributes and mentors. Nevertheless, the Games took place as planned, and, after five days of carnage, Lucy Gray Baird emerged as the first victor to hail from District 12.
The rise of Snow
The years following the Treaty of Treason were a period of reconstruction for the Capitol; the Snow family, whose wealth came from Crassus Snow's District 13-based munitions empire, faced a particularly brutal fall from grace in the wake of the rebellion and had been left in shambles when their patriarch died during the war.
Thus, while Tigris (Hunter Schafer) became the family's breadwinner, the responsibility to rebuild the Snow dynasty was left to Coriolanus, who, when given the opportunity to work as a mentor, vowed to have his tribute win by any means necessary. It was eventually discovered that he had tampered with the snake mutts created by Gaul for the Games so that they wouldn't attack Lucy Gray; as punishment, he was forced to enroll in Panem's military police, the Peacekeepers.
Snow asked to be assigned to Lucy Gray's District 12, where he gained Gaul's favor by ratting out a rebellion to her using a recording bird mutt known as a jabberjay. He was eventually given an honorable discharge, taken under Gaul's wing, and flown out to attend his new mentor's class at the Capitol's University. Under Gaul, he also became an apprentice gamemaker, and rose rapidly through the Games' administrative ranks with his creativity and merciless cunning. Lucy Gray, whom Snow might or might not have killed during a dazed altercation while the two were attempting to flee north together, was never heard from again.
The Quarter Quells are instituted
Over the years, the Hunger Games grew in popularity as an entertainment event, and in efficiency as a means of quelling dissent in the districts, as their increasing naturalization led the populace to focus more and more on surviving the Games instead of opposing them. Since tributes could volunteer, the figure of the career tribute — a tribute from the wealthiest non-Capitol districts, trained from an early age to excel in the Games — was eventually born, and Districts 1, 2, and 4 began to dominate the Games as a result. In that period, Tigris became one of the Games' stylists.
The 25th Games introduced the concept of the Quarter Quell, a special edition of the Games with unique rules, held every 25 years. The first Quarter Quell saw tributes be selected by voting among each district's populace instead of randomly reaped; the second, on the occasion of the 50th Games, featured double the usual number of tributes. By the time of the second Quell, Coriolanus Snow had already risen to the post of Panem's new totalitarian President. The second Quell was won by Haymitch Abernathy, who was the only surviving District 12 victor by the time the events of "The Hunger Games" began. Punishing Haymitch for the unorthodox stunt that secured his victory in the Games, President Snow had his entire family executed.
Katniss' early years
Katniss Everdeen (played by Jennifer Lawrence in "The Hunger Games" films) was born on May 8 in the year of the 58th Hunger Games. The daughter of a miner (Philip Troy Linger) and a healer (Paula Malcomson) from District 12, she grew up in abject poverty like the majority of her district's population. Her sister Primrose "Prim" Everdeen (Willow Shields) arrived four years later.
Due to the family's poverty, food was often scarce in the Everdeen household, and, as she got older, Katniss learned from her father to go hunting in the woods for extra food and supplies, as well as to trade in the Hob, District 12's black market. Katniss' time hunting and collecting with her father forged a strong bond between them and allowed her to hone her archery and survival skills. Her father eventually taught her a traditional District 12 folk song, "The Hanging Tree," which her mother later banned her and Prim from ever singing, as she found it too subversive and dark.
Katniss becomes her family's provider
When Katniss was 11, her father died in a mining explosion along with several other workers, including the father of Gale Hawthorne (Liam Hemsworth). This tragedy left Katniss' mother in a prolonged near-catatonic state, unable to work or interact with her daughters. As a result, Katniss was forced to become the family's breadwinner, worsening their already-dire living circumstances.
Although Katniss managed to make ends meet for the most part, poaching and trading in the Hob weren't always enough to keep the family fed. On one occasion, her family ran out of food and was saved from starvation by Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), the son of the local baker, who covertly gave Katniss some bread.
Katniss eventually met Gale while hunting, and the two became best friends and mutual supporters. Gale was secretly a political dissident who dreamed of revolution against the Capitol, but Katniss, although deeply altruistic and devoted to the wellbeing of her loved ones, saw herself as uninterested in politics, and harbored no dreams of a better world.
During the reaping for the 74th Hunger Games, Prim's name was drafted, prompting a desperate Katniss to impulsively volunteer as tribute in her place. Peeta was reaped as District 12's male tribute, and the two were taken to the Capitol to participate in the Games, while Gale vowed to provide for Katniss' family in her absence.
The 74th Hunger Games
On their trip to the Capitol, Katniss and Peeta were accompanied by Haymitch (Woody Harrelson), who had slipped into alcoholism since his win, and Capitol-assigned escort Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks). During preparations for the Games, Katniss bonded closely with her stylist Cinna (Lenny Kravitz), whose bold fire-themed designs boosted Katniss' profile and inspired the moniker "Girl on Fire." Thanks to a strong performance in training and a defiant archery stunt during her private session with the gamemakers, Katniss was deemed one of the favorites for the 74th Games; meanwhile, Peeta professed his love for Katniss during his tribute interview, potentially as a strategy to draw audience sympathy.
During the 74th Games, Peeta allied with the career tributes, while Katniss allied and befriended 12-year-old District 11 tribute Rue (Amandla Stenberg). After a career tribute killed Rue, Katniss staged an impromptu funeral for her, wreathing her body in flowers, which sparked spontaneous civil unrest in District 11. The announcement of a rule allowing two tributes from the same district to win together prompted Katniss and Peeta to join forces, playing up their love story to win over sponsors. The two of them succeeded in killing or outliving every other tribute — only for the new rule to be revoked. Unwilling to choose who would die, they made a suicide pact, and were about to eat poisonous berries when the Capitol declared them both victors.
Katniss and Peeta embark on their Victory Tour
The 74th Games' gamemaker, Seneca Crane (Wes Bentley), was executed for fumbling the Games' resolution. Meanwhile, following their pioneering double win, Katniss and Peeta returned to District 12, and were presented with all the benefits and luxuries of victor life, including new houses next to Haymitch's in the Victor's Village. Despite this, Katniss continued to hunt in the woods out of habit. She was eventually visited by President Snow (now played by Donald Sutherland), who explained that her and Peeta's near-suicide had sparked revolutionary sentiment around Panem, and instructed her to convince the nation that she had done it not out of spite for the Capitol, but out of love.
Katniss and Peeta then embarked on their Victory Tour of the districts, in which they saw firsthand how widespread social unrest had become. During the tour, Katniss and Peeta bonded over their shared trauma, and Katniss grew to develop genuine romantic feelings for Peeta. But, despite their best efforts to convince Panem of their mad love for each other and support for the Capitol, including a marriage proposal, Katniss and Peeta's performance in the Tour failed to demobilize uprisings. A two-day riot in District 8 took place before being suppressed by Peacekeepers, and policing around Panem became more severe, including the arrival of a new Head Peacekeeper to District 12, Romulus Thread (Patrick St. Esprit).
Unrest brews before the 75th Games
Romulus Thread dramatically increased Peacekeeper brutality in District 12, arresting and whipping Gale in the town square when he was caught poaching. At the same time, District 12 was struck by a harsh winter, and Katniss felt alienated from her community, as endless wedding preparations were foisted upon her while most of the populace starved and suffered.
As if things couldn't get any worse, President Snow then announced the special rule for the third Quarter Quell at the 75th Hunger Games: Tributes were to be reaped from the existing pool of victors. Therefore, Katniss, as District 12's only living female victor, would necessarily participate in the Games again. She, Haymitch, and Peeta spent the following months training; Katniss and Haymitch were ultimately reaped, but Peeta volunteered in Haymitch's place.
The lead-up to the 75th Games was fraught with anger and indignation from the returning tributes. During the televised interviews, the tributes made desperate pleas for the Games to be canceled and managed to win over Capitol audiences' sympathy, culminating in Katniss' Cinna-designed wedding gown burning into a black mockingjay-shaped dress when she gave it a spin — and in Peeta's fake revelation that Katniss was pregnant. For possibly the first time ever, protests against the Games occurred even in the Capitol itself.
Back to the arena
Despite the show of unity from the tributes during the televised interviews, the Games continued as planned, and Cinna was brutally beaten by Peacekeepers in front of Katniss just as she ascended into the arena. Katniss and Peeta allied with District 4 tributes Finnick Odair (Sam Claflin) and Mags Flanagan (Lynn Cohen), and the 80-year-old Mags ended up sacrificing herself to save the rest from a poisonous fog. The group then teamed up with Beetee Latier (Jeffrey Wright) and Wiress (Amanda Plummer) from District 3, and Johanna Mason (Jena Malone) from District 7.
Remembering a clue given to her by new head gamemaker Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman) during the Victory Tour, Katniss realized that the arena was designed like a clock, with hazards filling up one of 12 sectors every hour. With that knowledge, her group managed to outlast all but the career tributes. They then geared up for a final confrontation with the careers strategized by the tech-savvy Beetee, which would make use of the arena's lightning hazard. But, just as Katniss was about to shoot at the careers, it hit her that Beetee, Finnick, and Johanna were actually carrying out a plan to destroy the arena, and she fired an arrow at the forcefield at the exact right moment to blow it up.
The Second Rebellion begins
In the ensuing chaos, Katniss was knocked unconscious and extracted from the arena via aircraft along with Beetee and Finnick, while the Capitol captured Peeta, Johanna, and the last surviving career tribute, Enobaria (Meta Golding).
Waking up in the aircraft, Katniss was informed by Beetee, Finnick, Haymitch, and Plutarch Heavensbee that they were all part of a secret movement against the Capitol, and that half the tributes were involved in a plan to rescue Katniss, as she had become a national symbol of insurgence — a plan Katniss herself had been left in the dark about due to Snow's constant vigilance over her. They set course for District 13, the home base of the new resistance movement. Meanwhile, inspired by the destruction of the Games' arena, the Second Rebellion erupted across most Panem districts.
In retaliation against Katniss, the Panem government bombed all of District 12, leaving only a handful of survivors, including Katniss' family and Gale. The survivors were eventually discovered and rescued by District 13 forces.
Katniss becomes the Mockingjay
In District 13, Katniss reunited with Gale, Effie, and her family, and met President Alma Coin (Julianne Moore), the rebellion's de-facto leader, who tried to persuade her to become the Mockingjay — an official media figurehead for the rebellion. Katniss hesitated at first but agreed after seeing that Peeta was being forced to act as a figurehead for the Capitol. Gale, meanwhile, became a weapons designer under Beetee's tutelage.
Plutarch Heavensbee then oversaw the production of pirate propaganda transmissions known as "propos," starring Katniss as the rebellion's symbolic heroine. Due to Katniss' discomfort with soundstage acting, film director Cressida (Natalie Dormer) was brought on to shoot propos on the field. In one, Katniss spontaneously sang "The Hanging Tree," which became a nationwide anthem for the rebellion. Armed by District 13 and boosted by Katniss' symbolic leadership, the rebels managed to gradually secure the districts one by one. The Capitol arranged to retaliate against 13 with a missile strike, but Peeta was able to warn them during an unhinged TV appearance, and everyone in 13 evacuated into a bunker just in time to avoid the missiles.
Peeta is brought back brainwashed
Following the bombing, Katniss was left in despair at Peeta's rapidly deteriorating mental and physical condition, as was Finnick, who knew his girlfriend Annie Cresta (Stef Dawson), also a captured victor, was likely being tormented by the Capitol as well. Katniss and Finnick attempted to film a propo informing people that District 13 had survived the bombing but couldn't perform due to their frayed emotional state. Thus, President Coin's second-in-command, Boggs (Mahershala Ali), who had grown close to Katniss as her designated protector, oversaw an operation to infiltrate the Capitol and rescue Peeta, Annie, and Johanna.
Upon their return, it was discovered that Peeta had been brainwashed with tracker jacker venom into believing Katniss to be a murderous mutt intent on killing him. After attempting to strangle Katniss, he was forcibly hospitalized and spent the following weeks being treated by District 13 doctors, while a horrified Katniss requested to join combat operations to be away from him. Katniss and Gale took part in the securing of District 2, the last remaining loyalist district and the Capitol's military base. While on the field, Katniss rallied District 2 citizens into joining the rebellion and was shot in an assassination attempt, but survived thanks to her bulletproof Mockingjay suit.
The Battle of the Capitol
Having lost District 2 and its air fleet, the Capitol had no hope of making any further offensive strides in the war, leaving its Peacekeepers to retreat into the city and await the rebels' invasion. Meanwhile, the rebels prepared for the final campaign, and Finnick and Annie got married in a nationally broadcast propo.
The Battle of the Capitol began, with Katniss joining a special propaganda unit known as Squad 451, which also included Boggs, Gale, Finnick, Cressida, and a largely recovered but still erratic Peeta. While invading the Capitol, the rebels faced deadly technological traps known as "pods," designed to replicate the experience of the Hunger Games. Boggs and Mitchell (Joe Chrest) perished, and the rest of Squad 451 was presumed dead due to a pog. Led by Katniss, they then decided to use their incognito status to infiltrate Snow's mansion and kill him. On the way to the mansion, Finnick and many others were slain by mutts, and the survivors sheltered at an elderly Tigris' (now played by Eugenie Bondurant) clothes shop; she was happy at the prospect of her cousin's demise.
Katniss and Gale then attempted to blend into the Capitol citizens being welcomed into Snow's mansion for shelter. However, they got caught up in the bombing of the City Circle, which killed a crowd of Capitol children being used as last-ditch human shields by Snow — as well as several District 13 medics, among them Prim.
The aftermath
The deaths of the Capitol children prompted the last of the Capitol's forces to relent, allowing the rebels to easily take over. Snow was arrested and sentenced to death, but, when Katniss went to his rose garden to face him one last time, he revealed to her that the City Circle bombing had not been ordered by him, but by Coin. As a result, Katniss became permanently estranged from Gale, who had potentially designed the bombs that killed Prim.
Spurred by Coin, the seven surviving victors took a vote on whether to hold a final edition of the Hunger Games with Capitol teenagers; Johanna and Enobaria supported the idea, while Beetee and Annie vehemently opposed it. Although the proposition disgusted Peeta, Katniss voted in favor of it on the condition that she be allowed to execute Snow herself. Haymitch followed her vote, trusting her intentions.
Then, during Snow's execution at a public arena, Katniss pointed and fired her arrow at Coin at the very last moment, killing her instead. This sent Snow into a maniacal laughing fit, and the crowd stormed the arena and murdered Snow with their bare hands.
Panem rebuilds itself as a republic
Following Coin's death, Katniss was arrested, but ultimately pardoned (in the films) or deemed not guilty due to insanity (in the books). She returned to District 12 and began to rebuild it alongside the district's remaining survivors, including Haymitch and Peeta. The Panem government held an election to choose a new president, and Commander Paylor (Patina Miller), the former leader of the District 8 rebel forces, was elected, while Plutarch enjoyed a high-ranking position in the new republican government. A few months later, Annie and Finnick's son was born.
All past Hunger Games arenas were demolished to make room for memorials. Back in District 12, the coal mines were closed and replaced by a more prosperous agricultural economy with the help of Capitol machinery. Peeta, now nearly fully recovered, managed to reconnect with Katniss, and, although still suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, the two eventually rekindled their love, settled down together, and went on to have two children.