John Wick recap: the story so far

No. 01 · 2014 · Film

John Wick recap

John Wick, grieving his wife Helen, receives a beagle puppy she arranged for him before she died. Iosef Tarasov, the arrogant son of the Russian crime boss Viggo, tries to buy John's 1969 Mustang at a petrol station, then breaks into his house with his men, beats him, kills the puppy and steals the car. Viggo learns who his son attacked and is terrified: John was his best assassin, the "Baba Yaga", who left the life after completing an impossible task. John digs up his buried guns and gold coins, kills a hit squad sent to his house and checks into the Continental, a New York hotel for assassins where business on the premises is forbidden. Viggo puts a bounty on him, and an old friend, the sniper Marcus, takes the contract but secretly protects him.

How John Wick ends

John storms the Red Circle nightclub and later kills Iosef in a safe house. Viggo's men capture John, and Viggo kills Marcus for helping him. John escapes, and he and Viggo fight on a rain-soaked dock until John stabs him. Badly wounded, John breaks into an animal shelter to treat himself and leaves with a pit bull. Chapter 2 begins days later.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.

No. 02 · 2017 · Film

John Wick: Chapter 2 recap

John retrieves his Mustang from Viggo's brother Abram's chop shop and makes peace with him. Then Santino D'Antonio, an Italian crime lord, arrives holding a blood marker John owes him: the debt that let John retire. John refuses, and Santino blows up his house. Under the rules of the High Table, John must honour the marker. Santino orders him to kill his sister Gianna, so he can take her seat on the High Table. In Rome, Gianna kills herself rather than be killed, and John shoots her as she dies. Santino immediately puts a $7 million bounty on John to tie up loose ends, and her bodyguard Cassian hunts him. John fights his way through assassins across New York.

How John Wick: Chapter 2 ends

John tracks Santino to the Continental, where Santino has taken refuge, and shoots him dead in the lounge, breaking the rule against business on hotel grounds. The Continental's manager Winston declares John excommunicado, cut off from the High Table's services, but gives him an hour's head start before the bounty, now doubled and global, takes effect. Chapter 3 picks up within that hour.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.

No. 03 · 2019 · Film

John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum recap

With minutes left before his excommunication, John runs through New York, fighting killers in a library and a stable. He calls in favours from the Director of the Ruska Roma, who raised him, and travels to Casablanca to ask Sofia, a former friend who manages the Continental there and owes him a marker. Together they find the Elder, the only one above the High Table, and John offers to kill Winston and serve the Table in exchange for his life; he cuts off his ring finger as a sign. Meanwhile the High Table's Adjudicator punishes Winston and the Bowery King for helping John, and the assassin Zero and his students are sent after him.

How John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum ends

Back at the Continental, John refuses to kill Winston. The Table's forces attack the hotel; John and Winston fight them off, and John kills Zero. Winston then negotiates with the Adjudicator and shoots John, who falls off a roof. His body vanishes, and he wakes in the care of the Bowery King, who is also angry with the Table. John agrees to go to war with them, which sets up Chapter 4.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.

No. 04 · 2023 · Film

John Wick: Chapter 4 recap

John kills the Elder in the desert. In response, the High Table gives the Marquis Vincent de Gramont unlimited power to end John; he destroys the New York Continental and has its concierge Charon killed. The Marquis forces Caine, a blind retired assassin and old friend of John, to hunt him by threatening his daughter. John goes to Osaka, where his friend Shimazu, who runs the Continental there, shelters him, and Shimazu dies fighting Caine. Back in New York, Winston suggests a way out: John can challenge the Marquis to a duel under the old rules. John must first rejoin the Ruska Roma, and kills Killa, a German crime boss, to do it. Caine is chosen as the Marquis's proxy for the duel at dawn in Paris.

How John Wick: Chapter 4 ends

The Marquis puts a huge bounty on John, who fights through the streets of Paris and up the stairs to Sacre-Coeur. In the duel, John and Caine both wound each other, and the Marquis steps in to finish John. John fires the shot he saved and kills him, winning his freedom and Caine's. John sits on the steps at sunrise and dies. Winston and the Bowery King bury him beside Helen.

Post-credits scenes

Yes. After the credits, Akira, Shimazu's daughter, follows Caine down a Paris street with a knife to avenge her father. The scene cuts off before they meet, setting up the planned Caine film.

No. 05 · 2023 · Series · optional

The Continental: From the World of John Wick recap

In 1970s New York, Winston Scott, a London hustler, is brought back to the city by Cormac O'Connor, the brutal manager of the Continental, because Winston's brother Frankie has stolen the High Table's coin press from the hotel. Winston finds Frankie and his wife Yen, but Frankie is killed by Cormac's twin assassins. Winston vows revenge and recruits allies: the siblings Miles and Lou, who run a martial arts dojo, the Vietnam veteran Lemmy, Yen, and the club owner Mazie. The Adjudicator gives Cormac days to recover the press. Detective KD, whose family was killed years earlier in a fire, closes in on the hotel, and the young concierge Charon starts to question his loyalty to Cormac.

How The Continental: From the World of John Wick ends

Winston's crew storms the Continental. Charon turns against Cormac and helps them, and they kill most of Cormac's men, including the twins. Cormac tries to destroy the hotel, but Winston stops it. KD learns Cormac ordered the fire that killed her family and shoots him. Winston kills the Adjudicator outside and takes over the Continental, with Charon at his side as in the films. No second season has been made.

No. 06 · 2025 · Film · optional

Ballerina recap

As a child, Eve Macarro watches her father killed by assassins from a secretive cult. Winston brings her to the Ruska Roma, the crime family that trains ballet dancers as killers, and she spends years training under the Director. Now a working assassin, she kills a man bearing the same scar as her father's killers, and the Director forbids her to go after the cult because of a centuries-old truce. Eve goes anyway, with Winston's quiet help. In Prague she meets Daniel Pine, a cult member trying to hide his daughter Ella, who is taken by the cult. Eve follows them to an Austrian mountain town where every resident belongs to the cult, led by the Chancellor.

How Ballerina ends

Eve fights her way through the town. The Director, to keep the peace, sends John Wick to bring her back, but John gives her until midnight and helps her instead. Eve kills the Chancellor, rescues Ella and returns her to Daniel. Back in New York, Winston warns her the cult will come for her. A $5 million bounty is put on her, and she walks away from the theatre ready for the next fight. Ballerina takes place between Chapters 3 and 4.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.