One of the big blockbusters still to hit the big screen in 2025 is Tron: Ares, a continuation of the classic 80s sci-fi franchise which hits theaters on Friday, October 10.
Starring Jared Leto as well as Jeff Bridges who returns to his role in the franchise, Tron: Ares sees a digital program sent into the real world on a deadly mission. For now, that’s the only plot synopsis we have. Mysterious!
Tron: Ares is the third film in the franchise, coming over 40 years after the first one.
If you’re excited for the new movie, then you might be wondering how to watch the old ones. And so we’ll help you decide what to watch, and work out how to see it. We’ll run through the two previous movies, and the TV show, to give you more information.
To save you some time, though, watching them online is pretty easy. In most countries around the world including the US, UK and Australia, everything Tron is available on the streaming service Disney Plus. One subscription lets you see everything we’re about to describe below.
Tron (1982)
It all starts with Tron from 1982, an original movie inspired by video games at the time.
In Tron, Jeff Bridges plays a video game developer who gets sucked into his computer and he has to escape, doing so by surviving a series of deadly games and tests.
Tron is often credited as one of the first movies to use lots of CGI, perhaps popularizing its use in blockbusters to come, and its use through the movie has aged… endearingly, let’s say.
The movie was a modest hit upon release and was even nominated for two Oscars, but over time it’s become a cult classic. That’s perhaps why it took so long for a sequel to come out…
Tron: Legacy (2010)
Nearly 30 years on from the original, Tron: Legacy came out, directed by Top Gun: Maverick and F1‘s Joseph Kosinski and bringing Olivia Wilde, Michael Sheet and Garrett Hedlund into the fold, alongside a returning Jeff Bridges.
Legacy is about the son of Bridges’ character from the original, who’s hunting for his missing father when he too gets sucked into a virtual reality program. There he can reunite with his parent but also has to stop a program which wants to destroy the real world.
Again, Tron: Legacy was nominated for a technical Oscar, and it made lots of money, even if the reviews were mixed (it stands at 51% on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of writing, an almost-evenly-divided score).
While a sequel was always planned for Tron: Legacy, it was trapped in development hell, hence why it’s taken another 15 years for a third installment. But in that time, we did get another piece of Tron media…
Tron: Uprising (2012-13)
Two years after Tron: Legacy came out, Disney released a 19-part animated series called Tron: Uprising. It came out on Disney XD, only in the US, but now it’s easy to stream online.
The series bridges the gap between the first two movies, to explain the rise of the threat in the second one. Set entirely in the digital world, it depicts the Tron character from the original movie finding a successor who can fight the evil Clu program in his stead.
Elijah Wood voiced the main character with Bruce Boxleitner reprising his role from the original Tron.
As you can imagine for an animated TV show, especially one aimed at younger audiences, Tron: Uprising wasn’t as widely-watched as the movies. However the few reviews of it that do exist are largely positive and it was nominated for some Annie and Primetime Emmy Awards, including a win at the latter for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation – Art Design.