The following is a possible timeline for the Friday the 13th series. No timeline for the series will ever be perfect, as there are many contradictions present in the films and the spin-off media. References are made to calendar dates when relevant, although Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter makes it seem as the original Friday the 13th was set on Friday, June 13, 1979 (June 13, 1979 was a Wednesday), it is definitely more clear that it was an error and would make no sense if it took place in 1979 because the movie was released in 1980 and was considered the present in the opening scene (again, 1980). So please remember, the passage of time is lent more weight than specific calendar dates
The following films in the series definitely take place on a Friday the 13th: Friday the 13th, Jason Lives, The New Blood, and the 2009 film. Part III is also confirmed by supplementary materials to occur on a Friday the 13th.
The events of the 2009 "reboot" are included here with a disclaimer, as the film was purposefully allowed to dovetail with established series mythology rather than re-inventing it, and several items from the series' past (such as Ralph's bicycle and Mark's wheelchair) are seen in Jason's network of tunnels. Further installments may remove the ambiguity.
1930
Unknown date: The future Pamela Sue Voorhees is born. (Tombstone in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter.)
1935
Unknown date: The Christy family establishes Camp Crystal Lake. (Sign in Friday the 13th.)
1947
Friday June 13 : Jason Voorhees is born to Pamela and Elias Voorhees. (Friday the 13th and Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday.)
Sometime later, Elias abandons his wife and son.
Pamela raises her son apart from other children in the Voorhees House.
1957
Summer: Pamela receives the job of cook at Camp Crystal Lake. While there, ten-year-old Jason accidentally drowns in the lake with nobody around to save him while the counselors have sex elsewhere, not paying attention to Jason drowning. However, other tellings show that Jason is bullied by the other campers. Trying to escape his tormentors, Jason falls into Crystal Lake. No body is found, and it is assumed that Jason had drowned. Most likely Jason washed up on shore later and escaped into the woods, suffering with physical trauma as the aftermath. (As shown in Friday the 13th, Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan and Freddy vs. Jason.)
1958
Friday June 13: Pamela, driven mad with grief over her son's presumed death, kills two counselors at Camp Crystal Lake. The killer is not apprehended and the camp is soon shut down. (Friday the 13th.
Several attempts are made to reopen Camp Crystal Lake in the years that follow, but are soon halted by mysterious fires. (Enos in Friday the 13th.)
1959
Alice Hardy is born somewhere in California to Mr. Hardy and Mrs. Hardy. (Newspaper clipping in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter.)
1961
Diana Voorhees is born to Elias Voorhees and a woman who is not Pamela. (In the script for Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, Diana is stated to be in her early forties.)
1962
An attempt to reopen Camp Crystal Lake is halted by a case of bad water. The camp comes to be regarded by locals as having a "death curse" and is nicknamed "Camp Blood". (Various townspeople in Friday the 13th.)
1965
Chris Higgins is born. (Chris is stated to be nineteen in the script for Friday the 13th Part III.)
1972
Tommy Jarvis is born. (Friday the 13th: A New Beginning.)
1979
Steve Christy, determined to reopen Camp Crystal Lake, begins to spend $25 000.00 to renovate the abandoned camp. (Friday the 13th.)
1980
Friday the 13th
Friday June 13: Pamela Voorhees goes on a killing spree at Camp Crystal Lake, trying to stop the camp from being reopened. She kills Steve Christy and six of his newly hired counselors. Finally, the mad woman is decapitated with a machete by the only surviving counselor Alice Hardy. Jason Voorhees, having either returned from the dead or never actually drowned, witnesses his mother's death and takes her head and several articles of her clothing, as well as the machete that killed her.
Possibly not in the original continuity: After Pamela's death, Jason also retrieves her locket, containing a picture of himself and his mother.
Saturday June 14: Alice is found in a canoe floating on the lake, claiming that she was attacked by ten-year-old Jason Voorhees.
Sometime after Pamela's killing spree, Camp Crystal Lake is condemned, fenced off and forbidden by law for anyone to enter.
August: Alice is released from the sanitarium. Against her parents' wishes, Alice returns to the town of Crystal Lake to conquer her fears surrounding the events that transpired two months previously. One night, Jason Voorhees enters the apartment where she is staying and murders her. He takes her body to his shack in the woods near Camp Crystal Lake.
1981
Jessica Kimble is born to Diana and Mr. Kimble. (In the script for Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, Jessica is stated to be in her early twenties.)
1982
Summer: While staying at her family's summer home Higgins Haven, seventeen-year-old Chris Higgins gets in a fight with her parents and runs into the woods. There, she is attacked by Jason Voorhees. Chris passes out and awakens back at home. Her parents refuse to speak of the incident. (Friday the 13th Part III.)
1984
Tuesday July 10: Paul Holt's counselor training program at Packanack Lodge is opened. Jason Voorhees (wearing a burlap sack to cover his face) kills local doomsayer Ralph.
Wednesday July 11: Enraged that the Crystal Lake area is being intruded upon, Jason kills six of the counselors in training, a local police officer, and the dog of one of the counselors. Eventually, Jason is faced by Ginny Field and Paul Holt. Ginny discovers Jason's Shack and manages to slice his left shoulder open with the same machete that killed Pamela Voorhees and stops Paul from being attacked by Jason. Ginny and Paul arrive at one of the cabins to rest, thinking they have killed Jason. Ginny falls asleep and has a nightmare that Jason attacks her once more.
Thursday July 12: The police arrive at Packanack Lodge. Ginny is rescued, but Paul's fate isn't quite exactly known. However, most likley he was brought into another ambulance heading towards the same hospital the bodies and Ginny were heading to.
Thursday July 12: Jason revives following Ginny's machete wound and flees from his shack. Until then, Jason seems to be losing his hair. That night, he gets a new set of clothes from the laundry line of Harold Hockett, and then proceeds to murder Harold and his wife. Jason spends the night at Higgins Haven.
Presumably around this time, Rob Dier learns of his sister Sandra's death at the hands of Jason and vows to avenge her.
Friday July 13: Nineteen-year-old Chris Higgins and five of her friends go on a weekend trip to Higgins Haven, picking up Shelly Finkelstein's blind date Vera Sanchez on the way. Upon their arrival, Jason kills the vacationers one by one, as well as Chris' boyfriend Rick and the three members of a motorcycle gang. During the massacre, Jason obtains a hockey mask from Shelly, which he uses to replace the sack as a mask. After a lengthy confrontation with Chris, who recognizes Jason as the person who terrorized her in the woods two years previously, the girl axes the madman in the face, seemingly killing him. (It is likely that Part III took place on a Friday the 13th because Chris and Andy refer to spending a weekend in the country. The script confirms that the murders at Higgins Haven take place on Friday the 13th.)
Saturday July 14: The police find Chris in an unbalanced state, hysterically talking of a "lady in the lake", Pamela Voorhees, having attacked her.
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter
Saturday July 14: The bodies of Jason and the ten victims at Higgins Haven are transported to Wessex County Morgue. There, Jason revives and kills a coroner and a nurse and hides their bodies before making his escape.
Sunday July 15: A group of six vacationing teenagers arrive at the cottage next door to that of the Jarvis family, where Mrs. Jarvis and her children Trish and twelve-year-old Tommy are currently residing. Jason kills a stranded hitchhiker on his way back to Crystal Lake.
Monday July 16: Rob Dier arrives at Crystal Lake, determined to hunt down Jason. The murderer kills the vacationing teenagers as well as Mrs. Jarvis, Rob and a set of teenaged twins. Trish and Tommy fight for their lives until Tommy impales Jason's head on his own machete. Seeing that Jason is still demonstrating signs of life, Tommy stabs the killer over and over again, screaming "Die!" endlessly.
Jason Voorhees, finally dead, is buried in the Eternal Peace Cemetery, although officials of nearby towns are led to believe that his body was cremated. Jason's burial may have been paid for by his father Elias Voorhees.
Tommy, heavily traumatized by his experience, spends the next five years being transferred from one mental institution to the next.
1984 - 1989
Wanting to distance itself from the Voorhees murders, officials change the name of the town and lake from Crystal Lake to Forest Green.
1987
Summer: While staying at Crystal Lake for the third year in a row, ten-year-old Rennie Wickham is pushed into the lake by her uncle, Charles McCulloch who tells her to swim or "Jason will get you". Desperately trying to swim, Rennie has a vision of being grabbed by an eleven-year-old Jason Voorhees. (As shown in Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan.)
1989
Friday the 13th: A New Beginning
In 1989, the seventeen-year-old Tommy Jarvis, no longer a legal ward of the state, is sent from the Unger Institute of Mental Health to Pinehurst Halfway House. That day, Victor J. Faden axes fellow patient Joey to death. Paramedic Roy Burns, Joey's father, is horrified at the sight of Joey's body and swears revenge on the residents of the halfway house. That night, Roy disguises himself as Jason Voorhees and kills two greasers.
The following night, Roy kills an ambulance driver and his girlfriend.
On the third day of Tommy's stay, Roy goes on a full-out killing spree against the residents of Pinehurst Halfway House and the surrounding locals. His victims include the head doctor, the cook, five of Pinehurst's teenage patients, neighbors Ethel and Junior Hubbard, a drifter, the cook's elder grandson and his girlfriend and his own partner. Roy's rampage is finally halted by Pam Roberts, Reggie and Tommy. Roy is impaled on a set of tractor harrows in the halfway house barn. Even further unsettled, Tommy attacks Pam, but is subdued. The mockumentary The Crystal Lake Massacres Revisited, included on the Special Edition Blu-Ray Discs, provides the exposition of Tommy being transferred to Pinehurst due to turning eighteen and therefore no longer being a ward of the state.
Summer: Twelve-year-old Rennie Wickham visits Crystal Lake for the first time. (In Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, Charles McCulloch refers to Rennie having visited Crystal Lake three years in a row.)
Rennie Wickham's parents die in a car accident. Charles McCulloch becomes her legal guardian. (Referenced in Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan.)
1990
Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives
Tommy Jarvis, now turned an eighteen-year-old and almost stable, Tommy and his friend Allen Hawes go to the Eternal Peace Cemetery to dig up and destroy Jason Voorhees' body. Upon seeing Jason's body Tommy has a audio flashback and repeatedly stabs Jason's corpse. However, things go awry when a lightning bolt strikes the fence post and reanimates Jason, increasing his strength and essentially making him immortal. Jason kills Hawes and, wearing a new hockey mask constructed by Tommy, sets out for Camp Crystal Lake, now reopened as Camp Forest Green. Tommy makes it to the police station and is locked up by Sheriff Michael Garris who deems the boy crazy. En route to the camp, Jason kills the head counselors.
The next day Jason goes on a killing spree at Camp Forest Green, claiming the lives of five executives playing a paintball game, the cemetery caretaker, a young couple three of the remaining camp counselors, a teenage girl, Sheriff Garris and two of his police officers. Tommy and Megan Garris eventually manage to chain Jason to a large rock at the bottom of Lake Forest Green. (The script says that Tommy is in his late teens. Also, a calendar in the police station has 30 days on it.)
Sometime after the murders, officials decide to change the area name back to Crystal Lake. "Camp Crystal Lake" signs are restored to the abandoned camp. (In Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood, signs bearing the name "Crystal Lake" are seen in the area.)
Friday October 13: While staying with her parents at Crystal Lake, seven-year-old Tina Shepard accidentally collapses the dock her father John is standing on with her telekinetic powers, drowning him. Severely affected by this event, Tina spends the next four years at a mental hospital. (A calendar on the wall of the Shepard cabin confirms the date.)
Freddy Krueger dies and spends years looking for an evil soul, he finds Jason in 2003.
1999
January 18: Bobby Davis kills himself because of having nightmares of dream killer Freddy Krueger. His brother Mark Davis is locked up in Westin Hills Asylum (Referenced in Freddy vs. Jason.)
January - June: Mrs. Campbell is killed by Freddy. Will Rollins thinks Dr. Campbell killed her and had him sent to Westin Hills. (Referenced in Freddy vs. Jason.)
2000
Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood
Tina Shepard, now seventeen, returns to Crystal Lake with her mother Amanda and her therapist, Doctor Crews. Tina becomes acquainted with the teenagers staying at the house next door, preparing a surprise birthday party for Michael, one of their friends. That night, Tina tries to resurrect her father John with her powers but instead frees the dormant Jason Voorhees. Tina passes out and is spared by Jason, but he does kill Michael, his girlfriend and a camping couple.
The next day Jason kills nine of the teenagers staying at the party cottage as well as Amanda and Doctor Crews. A distraught Tina uses her telekinesis to fight Jason, destroying the two houses while doing so. Finally, Tina reanimates her father's corpse to chain Jason back up at the bottom of the lake and collapses the dock on top of him.
The following day The police rescue Tina and Nick, Michael's cousin. Jason's hockey mask from 1990 is found, having been broken in half during his fight with Tina. (Director John Carl Buechler has stated multiple times that Jason spent ten years underwater before Tina resurrected him.)
2002
Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan
The night before the senior class of Lakeview High School is scheduled to depart for New York City, two of the students, Jim Miller and Suzi Donaldson arrive at Crystal Lake. The anchor of their boat catches on an underwater power line and electrifies Jason Voorhees back to life. He kills the two students and sails the boat to the harbor.
The next day, Jason reaches the cruise ship S.S. Lazarus just before it departs for New York. One of the passengers, nineteen-year-old Rennie Wickham, is plagued by visions of a child Jason. The undead madman kills six of the students and three of the crew. A crew member is killed as well. Rennie, her classmates Sean Robertson and Julius Gaw, her teacher Colleen Van Deusen, her uncle Charles McCulloch, and her dog Toby manage to flee the ship on the lifeboat, but the rest of the students drown as the ship sinks. Jason swims after the survivors in secret.
The next night, Rennie and company end up in New York. Jason pursues them and kills Julius, McCulloch and five New York City residents. Colleen is also killed in a car accident. Rennie and Sean are chased into the sewers and barely escape while Jason is washed away by a flood of toxic waste (although Rennie hallucinates that he changes into a normal child). As a new day dawns, Rennie, Sean and Toby go to explore New York.
After the Manhattan murders, the FBI realizes Jason Voorhees' threat and begins to track him down. They eventually locate him back at Crystal Lake moments later.
2003
Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday
FBI Agent Elizabeth Marcus lures Jason Voorhees to a trap in which he is shot repeatedly and blown to pieces. Prior to the movies events, Stephanie Kimble is born to Jessica Kimble and Steven Freeman.
One week later, bounty hunter Creighton Duke makes an appearance on American Case File concerning the death of Jason Voorhees. But after being brought to the Youngstown Federal Morgue, Jason's spirit possesses Phil and makes him eat his heart. Phil/Jason kills assistant coroner Eric Pope and two FBI agents before leaving for Crystal Lake in search for a Voorhees family member through whom he can be reborn by transferring his heart.
Over the course of the following week, Phil/Jason makes his way back to Crystal Lake.
Seven days after his escape from the morgue, Phil/Jason kills three young adults fooling around at Camp Crystal Lake. He then kidnaps and possesses Josh after killing his girlfriend. Josh/Jason goes to the apartment of his half-sister Diana Voorhees Kimble and kills her, but is prevented from possessing her body and being reborn by Steven Freeman.
Friday August 13, Jason transfers his soul from Josh to news reporter Robert Campbell. Robert/Jason goes after Jessica Kimble and her infant daughter Stephanie, still trying to be reborn. Along the way, Robert/Jason kills three police officers, the family owning the local diner, and a waitress. A diner patron was also killed. Jason's soul is then transferred to Randy Parker who gets his throat cut open by Steven. Jason's heart crawls into Diana's dead body and he is finally reborn. After killing Creighton Duke, Jason is stabbed in the heart with a mystical dagger by Jessica and sent to Hell.
2003
Freddy vs. Jason
Autumn: Freddy Krueger resurrects Jason Voorhees and sends him to Springwood to kill some of the town's teenagers and generate enough fear to allow Freddy to return.
The night Jason arrives in Springwood, a Sunday in September, he kills two boys and one of their fathers. Freddy now has enough power to return, due to the fear caused by the three deaths. Meanwhile, Will and Mark have escaped from Westin Hills.
On Monday, Will's girlfriend Lori Campbell and her friends begin to understand what is going on, and their new found knowledge of Krueger makes them vulnerable. At a rave that night, Freddy enters the dreams of Lori's friend Gibb, but is enraged when Jason "steals" his victim, killing Gibb and another raver in the real world before Freddy can kill her in her dream. Jason then goes on a rampage, killing at least eight more ravers. The survivors of the rave include Lori, Will, Kia Waterson, Charlie Linderman and Bill Freeburg. Later, Freddy kills Mark when he falls asleep at his old house.
On Tuesday, the rave's survivors and Scott Stubbs decide to go to Westin Hills and get some Hipnocil dream suppressant to be safe from Freddy. Jason follows them there and kills Stubbs, Freeburg and a security guard before Freddy brings him into the dream world,where he figures out he's been fooled. Lori, Will, Kia and Linderman begin to transport Jason's comatose body to Crystal Lake, as Freddy discovers Jason's deep-seated fear of water (which is not usually present in the real world). Lori falls asleep and enters Jason's dream, which involves his childhood drowning. Lori manages to wake Jason up and drag Freddy into the real world. After killing Linderman and Kia, Jason turns his attentions to Freddy and an epic battle begins. The fight concludes with Jason's battered body falling into Crystal Lake and Lori decapitating Freddy with Jason's machete.
The next morning, Wednesday, Jason emerges from the lake, clutching Freddy's still animate head.
2008 (Reboot only)
The following sequence of events is perhaps not in the main continuity of the original eleven Friday the 13th films.
May 2: A group of young adults--Whitney Miller, Mike, Wade, Amanda, and Richie--enter the Crystal Lake region looking for a marijuana site in the woods. Jason , wearing a cloth bag over his head, attacks the intruders and kills all of them except Whitney, whom he drags into his underground tunnels running beneath the campgrounds and Voorhees house. Shortly afterwards, Whitney's mother dies and her brother Clay begins to look for her.
Friday June 13: Clay Miller arrives in Crystal Lake looking for Whitney. Meanwhile, another group of teens--Jenna, Trent Sutton, Chewie, Lawrence, Chelsea, Nolan, and Bree--arrive at Trent's family cabin on the lake shore. Jason kills a local and dons the latter's hockey mask. He then murders most of the partying teens and a police officer as Clay and Jenna hunt for Whitney. Whitney is rescued, and Jenna is also killed as the Miller siblings flee from Jason. Whitney succeeds in stabbing Jason in the chest with his machete.
Saturday June 14: Jason rises from the lake to attack Whitney.Friday the 13th (2009)
Reboot timeline events end here.
Jason Voorhees is captured by the Camp Crystal Lake Research Facility and convicted of at least two hundred murders. When all attempts to execute him fail, he is left sedated, placed under heavy guard and left shackled in the facility while researchers try to think of what to do with him. (Referenced in Jason X.)
2010
Unknown date: It is decided that Jason Voorhees should be cryogenically frozen and moved to another facility for further examination. Due to a guard throwing a blanket over him, Jason's IV is knocked loose, allowing him to escape and kill Doctor Wimmer (who had decided to supersede freezing Jason and transport him "soft") and the quintet of soldiers meant to move him. While chasing head researcher Rowan LaFontaine through the facility, Jason is knocked into the cryogenic chamber by the scientist, who is also frozen when Jason punctures the unit's door and stabs her, causing the facility to lock down.
2024
The sport of hockey is outlawed. (Referenced in Jason X.)
2455
Unknown date: A class from Earth II, headed by Braithwaite Lowe, go on a field trip to the original Earth, which had become uninhabitable centuries prior. Discovering the remains of the Camp Crystal Lake Research Facility, the students find Jason Voorhees and Rowan LaFontaine and bring them aboard their ship The Grendal, where Rowan is revived, while Jason awakens on his own. Killing several students, crewmembers and hired security, Jason is briefly killed by android Kay-Em 14, but is resurrected by The Grendel's malfunctioning nano ants, which also give a metallic exoskeleton and upgraded abilities. As The Grendel begins falling apart (due to accidentally crashing into the Solaris space station) Rowan, Tsunaron and Kay-Em reach a rescue vessel, the Tiamat, while Sergeant Brodski stays behind, sacrificing himself to stop Jason from attacking the Tiamat. A power armor-wearing Brodski tackles Jason outside the Tiamat, sending the two of them hurtling through Earth II's atmosphere. Jason's charred mask lands in a lake.