RoboCop movies in order, and where the franchise stands in 2026

Updated Sep 28, 2026: Added Dan Stevens’ casting in Prime Video’s RoboCop series and re-checked where every movie streams.

Four movies, one easy order. Honestly, the movies are the simple part. The messy part is everything around them: four TV shows, two recent games that slot right into the timeline, and a sequel called RoboCop Returns that people have been asking about since 2018. So here’s all of it in one place: what to watch, where to stream it, and where the franchise actually stands in 2026.

RoboCop movies in order (release order)

Dates and directors are from the RoboCop franchise overview. Streaming is from JustWatch, checked Sep 27, 2026 (full breakdown in where to watch below).

1. RoboCop (1987)

Detroit cop Alex Murphy gets gunned down by Clarence Boddicker’s gang, and Omni Consumer Products, the corporation that literally runs the police, rebuilds what’s left of him as a cyborg. It’s a brutal action movie, a corporate satire and a weirdly sad story about a guy trying to remember who he was, all at once. Paul Verhoeven plays it completely straight and lets the fake ads, the news breaks and the boardroom scenes do the jokes. If you watch one, watch this one. No notes.

2. RoboCop 2 (1990)

Weller and Nancy Allen are back, Detroit is going bankrupt, and a designer drug called Nuke is everywhere. OCP’s fix? A second cyborg built around a drug lord’s brain. It’s meaner and messier than the original (Frank Miller co-wrote it, which tracks), and the stop-motion finale still slaps. Worth it if the first one clicked.

3. RoboCop 3 (1993)

No Weller (Robert John Burke is in the suit), a PG-13 rating, and OCP is now evicting Detroit’s poor to build a shiny new city. This is the one fans skip, and yes, the jetpack scene is the reason. Watch it if you’re a completist. Otherwise, you’re not missing much.

4. RoboCop (2014)

José Padilha’s remake starts from scratch with Joel Kinnaman as Murphy, Gary Oldman as the scientist who builds him and Michael Keaton as the OmniCorp boss. It trades the original’s gore and dark humor for drone warfare and free-will debates. It doesn’t connect to the other films, so watch it whenever, or skip it and lose nothing.

The RoboCop TV shows

RoboCop has been on TV four times, all way before streaming was a thing (episode counts from the franchise page):

• RoboCop: The Animated Series (1988): 12 episodes of Saturday-morning cartoon. A curiosity, nothing more.
• RoboCop: The Series (1994): a live-action syndicated show, 21 episodes plus a pilot, starring Richard Eden. Very family-friendly, very ’90s.
• RoboCop: Alpha Commando (1998–99): a second cartoon, 40 episodes, set in the future.
• RoboCop: Prime Directives (2001): four feature-length TV movies with Page Fletcher, set about 10 years after the first film. Darker and much closer to the 1987 vibe than the other shows, so it’s the one worth hunting down. It’s on Prime Video and free on Plex, per JustWatch.

RoboCop: The Series (1994) is easy to find: it streams free with ads on Tubi, Pluto TV and The Roku Channel in the US. The 1988 cartoon isn’t streaming anywhere in the US right now.

RoboCop in story order

There’s no single canon, so think of it as three separate timelines:

1. The original timeline: RoboCop (1987) → RoboCop 2 (1990) → RoboCop: Rogue City (game, 2023) → RoboCop: Rogue City – Unfinished Business (game, 2025) → RoboCop 3 (1993). Rogue City is set between the second and third films, with Peter Weller voicing Murphy again. The standalone expansion Unfinished Business picks up after it, still before RoboCop 3.
2. The TV spinoffs: the 1994 series and Prime Directives each spin off from the first film their own way. Neither lines up with RoboCop 2 and 3, so treat them as alternate endings.
3. The reboots: the 2014 film is its own world, and the upcoming Prime Video series is a fresh take on the premise (more below).

Want the best possible run? The 1987 film, RoboCop 2, then Rogue City. That’s the Weller trilogy fans have wanted since 1990. It just happens to be two movies and a video game.

What happened to RoboCop Returns?

RoboCop Returns was supposed to be a direct sequel to the 1987 film that ignored everything after it, built on an old script by the original writers, Ed Neumeier and Michael Miner. It never got made. Here’s how it slowly died:

So, is RoboCop Returns happening? Not as the movie we were promised. Nobody at Amazon MGM has publicly revived the Blomkamp or Forsythe film since 2023, and all the live-action RoboCop energy has clearly gone into the series. You’ll still see “RoboCop Returns” pages treating the show as the same project. It isn’t: the trades describe it as a brand-new series, not a sequel to the 1987 film.

The Prime Video RoboCop series with Dan Stevens

What’s confirmed, per TheWrap and Gizmodo:

• Format: eight episodes for Prime Video, from Amazon MGM Studios and Blumhouse Atomic Monster.
• Star: Dan Stevens (The Guest, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire) as Alex Murphy/RoboCop.
• Showrunner: Peter Ocko (Lodge 49), who also writes.
• Producers: James Wan, Michael Clear and Rob Hackett, plus original writers Ed Neumeier and Michael Miner as executive producers.
• Premise: the official logline is about a tech conglomerate that convinces a city to put “a robot implanted with the consciousness of a beloved, fallen officer” on its police force. So: the 1987 setup, told again from the top.

What’s only reported: The People’s Movies, citing Dark Horizons, says Wan will direct several episodes and filming starts in January 2027. Amazon hasn’t confirmed either, and as of late September 2026 there’s no filming or premiere date. If cameras really roll in early 2027, don’t expect the show before 2028.

Stevens is a sneaky-good pick. He’s at his best playing guys who are polite on the surface and something much darker underneath, which is basically the whole Murphy problem: a man buried inside a product. Having Neumeier and Miner involved matters too. The 2014 remake’s biggest miss was losing the original’s sense of humor, and the guys who wrote the fake ads are producing this one.

The games: Rogue City and Unfinished Business

Plot twist: the best RoboCop story of the last decade is a video game. RoboCop: Rogue City came out Nov 2, 2023, on PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC, made by Teyon and published by Nacon. Peter Weller voiced Murphy and lent his likeness, it’s set between RoboCop 2 and 3, and it became Nacon’s biggest launch ever. It’s slow and a bit janky, and it absolutely nails the feeling of stomping through Old Detroit as an unstoppable, very polite tank.

Teyon followed up with Unfinished Business, a standalone expansion that dropped July 17, 2025 on the same platforms. You don’t need the base game. It’s a siege on OCP’s OmniTower, with flashback missions where you play Murphy before he became RoboCop. No full sequel has been announced yet.

Where to watch the RoboCop movies (US)

Checked on JustWatch, Sep 27, 2026. Streaming deals shuffle constantly, so double-check before you settle in.

Since Amazon owns MGM, Prime Video is your one-stop shop. Got Prime? You can knock out the whole film series tonight.

Let’s be real: what Amazon keeps getting wrong with RoboCop

We love this franchise, which is exactly why the last decade has been frustrating.

• Eight years of “coming soon.” RoboCop Returns was announced in 2018, burned through two directors and quietly died in 2023. Fans got a timeline of press releases instead of a movie. That’s not development. That’s a slow fade.
• A series is the safe bet, not the bold one. Eight episodes on Prime Video is lower risk than a theatrical R-rated sequel, and that’s the point. Amazon paid a fortune for MGM, and RoboCop is one of the few MGM characters you can recognize from the silhouette alone. It’s hard not to read this as IP management first and storytelling second.
• Another origin story. The logline is the 1987 setup again, and the 2014 remake already proved that retelling the origin with better tech doesn’t guarantee a better movie. We’ve seen Murphy die and come back three times now. Show us something new.
• The satire problem. RoboCop only works if it’s nasty and funny at the same time. The 2014 version got the robot right and lost the joke. A sleek, humorless prestige cop show would make the exact same mistake, just with eight hours to fill.

Here’s the thing, though: the pieces are there. The original writers are back, the lead is a great fit, and Rogue City proved people will show up for something that takes the 1987 film seriously. Private companies running the police was satire in 1987. In 2026 it reads more like a procurement memo. If the show leans into that, it could be the best RoboCop since Verhoeven. We’ll believe it when there’s a trailer.

RoboCop FAQ

How many RoboCop movies are there?

Four: RoboCop (1987), RoboCop 2 (1990), RoboCop 3 (1993) and the RoboCop remake (2014). Prime Directives (2001) sometimes gets counted as movies, but it was made as a four-part TV miniseries.

Do I need to watch RoboCop 3?

Nope. Rogue City is a better follow-up to RoboCop 2, and nothing later depends on the third film.

Is the 2014 RoboCop connected to the original?

No, it’s a standalone remake with a new cast.

Is Peter Weller in the new RoboCop series?

Not as far as anyone has announced. Dan Stevens plays Murphy. Weller’s latest turn as RoboCop was voicing him in Rogue City and Unfinished Business.

Planning another marathon? Try our Godzilla movies in order guide, our ranking of every Star Wars movie, or, for more corporate-dystopia sci-fi, our Blade Runner 2099 review.