It is almost time to return to Panem. With The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping arriving in theaters November 2026, we are revisiting every book and movie in the franchise. From unforgettable arenas to devastating rebellions, here is how they rank before young Haymitch enters the Games onscreen.

The Hunger Games Books

5. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

Suzanne Collins’s first prequel follows a young Coriolanus Snow as he mentors District 12 tribute Lucy Gray Baird during the early years of the Hunger Games. The novel offers fascinating insight into how the Games became Panem’s most horrifying spectacle, but its slower pace and deeply unlikable narrator create a colder reading experience. It is ambitious and unsettling, but it lands at the bottom of an exceptionally strong series.

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4. Mockingjay

With Panem entering a full-scale war, Katniss becomes the face of a rebellion while struggling with grief, propaganda and the knowledge that neither side is telling her everything. The novel’s refusal to make war feel heroic gives it enormous emotional and political weight. However, the absence of an arena and Katniss’s limited agency during parts of the story make it less gripping than the books ranked above it.

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3. The Hunger Games

Katniss’s decision to volunteer for her younger sister immediately establishes the love, fear and resistance that define the entire series. The first book balances tense survival, complicated alliances and a romance designed for the cameras with sharp commentary about inequality and entertainment. It may rank third, but without this unforgettable beginning, the rest of Panem’s story could never have caught fire.

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2. Catching Fire

After surviving the arena, Katniss and Peeta discover that their defiance has made them dangerous symbols to people across Panem. Catching Fire expands the world, raises the political stakes and introduces fan-favorite characters inside an even more inventive arena. Under almost any other circumstances, this emotional and action-packed sequel would take first place.

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1. Sunrise on the Reaping

Long before Haymitch became Katniss and Peeta’s hardened mentor, he was a hopeful teenager forced into the Second Quarter Quell alongside forty-seven other tributes. The novel combines the arena tension of the original books with the political urgency of Mockingjay, revealing how much the Capitol took from him. Even though readers already know Haymitch survives, the emotional connections and tragic inevitability make this the most devastating—and strongest—book in the series.

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The Hunger Games Movies

5. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1

Katniss adjusts to life in District 13 while the rebellion transforms her into its most valuable propaganda tool. Jennifer Lawrence delivers some of her most emotionally raw work, and “The Hanging Tree” remains an unforgettable sequence. Still, splitting the final book leaves this installment carrying most of the setup without receiving enough of the payoff.

4. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes

Tom Blyth brings unsettling charm to young Coriolanus Snow, while Rachel Zegler makes Lucy Gray Baird impossible to ignore. The performances, music and return to the arena helped welcome audiences back to Panem, but condensing such a complicated novel produces uneven pacing and a rushed final section. Snow’s gradual psychological deterioration simply works better on the page.

3. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2

The final movie sends Katniss and her unit into a Capitol transformed into one enormous arena. It delivers the action and emotional conclusions established in Part 1 while remaining faithful to Suzanne Collins’s warnings about power and revenge. Grim, tense and surprisingly unwilling to offer easy answers, it gives the original series a fitting conclusion.

2. The Hunger Games

Jennifer Lawrence’s first performance as Katniss immediately gave the franchise its heart. Although some of the novel’s internal narration is lost and the shaky camera work can be distracting, the movie captures the fear, spectacle and emotional stakes of the Games. Katniss is not looking for fame or revolution—she is simply trying to survive, which makes her smallest acts of compassion feel revolutionary.

1. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Catching Fire expands Panem, strengthens the political storyline and introduces a group of tributes who quickly became some of the franchise’s most beloved characters. The arena is spectacular, the costumes are unforgettable and Jennifer Lawrence gives a more layered performance as a Katniss buckling beneath the consequences of survival. Funny, frightening and emotionally devastating, it remains the adaptation Sunrise on the Reaping will have to beat.

May the odds be ever in your favor Sunrise on the Reaping.