The American horror franchise Final Destination consists of nine novels, two comic books, and six motion pictures. It is based on an unfinished spec story by Jeffrey Reddick that he had written for the New Line Cinema-distributed television series The X-Files. The plot of all five of its movies is around a small group of people who, thanks to one person’s startling premonition warning them of an imminent huge tragedy, manage to escape certain death. After avoiding their foretold deaths seen in the visions, the survivors are later killed one by one (usually in the order they died in the premonition disaster) in bizarre accidents caused by an unseen force (said to be Death itself seeking to kill them due to the disruption of its plans for their deaths) by creating complicated chains of cause and effect, resembling Rube Goldberg machines, and then read omens sent by another unseen entity in order to again avert their deaths.

The series is noteworthy among other horror films for its use of an antagonist that is not a stereotypical slasher or other physical being, but Death manifested, subtly manipulating circumstances in the environment with a design on claiming anyone who previously escaped their fated demise. In addition to the films, a novel series, which includes the novelizations of the first three films, was published throughout 2005 and 2006 by Black Flame. A one-shot comic book titled Final Destination: Sacrifice was released alongside select DVDs of Final Destination 3 in 2006, and a comic book series titled Final Destination: Spring Break was published by Zenescope Entertainment in 2007.

The franchise has been praised for its innovative premise of the abstract concept of Death itself as an invisible force killing people instead of a usual slasher killer, and the creativity of the films’ sometimes convoluted and tense death sequences.