Avatar: Fire and Ash is the third film in James Cameron’s Avatar series, following Avatar (2009) and Avatar: The Way of Water (2022). It opened in US theaters on December 19, 2025, and is now streaming on Disney+. This guide covers the basics people search for most: how long it is, what the rating means, the best way to watch it, how it did at the box office, and what comes next.
Quick facts
| Release date (US) | December 19, 2025 |
|---|---|
| Director | James Cameron |
| Studio | 20th Century Studios (Disney) |
| Runtime | About 3 hours 15 minutes (Disney lists 3h 15m; Box Office Mojo lists 3h 17m) |
| Rating | PG-13 |
| Worldwide box office | $1,485,999,890 |
| Streaming | Disney+, from June 24, 2026 |
| Next film | Avatar 4, scheduled for December 21, 2029 |
What the film is about
Disney’s official synopsis says the film takes audiences back to Pandora with “Marine turned Na’vi leader Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), Na’vi warrior Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), and the Sully family.” The story picks up with the family after the events of The Way of Water.
The new element is the Ash People, a Na’vi clan unlike the forest and reef clans of the first two films. Their leader, Varang, is played by Oona Chaplin. The Hollywood Reporter and /Film describe the Ash People as the Mangkwan, a former forest clan whose home was destroyed by a volcanic eruption, which turned them hostile and aggressive. Chaplin has described Varang as a character shaped by loss and a sense of having been abandoned by Eywa, rather than a simple villain.
For a fuller walk-through of the plot, see our Fire and Ash story guide.
Cast
Disney’s film page lists Sam Worthington (Jake Sully) and Zoe Saldaña (Neytiri) at the top, with Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Oona Chaplin, Cliff Curtis, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Edie Falco, David Thewlis, Jemaine Clement, Giovanni Ribisi, Britain Dalton, Jamie Flatters, Trinity Jo-Li Bliss, Jack Champion, Brendan Cowell, Bailey Bass, Filip Geljo, Duane Evans Jr. and Kate Winslet.
How long is it?
Plan for a little over three and a quarter hours. Disney lists the runtime as 3 hours 15 minutes and Box Office Mojo lists 3 hours 17 minutes; the small difference usually comes down to how the end credits are counted. Either way it is the longest film in the series so far: the original Avatar runs 2 hours 42 minutes and The Way of Water runs 3 hours 12 minutes. We cover why Cameron’s films keep getting longer in why the movie is so long.
Is it OK for kids? The PG-13 rating
The film is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, bloody images, some strong language, thematic elements and suggestive material. The violence involves arrows, knives, guns and explosives, and characters are injured and killed. That is broadly the same territory as The Way of Water, though the long runtime is its own consideration for younger viewers. Our parents guide goes through the content in more detail.
3D or standard: the best way to watch
Cameron made the film for 3D, and in theaters it played in 3D, IMAX 3D and other premium large formats as well as standard 2D. As with The Way of Water, parts of the film use a higher frame rate of 48 frames per second, mainly in action and spectacle sequences, while quieter scenes stay at the traditional 24. Cameron has explained that running everything at the higher rate would give ordinary dialogue scenes an unwanted hyper-real look.
At home the choice is simpler: on an ordinary TV, the Disney+ stream and the digital purchase play in 2D. If you have a large TV and care about picture quality, the 4K Ultra HD disc will usually hold up better in the darkest and busiest scenes than a compressed stream; our guide to why discs can look better than streaming explains the reasons.
How long was it in theaters, and when did it come home?
| Window | Date |
|---|---|
| Theatrical release (US) | December 19, 2025 |
| Digital purchase | March 31, 2026 |
| 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray | May 19, 2026 |
| Disney+ | June 24, 2026 |
That put 102 days between the theatrical opening and the digital release, and a little over six months between the theatrical opening and Disney+.
Box office
The film opened to $89.2 million in the US and Canada and held the No. 1 spot at the domestic box office for five consecutive weeks. It passed $1 billion worldwide in its third weekend, with Disney reporting a global total of $1.083 billion as of January 4, 2026.
Box Office Mojo’s final figures are $404.3 million domestic and $1.08 billion international, for a worldwide total of $1,485,999,890. That is a large number by any standard, but it is below both earlier films: Avatar stands at $2.92 billion and The Way of Water at $2.33 billion, according to Box Office Mojo.
What comes next: Avatar 4
Disney’s release schedule has Avatar 4 dated for December 21, 2029, a four-year gap after Fire and Ash rather than the three years between the second and third films. Producer Jon Landau said in 2019 that about a third of Avatar 4 had already been filmed, and Cameron said in January 2024 that he would not shoot the rest until Fire and Ash was released.
Sources
- Disney: Avatar: Fire and Ash (release date, rating, runtime, synopsis, cast)
- Box Office Mojo: Avatar: Fire and Ash (grosses, opening weekend, runtime)
- Box Office Mojo: Avatar (2009) and Avatar: The Way of Water (grosses, runtimes)
- The Walt Disney Company: Fire and Ash surpasses $1 billion
- ABC7: Disney+ streaming date (June 24, 2026; five weeks at No. 1)
- Dark Horizons: digital and disc release dates
- The Hollywood Reporter: Oona Chaplin as Varang
- /Film: Varang, leader of the Ash People
- WION: Avatar 4 release date