Final Destination is an American horror franchise based on an unproduced spec script by Jeffrey Reddick, originally written for the X-Files television series. Distributed by New Line Cinema, all five films are centered on the themes of fatalism, predestination, and precognition, in relation to death (i.e. how to foresee, avoid, or control it). In a less abstract sense, each film features a protagonist having a premonition of a terrible accident that would kill numerous people, including the protagonist themself. The protagonist and several other people then escape from the scene of the accident, before it happens just like in the protagonist's vision. The group of people then start dying in a series of bizarre accidents that frequently resemble Rube Goldberg machines in their complexity.
The series is noteworthy amongst others in the horror genre in that the "villain" of the movies is not the stereotypical slashers, monsters, creatures, beasts, or demons. It is the entity Death itself (very occasionally seen as a fleeting shadow), which manipulates the environment in deadly ways with the intent of "recapturing" those who somehow manage (usually through premonitions) to escape their fates the first time. Some of them try to take their own lives by committing suicide, but Death usually appears to thwart their plans to ensure that they die the way it intends them to.
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 series titled Final Destination: Spring Break was published by Zenescope Entertainment in 2007.