All of its six films are set around the premise of a small group of people who escape impending death after one individual has a sudden premonition and warns them about a major disaster that is about to occur.

Final Destination was written by Jeffrey Reddick after having "read a story about a woman who was on vacation and her mom called her and said, 'Don't take the flight tomorrow, I have a really bad feeling about it'".

[2] In the original Final Destination, high school student Alex Browning (Devon Sawa) boards Volée Airlines Flight 180 with his classmates for a field trip to Paris.

When the events from his vision begin to repeat themselves in reality, he panics, and a fight breaks out, which leads to several passengers being left behind, including Clear Rivers (Ali Larter), Carter Horton (Kerr Smith), Billy Hitchcock (Seann William Scott), Valerie Lewton (Kristen Cloke), Terry Chaney (Amanda Detmer), and Tod Waggner (Chad Donella), who witness the plane explode moments later.

[3] Final Destination 2, picking up one year after the first film, features college student Kimberly Corman (A. J. Cook) heading to Daytona Beach for spring break with her friends Shaina, Dano, and Frankie (Sarah Carter, Alex Rae, and Shaun Sipos).

She stops her SUV on the entrance ramp, preventing several people from entering the highway, including Thomas Burke (Michael Landes), Eugene Dix (T. C. Carson), Rory Peters (Jonathan Cherry), Kat Jennings (Keegan Connor Tracy), Nora and Tim Carpenter (Lynda Boyd and James Kirk), Evan Lewis (David Paetkau), and pregnant Isabella Hudson (Justina Machado).

It is later revealed that Isabella was never meant to die in the pile-up, and Kimberly drowns herself in a lake so that she can be resuscitated by emergency staff, thus granting her "new life"; saving her and Officer Burke.

[4] Final Destination 3 has high school student Wendy Christensen (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) visiting an amusement park for grad night with her friends Kevin Fischer (Ryan Merriman), Jason Wise (Jesse Moss), and Carrie Dreyer (Gina Holden).

When Wendy panics a fight breaks out and several people leave or are forced off the ride before the accident occurs, including Kevin, Wendy's younger sister Julie (Amanda Crew), and students Ian McKinley (Kris Lemche), Erin Ulmer (Alexz Johnson), Lewis Romero (Texas Battle), Frankie Cheeks (Sam Easton), Ashley Freund (Chelan Simmons), Ashlyn Halperin (Crystal Lowe), and Perry Malinowski (Maggie Ma).

When Nick panics a fight breaks out and several people leave before the accident occurs, including, his friends Lori, Janet, and Hunt, security guard George Lanter (Mykelti Williamson), and spectators Andy Kewzer (Andrew Fiscella), Samantha Lane (Krista Allen), Jonathan Groves (Jackson Walker), Carter Daniels (Justin Welborn), and Nadia Monroy (Stephanie Honoré).

This leads the remaining survivors to believe that they have cheated Death, until Nick has another premonition of a disastrous explosion at a shopping mall, which he manages to prevent, saving himself, Lori, and Janet.

Sam manages to persuade several of his co-workers to get off the bridge before the accident occurs, including Molly Harper (Emma Bell), Nathan Sears (Arlen Escarpeta), Peter Friedkin (Miles Fisher), Dennis Lapman (David Koechner), Olivia Castle (Jacqueline MacInnes Wood), Isaac Palmer (P. J. Byrne), and Candice Hooper (Ellen Wroe).

The landing gear is sent flying towards New York City and crashes into a cocktail bar, killing Nathan, since the co-worker whose life he claimed had a terminal illness and was due to die "any day now".

[14] That September, it was announced that Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein would co-direct the film, after the pair staged an elaborate death hoax in a Zoom call meeting with the studio executives.

[28] Throughout 2005, publishing company Black Flame released a series of Final Destination books which faithfully follow the premise of the films, with each involving a group of people who find themselves targeted by Death after surviving a catastrophe of some sort due to a character experiencing a precognitive vision.

[40] Destination Zero, also set in LA, has magazine employee Patricia Fuller and few others survive a train bombing and afterward, while being stalked by Death, Patti learns this is not the first time her family has been hunted by the entity.

[43] Looks Could Kill has beautiful New York model Stephanie "Sherry" Pulaski stopping her friends from boarding a yacht when she has a vision of it exploding, but is left horribly disfigured and comatose by flying debris moments afterward when her vision comes true; eventually awakening the embittered Stephanie makes a deal with Death, aiding it in claiming her friends in exchange for having her good looks restored.

A tenth novel, titled Wipeout and written by Alex Johnson, was planned, but cancelled; the book would have featured a pair of surfers and several others, after surviving a plane crash in Hawaii, being hunted by Death and the survivor of another disaster, an unstable soldier who had nearly died in an ambush in Afghanistan.

The premise of the story involves the survivor of a terrible accident and his friend Jim, who continually experiences images of other people's deaths, isolating himself from the rest of the world to escape the visions that torment him.

[50] Zenescope later released a five issue miniseries, titled Final Destination: Spring Break, which involves a group led by Carly Hagan being stalked by Death after surviving a hotel fire and becoming stranded in Cancún, Mexico.

[53] According to media studies scholar Eugenie Brinkema, Final Destination films are characterized by their move away from the typical horror antagonist and toward the certainty and inevitability of death.

[59] Ian Conrich, a film studies scholar, argues the series marks a key departure from slasher norms in that death itself becomes the villain.

The characters' deaths are brought about by "a series of neutral gestures, a set of constraints that will ultimately lead to their conflagratory ends"; these include the placing of a drink, looking through CDs, and an ill-chosen doorstop.

[63] An example of the "literal tipping point" at which the characters can no longer escape occurs when a coat rack is knocked onto the tanning beds; it is blown by an air conditioning unit that is activated by the increasing heat.