Produced by New Line Cinema, the film follows a group of people after they escape a deadly accident during a stock car race, with Death stalking and killing them one by one.

College student Nick O'Bannon watches an auto race with his girlfriend Lori Milligan and their friends Hunt Wynorski and Janet Cunningham at the McKinley Speedway for their semester break.

When Nick panics, a scuffle breaks out and several people leave the stadium, including Lori, Hunt, Janet, racist tow truck driver Carter Daniels, mother Samantha Lane, mechanic Andy Kewzer, his girlfriend Nadia Monroy, and security guard George Lanter.

On one of the nights following the accident, Carter drives to George's house to burn a cross on his lawn, blaming the guard for preventing him from saving his wife Cynthia at the speedway, but Death causes the wind to knock off a horseshoe hanging from a rope on to the radio of his tow truck, turning on War's famous song "Why Can't We Be Friends?"

The next day, Samantha is leaving a beauty salon when a rock propelled by a lawnmower is shot through her eye from a long distance, killing her.

He and Lori return to the speedway with George's help to find the next survivor, Andy, but he is killed at the mechanic shop the next day when a carbon dioxide tank launches him through a metal grid fence.

After Nick predicts that Hunt and Janet's deaths will involve water, George and Lori find the latter, who is trapped in a malfunctioning car wash, and narrowly manage to rescue her.

However, Nick arrives too late to save Hunt, who unintentionally activated a country club's pool drainage system and ended up being disemboweled by the drain pipe.

Nick and George track Jonathan down at a hospital where he was recovering from the accident, only to witness him being crushed by an overflowing bathtub falling through the ceiling.

During their conversation however, Nick starts to see more omens and alludes to the theory that the chain of events since the speedway disaster was meant to lead them to where they needed to be for Death to strike.

Just as he realizes this, a loose scaffold outside collapses on the road, causing a truck to swerve and crash into the café, killing him, Lori, and Janet.

After the success of Final Destination 3, which was initially planned to be in 3D,[5] Eric Bress wrote a script, which impressed producer Craig Perry and Warner Bros. enough to green-light a fourth installment.

Christian Clemmensen of Filmtracks.com gave the score 3 out of 5 stars and felt Tyler was "capable [...] to further explore new stylistic territory while making substantial use of the structures and tone of [predecessor composer] Shirley Walker's music."

[15] According to USA Today and Newsday, The Final Destination debuted at the top of the North American box office, beating Rob Zombie's Halloween II, earning $28.3 million during its first weekend.

Only the Blu-ray Disc version included two alternate endings, a "making of" featurette about the deaths, storyboard visualization and a preview of A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010).