Bumblebee and the several future films in the works, the Transformers timeline is actually more ambiguous than we once thought. So to make a slightly confusing timeline less confusing, here's how to watch all the Transformers movies in chronological order (as opposed to release date order). Bumblebee (2018) Paramount Pictures Bumblebee is the most recent film to be released, but it is the first chronologically. The film is set 20 years before the first movie, in 1987, and despite it being a prequel it isn't a soft reboot of the franchise. However, the story does mess up some of the plots 'to come' (so to speak).