Panem is what's left of North America: a rich Capitol and twelve poor districts that rebelled once and lost. Every year, as punishment and as a reminder, each district must send one boy and one girl between twelve and eighteen to the Hunger Games, a televised fight to the death in which only one tribute survives. When her twelve-year-old sister Prim is chosen, sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen volunteers to take her place.
Suzanne Collins published the trilogy between 2008 and 2010, and Lionsgate adapted it into four films between 2012 and 2015. Two prequels followed: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (2020, filmed in 2023) and Sunrise on the Reaping (2025), whose film adaptation is scheduled for November 2026. Panem is organised by district, so this guide is too.
- Author
- Suzanne Collins
- Trilogy
- The Hunger Games (2008), Catching Fire (2009), Mockingjay (2010)
- Prequels
- The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (2020); Sunrise on the Reaping (2025)
- Films
- Four films, 2012–2015; Ballad, 2023; Sunrise announced for 2026
- Setting
- Panem, a future North America
District 12
District 12 is the poorest district, a coal-mining town in what used to be Appalachia. In more than seventy years of Games it has produced just two victors, and the only one still alive, Haymitch, is usually drunk.
Katniss Everdeen
Tribute · The Mockingjay
Katniss has kept her family alive since her father died in a mine explosion, hunting illegally in the woods with a bow. She's practical, guarded and bad at performing feelings for cameras, which is exactly what the Games demand. Her trick with the poisonous berries at the end of the 74th Games turns her into a symbol of rebellion she never meant to become. Much of the trilogy is about her trying to keep the people she loves alive while others use her image for their own ends.
- Film
- Jennifer Lawrence
Peeta Mellark
Tribute · Baker's son
Peeta once threw Katniss a burnt loaf of bread when her family was starving, and he has loved her since they were children. He's gentle, persuasive and a gifted painter, and he's far better at winning a crowd than Katniss is. Captured and tortured by the Capitol in Mockingjay, he comes back with his memories poisoned against her. Their slow rebuilding of trust is the trilogy's real ending.
- Film
- Josh Hutcherson
Gale Hawthorne
Katniss's hunting partner
Gale has hunted with Katniss since they were fourteen and twelve. He's angry at the Capitol in a way she isn't yet, and he becomes a committed soldier for District 13. His talent for designing traps that target human instincts, not just soldiers, becomes the line Katniss can't forgive.
- Film
- Liam Hemsworth
Haymitch Abernathy
Victor of the 50th Games · Mentor
Haymitch is the district's only surviving victor and the mentor no one wants. Under the drinking is a sharp political mind and decades of grief. By the time of the Quarter Quell he is working with the rebels. The second prequel, Sunrise on the Reaping, tells his own story.
- Film
- Woody Harrelson
Primrose "Prim" Everdeen
Katniss's younger sister
Prim is the reason Katniss volunteers. She's gentle, loves animals (and her ugly cat, Buttercup), and grows into a capable young healer in District 13. Her fate in Mockingjay decides how Katniss acts in the final chapters.
- Film
- Willow Shields
Mrs. Everdeen
Katniss's mother · Healer
Katniss's mother collapsed into depression after her husband's death, leaving her daughter to provide. Katniss resents her for it, and the books handle their wary reconciliation without forcing it.
- Film
- Paula Malcomson
Madge Undersee
Mayor's daughter (books)
Madge gives Katniss the mockingjay pin in the book. The films leave her out and have Katniss find the pin herself. The pin's history becomes important in Sunrise on the Reaping.
Tributes and victors by district
Each district has its own industry, and the richer ones near the Capitol train "Careers" who volunteer for glory. The first book's tributes are mostly met in the arena; the 75th Games, the Third Quarter Quell in Catching Fire, reap from existing victors instead.
| District | Industry | 74th Games tributes | Victors in the Quarter Quell |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Luxury goods | Glimmer, Marvel | Gloss, Cashmere |
| 2 | Masonry, Peacekeepers | Cato, Clove | Brutus, Enobaria |
| 3 | Technology | Unnamed boy and girl | Beetee, Wiress |
| 4 | Fishing | Unnamed boy and girl | Finnick Odair, Mags |
| 5 | Power | "Foxface" | — |
| 7 | Lumber | — | Johanna Mason, Blight |
| 8 | Textiles | — | Woof, Cecelia |
| 11 | Agriculture | Rue, Thresh | Chaff, Seeder |
| 12 | Coal | Katniss, Peeta | Katniss, Peeta |
Rue
District 11 tribute
Rue is twelve, small and quick, and she reminds Katniss of Prim. The two form an alliance in the arena. Her death, and the way Katniss honours her body with flowers on camera, is what first sparks open defiance in the districts.
- Film
- Amandla Stenberg
Thresh
District 11 tribute
Thresh is a huge, silent boy from Rue's district who refuses to join the Careers. He spares Katniss once, for Rue's sake, and that act of mercy is one of the first book's turning points.
- Film
- Dayo Okeniyi
Cato
District 2 tribute · Career
Cato is the strongest of the Careers, trained his whole life to win. He leads the pack hunting Katniss and becomes the final obstacle in the 74th Games. In his last moments he realises he was only ever a piece in someone else's show.
- Film
- Alexander Ludwig
Clove
District 2 tribute · Career
Clove is a knife-thrower and one of the most dangerous tributes in the arena. Her ambush of Katniss at the feast is interrupted by Thresh.
- Film
- Isabelle Fuhrman
Glimmer and Marvel
District 1 tributes · Careers
The District 1 pair belong to the Career pack. Glimmer dies after Katniss drops a nest of tracker jackers, genetically engineered wasps, on the group. Marvel is the tribute who kills Rue.
- Film
- Leven Rambin; Jack Quaid
Foxface
District 5 tribute
Katniss's nickname for a clever, red-haired girl who survives by avoiding fights and stealing supplies. She's never named in the books. Her end, caused by eating berries she saw Peeta gather, matters to the finale.
- Film
- Jacqueline Emerson
Finnick Odair
District 4 victor
Finnick won his Games at fourteen and became the Capitol's favourite, handsome, flirtatious and apparently shallow. In the Quarter Quell he turns out to be a loyal ally who has been forced into a life he hates, and in Mockingjay he exposes Snow's secrets on air. His love for Annie Cresta is among the trilogy's few uncomplicated romances.
- Film
- Sam Claflin
Mags
Elderly District 4 victor
Mags is an old woman who volunteers for the Quarter Quell so that Annie, who is fragile, won't have to go. She mentored Finnick and carries no grudges. Her quiet sacrifice in the arena tells you how the victors look after each other.
- Film
- Lynn Cohen
Johanna Mason
District 7 victor
Johanna won by pretending to be weak, then killing ruthlessly with an axe. She's abrasive and funny, and she has nothing left the Capitol can take from her. She's part of the rebel plot in the Quell and suffers badly for it.
- Film
- Jena Malone
Beetee and Wiress
District 3 victors
Beetee is an inventor, and Wiress, his district partner, notices patterns no one else does. In the Quell, Wiress works out that the arena is laid out like a clock. Beetee's plan with a coil of wire is how the arena is finally broken, and he designs weapons for District 13 afterwards.
- Film
- Jeffrey Wright; Amanda Plummer
Brutus and Enobaria
District 2 victors
The District 2 victors are proud, eager Careers. Enobaria had her teeth filed into points after winning by biting out a tribute's throat. Both stay loyal to the Capitol through the Quell.
- Film
- Bruno Gunn; Meta Golding
Annie Cresta
District 4 victor
Annie won her Games when an arena flooded and she was the best swimmer, but she has been mentally scarred ever since. She marries Finnick in District 13.
The Capitol
The Capitol is a city of fashion and spectacle that eats well while the districts starve. Most of its people aren't villains so much as willingly blind, and several of them turn out to be on Katniss's side.
President Coriolanus Snow
President of Panem
Snow is a soft-spoken old man who smells of roses and blood. He sees Katniss's berry trick at once for what it is, a challenge to his power, and spends two books trying to control or destroy her. He is ruthless but oddly honest with her. The first prequel shows him at eighteen, and how the boy became the president.
- Film
- Donald Sutherland; Tom Blyth (young)
Effie Trinket
District 12 escort
Effie runs the reaping in District 12, cares deeply about manners and schedules, and wears increasingly outrageous wigs. She's shallow at first and slowly comes to care about her tributes. The films give her a larger role in the rebellion than the books do.
- Film
- Elizabeth Banks
Cinna
Stylist
Cinna is a new stylist who asks for District 12 and makes Katniss "the girl who was on fire". He's calm, kind and quietly political, and his costumes carry messages the Capitol notices too late. He pays for that.
- Film
- Lenny Kravitz
Plutarch Heavensbee
Head Gamemaker · Secret rebel
Plutarch replaces Seneca Crane as Head Gamemaker for the Quarter Quell and is secretly organising the plan to break the victors out. He's a showman who sees the revolution as the best production of his career, which is both useful and a bit chilling.
- Film
- Philip Seymour Hoffman
Caesar Flickerman
Host of the Games interviews
Caesar has interviewed tributes for decades, always in a different shade of hair. He's a genuinely skilled host who tries to make every tribute look good, which makes him a strange, likable part of a terrible machine.
- Film
- Stanley Tucci
Seneca Crane
Head Gamemaker of the 74th Games
Seneca designs the 74th arena and makes the rule change that allows two winners from one district, then lets Katniss and Peeta both live. Snow doesn't forgive the mistake.
- Film
- Wes Bentley
Tigris
Former stylist · Snow's cousin
Tigris shelters Katniss's squad in her shop in Mockingjay. The first prequel shows her as Coriolanus's kind, hard-working cousin when they were young.
- Film
- Eugenie Bondurant; Hunter Schafer (young)
District 13 and the rebels
District 13 was thought destroyed in the first rebellion. It survived underground, armed and disciplined, and in Mockingjay it leads the war. Collins makes it clear that the rebels' leadership isn't much kinder than the Capitol's.
President Alma Coin
Leader of District 13
Coin is a cool, efficient leader who wants Katniss as a propaganda figure and sees her as a threat once the war is won. Her proposal to hold one last Hunger Games, with Capitol children, shows what kind of ruler she'd be.
- Film
- Julianne Moore
Boggs
Coin's second-in-command
Boggs is a steady, decent soldier assigned to protect Katniss. He becomes one of the few people in 13 she trusts, and he passes her his command when he is fatally wounded in the Capitol.
- Film
- Mahershala Ali
Cressida
Rebel film director
Cressida is a former Capitol director who defected to make the rebels' propaganda films, the "propos". She and her crew follow Katniss into the Capitol.
- Film
- Natalie Dormer
Commander Paylor
Rebel leader from District 8
Paylor commands the rebels in District 8 and later 2. She's a plain-spoken soldier who earns Katniss's respect, and she becomes Panem's next president.
The prequels
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
Set at the 10th Hunger Games, 64 years before Katniss, when the Games were crude and barely watched. Eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow, from a fallen Capitol family, is assigned to mentor the girl tribute from District 12, a travelling singer named Lucy Gray Baird. The book follows him as he invents some of the ideas that make the Games what they become.
Coriolanus Snow (young)
Academy student · Mentor
Coriolanus is clever, hungry and obsessed with restoring his family's name. He's capable of real affection and chooses power over it every time it counts.
- Film
- Tom Blyth
Lucy Gray Baird
District 12 tribute · The Covey
Lucy Gray is a performer from the Covey, a band of travelling musicians. She wins the crowd with a song at the reaping and wins Coriolanus with her nerve. Her songs echo through the original trilogy in ways readers enjoy spotting.
- Film
- Rachel Zegler
Sejanus Plinth
Coriolanus's classmate
Sejanus was born in District 2 and his newly rich family moved to the Capitol. He hates the Games and wants to help the tributes, which makes him a danger to anyone close to him.
- Film
- Josh Andrés Rivera
Dr. Volumnia Gaul
Head Gamemaker
Dr. Gaul runs the Games as an experiment in human nature and breeds monstrous creatures in her lab. She takes a special interest in Coriolanus.
- Film
- Viola Davis
Casca Highbottom
Dean of the Academy
Highbottom is an addicted, bitter academic who has a long-standing grudge against the Snow family. He also regrets an idea he once had.
- Film
- Peter Dinklage
Sunrise on the Reaping
Published in March 2025, the second prequel follows sixteen-year-old Haymitch Abernathy through the 50th Hunger Games, the Second Quarter Quell, when each district sends twice the usual number of tributes. Characters include his girlfriend, Lenore Dove Baird, and Maysilee Donner, a fellow District 12 tribute connected to the mockingjay pin. A film adaptation directed by Francis Lawrence is scheduled for November 2026, with Joseph Zada as the young Haymitch and Ralph Fiennes as President Snow.
Hunger Games film cast
| Character | Actor | Films |
|---|---|---|
| Katniss Everdeen | Jennifer Lawrence | 2012–2015 |
| Peeta Mellark | Josh Hutcherson | 2012–2015 |
| Gale Hawthorne | Liam Hemsworth | 2012–2015 |
| Haymitch Abernathy | Woody Harrelson | 2012–2015 |
| Effie Trinket | Elizabeth Banks | 2012–2015 |
| President Snow | Donald Sutherland | 2012–2015 |
| Cinna | Lenny Kravitz | 2012–2013 |
| Caesar Flickerman | Stanley Tucci | 2012–2015 |
| Primrose Everdeen | Willow Shields | 2012–2015 |
| Rue | Amandla Stenberg | 2012 |
| Finnick Odair | Sam Claflin | 2013–2015 |
| Johanna Mason | Jena Malone | 2013–2015 |
| Plutarch Heavensbee | Philip Seymour Hoffman | 2013–2015 |
| Alma Coin | Julianne Moore | 2014–2015 |
| Coriolanus Snow (young) | Tom Blyth | 2023 |
| Lucy Gray Baird | Rachel Zegler | 2023 |
Gary Ross directed the first film; Francis Lawrence directed every film since, including The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.
Reading and watch order
- The Hunger Games (book 2008, film 2012) — the 74th Games.
- Catching Fire (2009, film 2013) — the Victory Tour and the Third Quarter Quell.
- Mockingjay (2010, films 2014 and 2015 in two parts) — the war.
- The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (2020, film 2023) — young Snow and the 10th Games.
- Sunrise on the Reaping (2025, film scheduled for 2026) — young Haymitch and the 50th Games.
Chronological order (Ballad, Sunrise, then the trilogy) is possible, but both prequels assume you know how things turn out, and they're more interesting read that way. Our sequels and spinoffs guide has more on when prequels work best.
What the characters are about
The Hunger Games is about violence turned into entertainment, and about who profits from it. Katniss is a rare reluctant heroine: she doesn't want to lead anything, and the story is honest that both sides want her as a face, not a voice. That's why she sits in our guide to female protagonists and why the series is so often compared to Squid Game. Snow and Coin are two versions of the same idea, and Katniss's final choice is refusing both. Characters like Haymitch and Finnick show what surviving the Games costs, and our character deaths guide looks at why the trilogy's losses hit so hard. For another young-adult cast built around a looming war, see Percy Jackson.
All Hunger Games character names A–Z
A–C
- Alma Coin — District 13
- Annie Cresta — District 4
- Beetee — District 3
- Boggs — District 13
- Brutus — District 2
- Buttercup — Prim's cat
- Caesar Flickerman — Capitol
- Casca Highbottom — Capitol (Ballad)
- Cato — District 2
- Cinna — Capitol
- Clove — District 2
- Coriolanus Snow — Capitol
- Cressida — Rebels
E–G
- Effie Trinket — Capitol
- Enobaria — District 2
- Finnick Odair — District 4
- Foxface — District 5
- Gale Hawthorne — District 12
- Glimmer — District 1
H–M
- Haymitch Abernathy — District 12
- Johanna Mason — District 7
- Katniss Everdeen — District 12
- Lenore Dove Baird — District 12 (Sunrise)
- Lucy Gray Baird — District 12 (Ballad)
- Madge Undersee — District 12
- Mags — District 4
- Marvel — District 1
- Maysilee Donner — District 12 (Sunrise)
P–S
- Paylor — Rebels
- Peeta Mellark — District 12
- Plutarch Heavensbee — Capitol / Rebels
- Primrose Everdeen — District 12
- Rue — District 11
- Sejanus Plinth — Capitol (Ballad)
- Seneca Crane — Capitol
T–W
- Thresh — District 11
- Tigris — Capitol
- Volumnia Gaul — Capitol (Ballad)
- Wiress — District 3
Frequently asked questions
Who does Katniss end up with?
Peeta Mellark. After the war, Katniss and Peeta return to District 12, slowly rebuild their lives together and, in the epilogue, have two children. Gale takes a job in District 2, and the books suggest that what happened to Prim made it impossible for Katniss to be with him.
Who is Coriolanus Snow?
The president of Panem and the main villain of the original trilogy. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes shows him at eighteen, a poor but proud Capitol student mentoring a tribute in the 10th Hunger Games, and traces how he became the man Katniss knows.
What is Sunrise on the Reaping about?
Published in March 2025, it's the second prequel. It follows a sixteen-year-old Haymitch Abernathy from District 12 through the 50th Hunger Games, the Second Quarter Quell, when twice the usual number of tributes are reaped. Haymitch's victory and its cost were first mentioned in Catching Fire.
Who plays Katniss in The Hunger Games films?
Jennifer Lawrence played Katniss in all four films, from The Hunger Games (2012) to Mockingjay – Part 2 (2015). Josh Hutcherson played Peeta and Liam Hemsworth played Gale.
How old is Katniss in The Hunger Games?
Katniss is sixteen when she volunteers in the first book and seventeen by the end of Mockingjay. Her sister Prim is twelve when her name is drawn.
What order should I read The Hunger Games books in?
Publication order works well: the original trilogy first, then The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and Sunrise on the Reaping. The prequels lean on things you learn in the trilogy, so they land harder if you read them afterwards.