The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
Captain Jack Sparrow first appears in The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003).
In his debut scene, Sparrow arrives in Port Royal, Jamaica on a sinking boat, seeking to commandeer a new ship. Despite rescuing Elizabeth Swann, the daughter of Governor Weatherby Swann, from drowning, he is jailed for piracy. That night, a cursed pirate ship called Black Pearl attacks Port Royal and Elizabeth is kidnapped. Black Pearl’s captain, Hector Barbossa, desperately seeks one last gold coin to break an ancient Aztec curse that he and his crew are under. A blacksmith named Will Turner frees Sparrow to aid him in rescuing Elizabeth. They commandeer HMS Interceptor and recruit a motley crew in Tortuga, Haiti before heading to Isla de Muerta, where Elizabeth is held captive. Along the way, Will learns that Sparrow was Black Pearl’s captain until Barbossa led a mutiny ten years earlier and took over the ship, marooning Sparrow on an island to die. Sparrow tells Turner that his father was a pirate known as “Bootstrap” Bill Turner.
The rescue attempt goes awry and Barbossa maroons Jack and Elizabeth on the same island upon which he had stranded Sparrow before. Elizabeth creates a signal fire from rum barrels and they are rescued by the Royal Navy. Sparrow cuts a deal with Commodore James Norrington to lead Norrington to Black Pearl. Norrington refuses until Elizabeth, desperate to save Will, spontaneously accepts Norrington’s earlier marriage proposal. Right before the film’s climactic battle with the pirates at Isla de Muerta, Sparrow swipes a cursed coin from the treasure chest, making himself immortal and capable of dueling Barbossa. He shoots his nemesis with the pistol he has carried for ten years just as Will breaks the curse, killing Barbossa. Despite having assisted the Navy, Sparrow is sentenced to hang.
At Sparrow’s execution in Port Royal, Will saves Sparrow, but they are quickly captured. Elizabeth intervenes, declaring her love for Will who is pardoned, while Sparrow escapes by tumbling off a sea wall. Black Pearl and her new crew arrive in time to retrieve him, and he becomes captain once more. Impressed by the wily pirate, Norrington allows him one day’s head start before giving chase.
Dead Man’s Chest
(2006)
A year following the events of the first film, Sparrow searches for the Dead Man’s Chest, which contains the heart of Captain Davy Jones. Sparrow made a bargain with Jones to raise the sunken Black Pearl and make Sparrow captain for thirteen years. Now the debt is due, and Sparrow must either serve one hundred years aboard the Flying Dutchman, or be dragged to Davy Jones’s Locker by the Kraken. If he can find the Dead Man’s Chest, Sparrow can free his soul and control Jones and the seas.
Adding to Sparrow’s woes, Lord Cutler Beckett of the East India Trading Company has a personal score to settle with Sparrow. Beckett wants the chest and forces Will Turner to search for Sparrow and his magic compass. Turner locates Sparrow and his crew on Pelegosto, held captive by cannibals who intend to eat Sparrow. They escape, and voyage to Tia Dalma (a magical woman later revealed to be the Goddess, Calypso, bound in human form as Dalma, and former lover of Jones). Dalma immediately sees destiny in Will, and provides Sparrow with a jar of dirt – Jones can only set foot on land once every 10 years, and since land is where Sparrow is safe, Dalma suggests with the dirt that he takes land with him.
Sparrow strikes a new deal with Jones to deliver one hundred souls in exchange for his own. Jones agrees but keeps Turner as a “good faith payment”. Sparrow is recruiting sailors in Tortuga when he encounters Elizabeth Swann and James Norrington, the latter having succumbed to alcohol. Sparrow convinces Elizabeth that Turner can be freed by using the magic compass to find the chest. The duo head for Isla Cruces and find Will, who escaped Jones’s ship and has stolen the key to the Chest. Turner wants to stab Jones’s heart and free his father from Jones’s servitude, while Norrington plots to restore his career by delivering the heart to Beckett. Sparrow wants it to convince Jones to call off the Kraken.
Norrington escapes with the heart amid a battle with Jones’s crew, and Jones summons the Kraken. Realizing Sparrow is the target, Elizabeth traps him aboard the Black Pearl as the crew abandons the ship, and kisses him while she handcuffs him to the mast. Then, the monster devours Sparrow and drags the ship and his soul to Davy Jones’s Locker. The surviving crew seeks refuge with Tia Dalma who produces a captain she says can rescue Sparrow: a resurrected Hector Barbossa.
At World’s End (2007)
Two months following the events of the second film, with Davy Jones’s heart in his possession and the Flying Dutchman under his command, Cutler Beckett begins exterminating all pirates. To combat Beckett, the nine pirate lords of the Brethren Court convene at Shipwreck Cove. Only Jack Sparrow is missing, killed and sent to Davy Jones’s Locker at the end of the previous film. Sparrow, as Pirate Lord of the Caribbean, must attend, as he did not bequeath to a designated heir his “piece of eight”, a pirate lord’s marker. The collective “nine pieces of eight” are needed to free sea goddess Calypso to defeat Beckett. With Elizabeth and Will, Barbossa leads Sparrow’s crew to Davy Jones’s Locker using stolen navigational charts from the pirate lord Sao Feng. After the crew locate him, Sparrow deciphers a clue on the charts allowing them to escape the Locker.
At the Brethren Court, Elizabeth has succeeded Captain Sao Feng as a Pirate Lord and is elected “Pirate King” after Sparrow breaks a stalemate vote. Sparrow is briefly reunited with his father, Captain Teague. During a parley with Beckett and Jones, Sparrow is traded for Turner, whom Jones and Beckett had captured. When Sparrow negotiates with Beckett in the extended version of the film, it is revealed that he once sailed the Black Pearl under Beckett’s command, but deserted after refusing to carry slave cargo. The Black Pearl battles the Flying Dutchman during a maelstrom created by Calypso, during which Sparrow steals Jones’s heart to become immortal. When Jones mortally wounds Turner, Sparrow instead chooses to save Turner by helping him stab the heart, which kills Jones and makes Turner the Dutchman’s captain. Together, the Pearl and the Dutchman destroy Beckett’s ship. At the end, Barbossa again commandeers the Pearl and Sao Feng’s charts, stranding Sparrow and Gibbs in Tortuga. However, Sparrow had managed to cut out the navigational section of the charts and with them begins to search for the legendary Fountain of Youth.
On Stranger Tides (2011)
After failing to find the Fountain of Youth, Sparrow arrives in London only to learn someone is gathering a crew by using his name. While searching for the imposter, he saves Gibbs from being hanged but is captured by the Royal Guards. They present him to King George II. Sparrow is surprised to learn Captain Barbossa is now a privateer in the Royal Navy. Sparrow refuses to negotiate with them to locate the Fountain of Youth and escapes. Soon he crosses paths with his impersonator, an old flame named Angelica. She shanghais him to serve aboard the Queen Anne’s Revenge, the ship captained by her father Blackbeard, who forces Sparrow to search for the Fountain of Youth.
Sparrow fails in his attempt to take over the ship in a mutiny against Blackbeard and save the naive Angelica from her evil father. After encountering dangerous mermaids, Barbossa, and the Spanish Navy, Sparrow locates the Fountain of Youth. When Angelica is wounded, he tricks Blackbeard into sacrificing himself to save her, and Angelica blames Sparrow for her father’s death. Sparrow and Angelica acknowledge their feelings for one another, but Sparrow maroons Angelica on an island, believing she may avenge her father’s death. Gibbs, meanwhile, has retrieved the shrunken Black Pearl from Blackbeard’s collection of shrunken ships in the hope of restoring it to normal size. Though he has forfeited his opportunity for immortality, Sparrow settles for being famous as the one who found the Fountain of Youth. Following the film’s end credits, Angelica’s voodoo doll of Sparrow has drifted to the island that she is marooned on.
Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017)
Some time after the quest for the Fountain of Youth, Jack has reassembled a small crew, but the Black Pearl is still trapped in a bottle, his new ship the Dying Gull has never left berth, and his latest plans have met with failure. Meanwhile, his rival Barbossa has become the richest and most powerful pirate of the seven seas.
Sparrow and his crew attempt to rob the new bank of St. Martin. The robbery is a success, but all the gold in it had fallen while they were dragging the locker, and Sparrow’s crew abandons him. Despondent, Jack trades his magical compass for a drink. However, this betrayal of the compass releases an old enemy of Sparrow, whom holds a serious grudge against him; the ruthless undead pirate hunter Captain Salazar. Years previously, Jack had defeated Salazar by tricking him into sailing his ship into the Devil’s Triangle, where Salazar and his crew were cursed to live as the undead. Salazar states that Jack perched in the ship’s rigging like a “little bird”, earning him the name “Jack the Sparrow”. It was during this event that Jack received his compass, as well as his characteristic gear.
While in prison, Jack is contacted by Henry Turner, the son of Will and Elizabeth, to seek his aid in finding the Trident of Poseidon. Remembering Elizabeth and Will from his previous misadventures, Jack agrees but not before expressing some hesitation. The next day, Sparrow is sentenced to be executed by guillotine (by Jack’s accidental choosing), but is rescued by Henry and his crew. Aided by aspiring astronomer Carina, Jack and Henry attempt to locate the Trident of Poseidon, as both are in need of its power to break curses related to the sea. Barbossa releases the Pearl from its bottle, giving them a chance to outrun Salazar. Jack and Barbossa discuss the fact that Carina is in truth Barbossa’s long-lost daughter, whom he had left at an orphanage in order to give her a chance for a better life. Jack attempts to use the secret to blackmail Barbossa, but fails.
They are able to track the Trident to its resting place. Though Salazar nearly kills Jack, they are able to destroy the Trident. With the destruction of the Trident, Salazar and his crew become mortal again. Jack, Henry and Carina escape as Barbossa sacrifices himself to kill Salazar. Despite their differences, Jack mourns Barbossa’s death. Later, Jack watches Will and Elizabeth’s reunion before he departs, the Black Pearl and his compass once again in his possession.