Claim: Star Trek was directed by J. J. Abrams.

The Star Trek film series is the cinematic branch of the Star Trek media franchise , which began in 1966 as a weekly television series on NBC , running for three seasons until it was canceled in 1969 because of poor ratings . Reruns of the series proved to be wildly successful in syndication during the 1970s , which persuaded the series ' then-owner , Paramount Pictures , to expand the franchise .   Paramount originally began work on a Star Trek feature film in 1975 after lobbying by the creator of the franchise , Gene Roddenberry . The studio scrapped the project two years later in favor of creating a television series , Star Trek : Phase II , with the original cast . However , following the huge success of Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind in 1977 , Paramount changed its mind again , halting production on the television series and adapting its pilot episode into a Star Trek feature film , Star Trek : The Motion Picture -LRB- 1979 -RRB- . Five more Star Trek feature films featuring the entire original cast followed . The cast of the 1987 -- 1994 Star Trek spin-off series Star Trek : The Next Generation starred in a further four films . After a 6-year hiatus following the release of Star Trek : Nemesis -LRB- 2002 -RRB- , a new film was released on May 16 , 2009 , simply titled Star Trek , serving as a reboot to the franchise with a new cast portraying younger versions of the original series ' characters . A sequel to Star Trek -LRB- 2009 -RRB- , Star Trek Into Darkness , was released in theaters on May 16 , 2013 . A second sequel , Star Trek Beyond , was released on July 22 , 2016 , on the franchise 's 50th anniversary .   The Star Trek films have received 15 Academy Award nominations . Star Trek -LRB- 2009 -RRB- won for Best Makeup in 2010 , and four of the previous films were nominated mainly in the areas of makeup , music , set design and sound design .   The early Star Trek films , the first to tenth film , were originally released on VHS ; competitive pricing of The Wrath of Khans videocassette helped bolster the adoption of VHS players in households . Later films were also released on LaserDisc as well . For those films that did not receive an initial DVD release , Paramount released simple one-disc versions with no special features . Later , the first ten films were released in two-disc collector 's versions , with The Motion Picture and The Wrath of Khan branded as `` director 's cuts '' , followed by later box set releases . All of the films are now available on Blu-ray , digital download , streaming media and video on demand .