The John Wick franchise takes place in a heightened reality in which the overwhelming majority of people are either professional assassins or bureaucrats in the murder business. At the top of it all, the High Table seems to control every aspect of life from New York City to Morocco. Who are the members of the Table, and what are they capable of?

Looking back, it's pretty amazing how far the John Wick franchise has come. The 2014 original is just a mid-budget neo-noir action film with a moderately small budget and a seemingly washed-up star. Just a few years later, the franchise is the central pillar of action cinema, and it only got there through pure quality.

RELATED: What To Expect From John Wick 4

What is The High Table in John Wick?

john wick speaks with the ballet leader

Inspired by the real-world Italian-American Mafia Commission, The High Table is the body that governs organized crime across the entire world. It's composed primarily of twelve individual gangs, each of whom supplies a leader to sit at the Table. Only seven of the twelve factions have been revealed in the films. The Russian Bratva, Chinese Triad, Japanese Yakuza, Latin American cartels, and Italian Camorra, Cosa Nostra, and 'Ndrangheta each occupy a seat. Underneath these massive factions, The High Table has a ton of smaller affiliated organizations. Most of the franchise has taken place within and around the smaller teams under the table. The most notable example is The Continental Hotel chain, which provides a place of peace for criminals.

Every known High Table member in John Wick

john-wick-elder Cropped

John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum introduced the man at the top of it all. The Elder is the highest-ranking individual in The High Table. He lives out in the desert, miles away from civilization. There's something mystical about him, partially because he appears immediately after the franchise's first mention of Hasan-i Sabbāh. The only thing fans have seen him do so far is grant John Wick a pardon. He insists upon a show of fealty, claims John Wick's ring finger, grants him clemency and orders him to kill Winston. The Elder is ostensibly the one giving the orders for everyone beneath him, but there's no way of knowing whether he'll return. Bill Skarsgård's character in the upcoming fourth entry promises "new management," which may very well take The Elder out of the picture. This strange desert-dwelling man is still in charge for now.

Underneath The Elder, each of the twelve criminal factions has representatives occupying seats at The High Table. Throughout the three films released so far, none of those seat fillers have been named. The plot of the second film centers almost entirely around a man who seeks a seat at the Table. Santino D'Antonio, the villain of John Wick: Chapter 2, drags John back from retirement to kill his sister Gianna. When the patriarch of the D'Antonio family passed away, he willed his seat to his daughter, leading his son to order her death. Santino gets to sit at the Table for around 48 hours before Wick kills him. The other representatives are still in the shadows.

A ton of affiliated organizations underneath and throughout The High Table. The Administration is a bureaucratic office that seems to handle their data entry jobs. The Soup Kitchen under The Bowery King is an information network that disguises its members as New York City homeless people. The Tarasov family from the first film seems to exist below the larger Russian mob. Ruska Roma under the Director, the unique underground facility that took in John Wick as an orphan, is somehow affiliated with the group. The Continental Hotel, run by Winston, earned "consecrated" status from The High Table until it was taken away in the third film. These smaller organizations seem to function day-to-day without intervention from the Table, but they're forced to comply when the Adjudicator comes around. Underneath all of these well-dressed crime lords exists a million assassins and goons, most of whom go unnamed before they're gunned down by John Wick.

How has The High Table changed in the John Wick films?

John-Wick-Chapter-3-Parabellum

The John Wick franchise leaves a lot to the imagination. So much of the story remains in the dark so that the filmmakers can come up with new ideas within the open boundaries. In the first film, the story simply followed a skilled hitman who used to work for the Tarasov Mob. That entire cast of characters is now small potatoes as John kills his way up the ranks. Much of the franchise takes inspiration from ancient mythology. A council of twelve mysterious figures that exert immense power over the lives of mere mortals sounds very familiar to fans of the Greek pantheon. As the franchise continues to build, it'll change details and expand its cast of villains whenever they need to.

John Wick has mastered an efficient storytelling style. While much of The High Table's work is still unknowable, there's fun to be had in the secrets. Learn more about The High Table or see it completely destroyed when John Wick: Chapter 4 comes to the big screen on March 24, 2023.

MORE: John Wick 4 Runtime Makes It The Longest Chapter In Keanu Reeves' Film Series