Naruto Watch Order

3 Oct 2002

A loud, friendless twelve-year-old with a monster sealed inside him wants to run the village that fears him. Excellent for 135 episodes, then it runs out of manga.

21 Aug 2004

The first film, and a side story. Team 7 escort an actress to a country that does not want her back.

6 Aug 2005

Armoured knights, a buried power source, and no bearing on anything.

5 Aug 2006

A spoilt prince, a circus and a coup. The last film before the time skip.

15 Feb 2007

Two and a half years on, with the story the first series was building to. Around two fifths of it is anime-original, woven through the arcs rather than blocked off between them.

4 Aug 2007

Naruto is told he will die protecting a priestess. He does not.

2 Aug 2008

An air raid on the Leaf, and a brief Sasuke team-up that the series never acknowledges.

1 Aug 2009

Kakashi is set up to be sacrificed. The best of the non-canon films by most accounts.

31 Jul 2010

Time travel, and twenty minutes with Minato that the film knows is its selling point.

27 Jul 2011

Naruto is imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. Darker than the rest, and better for it.

28 Jul 2012

An alternate world where everyone is their opposite and Naruto has parents. Kishimoto wrote it, and it shows.

6 Dec 2014

The one film that is canon. It sits between the war and the epilogue, and it is where Naruto and Hinata actually happens.

16 Sept 2015

Naruto as Hokage and a resentful son. The handover to the sequel series, and the point to stop if you are not continuing.

5 Apr 2017

Naruto’s son, in a village at peace, resenting a father who is never home. Slow to start and mostly anime-original, and the last hundred episodes are better than its reputation suggests.