Every Naruto Movie in Release Order

The Naruto movies turn the world of hidden villages, rival ninja, dangerous missions, and stubborn optimism into self-contained theatrical adventures. Some are colorful side quests; others connect closely with the larger story and give key characters room to grow. If you want to watch them the way moviegoers first encountered them, follow the original Japanese theatrical release dates below.

This guide covers the 11 animated theatrical films released between 2004 and 2015: the three original Naruto films, seven films released under the Naruto: Shippuden banner, and Boruto: Naruto the Movie. The order is by Japanese premiere, not by the events inside each story. That distinction matters because most of the earlier films were made as bonus adventures and do not fit neatly into the anime’s continuity.

Naruto movies in release order at a glance

Dates below are the original theatrical release dates in Japan. Overseas launches, television premieres, and home-video releases may have happened later. Use the Japanese dates to preserve the franchise’s original cinema sequence.

The original Naruto trilogy

The first three movies arrive during the original Naruto era, when Naruto is still a young genin learning how to work with Team 7 and the other Leaf shinobi. Their plots are built like extended missions: a new land, a client to protect, a strange threat, and a chance for Naruto to prove that determination can change the way people see one another. They are easy to enjoy as bonus adventures, especially if you want more time with the original team dynamic.

1. Naruto the Movie: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow — August 21, 2004

The franchise’s first theatrical feature sends Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura, and Kakashi on an unusual escort assignment: protect a film crew travelling to the Land of Snow. Their famous client, actress Yukie Fujikaze, is reluctant to return to the country she left behind, and the crew soon discovers that the icy landscape hides a political struggle. Snowbound fortresses, masked attackers, and the promise of a hidden treasure turn what looks like a simple job into a full-scale mission.

What makes Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow a fitting first movie is its use of the early Team 7 lineup. Naruto’s brash energy clashes with Yukie’s guarded attitude, while Sakura and Sasuke contribute the teamwork and combat fans expect from the series. The setting also gives the movie a different visual identity from the warm greens and village streets of the television show: the snowfields, frozen passes, and cold blue palette make the adventure feel immediately cinematic.

As a first film, it is a friendly entry point for viewers who already know the main characters. The story is self-contained, so it is best treated as a side mission rather than a missing chapter of the manga. For release-order viewers, begin after the early original-series stretch and then move on without expecting later episodes to refer back to it.

2. Naruto the Movie: Legend of the Stone of Gelel — August 6, 2005

The second movie shifts the mood from a snowy escort mission to a large fantasy quest. Naruto, Sakura, and Shikamaru cross paths with Temujin, a young warrior connected to a conflict over the powerful Stone of Gelel. The mineral’s energy has drawn the attention of people who want to use it to build a new world, and the Leaf team is pulled into a struggle that stretches across ruins, deserts, and hidden strongholds.

Legend of the Stone of Gelel leans into classic adventure imagery: an ancient power, an idealistic rival, a secretive organization, and a landscape that seems to open into a much bigger world beyond the Hidden Leaf. Naruto’s connection with Temujin gives the film its emotional centre. The two young fighters approach strength and purpose from different directions, and their conversations add a reflective thread beneath the action.

The film also gives Shikamaru and Sakura space to contribute outside the usual Team 7 pattern. If you like the franchise’s world-building and want a self-contained story with a strong fantasy flavour, this is a rewarding second stop. Its events are not required to understand the main anime, but its themes of power, choice, and the cost of pursuing an ideal fit naturally beside the series.

3. Naruto the Movie: Guardians of the Crescent Moon Kingdom — August 5, 2006

The original-series trilogy closes with a mission built around an unlikely client. Naruto, Sakura, Rock Lee, and Kakashi are assigned to escort Prince Michiru and his son Hikaru back to the Crescent Moon Kingdom. The wealthy family is used to a life of comfort, but the journey puts them in the path of a coup and forces Hikaru to decide whether he can act with courage when the danger becomes real.

This film’s appeal is its lighter, more playful tone. The royal entourage brings comic excess, the island kingdom offers colourful scenery, and Rock Lee’s presence adds energetic martial-arts moments to the group’s dynamic. Beneath the jokes, the story asks what responsibility looks like when someone has grown up insulated from hardship. Naruto recognizes the value of persistence, but the movie also gives Hikaru room to make his own choice rather than simply being rescued.

As the last movie set around the original Naruto era, it makes a natural capstone for the first three releases. It is still a side story, but it gives fans one more mission with familiar early-series versions of these characters before the timeline and tone shift into Shippuden.

The Naruto Shippuden movie run

The next seven films were released while Naruto: Shippuden was telling a longer, more serious story about returning home, changing friendships, the Akatsuki, and the growing scale of the ninja world. The films do not all share the same continuity status. Most were designed to work as stand-alone theatrical adventures, so release order is the cleanest way to enjoy them without trying to force every event into a precise episode slot.

4. Naruto Shippuden the Movie — August 4, 2007

The first Shippuden film begins with a prophecy. Naruto is assigned to protect Shion, a priestess whose visions suggest that he is destined to die. A dangerous demon and its followers threaten the world, and the mission places Naruto in a difficult position: keep Shion safe while confronting a future she believes cannot be changed.

The story plays with one of Naruto’s defining traits. He has spent his life refusing to accept that other people get to decide his fate, so Shion’s certainty becomes a challenge as personal as the enemy itself. Their early interactions are prickly, with Shion’s guarded manner colliding against Naruto’s blunt insistence that he can choose a different outcome. That tension gives the movie more emotional shape than a simple monster hunt.

Visually, the film moves through ruined shrines, ominous landscapes, and high-impact battles that fit the darker edge of the Shippuden era. It also establishes a pattern for the following films: a mission that begins with a clear assignment, then expands into questions of loyalty, sacrifice, or destiny. It is a good first taste of the movie series’ more dramatic direction.

5. Naruto Shippuden the Movie: Bonds — August 2, 2008

Bonds opens with an attack from the sky. Shinobi from the Land of the Sky strike the Hidden Leaf, and Naruto joins forces with a young medical ninja named Amaru and her mentor, Shinnō. The mission grows more complicated when the threat leads toward Sasuke and Orochimaru, forcing Naruto to face the possibility that his friend may be involved with the enemy once again.

The title points toward the film’s central idea: bonds are tested by distance, conflicting loyalties, and the choices people make when they think they have no other path. Naruto’s determination to reach Sasuke sits beside Amaru’s own loyalty to the person who raised and trained her. The plot gives the movie a strong emotional engine, even as aerial battles and a massive flying fortress keep the action moving.

For longtime fans, the appeal is the uneasy possibility of Naruto and Sasuke fighting on the same side. Their relationship has always been defined by both rivalry and connection, and Bonds draws energy from that tension. The movie is best enjoyed as a stand-alone adventure with familiar emotional stakes rather than as a strict account of what happens between particular anime episodes.

6. Naruto Shippuden the Movie: The Will of Fire — August 1, 2009

This entry begins with an alarming pattern: shinobi who possess powerful inherited abilities disappear from several villages. Suspicion spreads, alliances begin to fray, and the possibility of a larger war hangs over the Five Great Nations. Kakashi becomes central to the crisis, while Naruto and his friends are left to decide what they will risk to save their teacher and protect the fragile trust between villages.

The Will of Fire takes its name from a belief that the next generation inherits the duty to protect the village and the people within it. The movie gives that idea a painful test. Naruto is not willing to treat Kakashi as expendable, even when the adults around him frame sacrifice as the only way to prevent disaster. Sakura, Sai, and the rest of the team must weigh loyalty against the consequences of acting on their own.

Because the film focuses on bonds between teachers and students, it feels especially close to the emotional heart of the series. Its political scale is larger than the early movies, but the story keeps returning to an intimate question: what does it mean to protect someone? The result is one of the most thematically recognisable Shippuden movie adventures.

7. Naruto Shippuden the Movie: The Lost Tower — July 31, 2010

A mission to capture the missing-nin Mukade sends Naruto and Yamato to the ruined city of Rōran. Mukade is searching for the ancient energy of the Ryūmyaku, and when the power erupts, Naruto is thrown decades into the past. There he encounters Minato Namikaze before the Fourth Hokage has become a legend, along with people whose lives connect to Rōran’s history.

The time-displacement premise lets the film explore a question fans naturally ask: what would Naruto make of meeting his father before either of them fully understands what the future holds? The story uses that meeting carefully. Naruto does not arrive with a complete explanation of everything to come; instead, the emotional pull comes from the trust and instinctive understanding that grow between them during a dangerous mission.

Rōran’s towering architecture and the Ryūmyaku’s luminous energy give the movie an expansive, almost mythic atmosphere. It is a satisfying pick for viewers who enjoy the lore around Minato and want to see Naruto’s own qualities reflected in another generation. Treat the movie’s time travel as a feature-film adventure, since it is not a puzzle piece needed to decode the anime’s official chronology.

8. Naruto Shippuden the Movie: Blood Prison — July 30, 2011

In Blood Prison, Naruto is accused of attacking the Raikage and is sent to Hōzuki Castle, a fortress designed to keep dangerous ninja under tight control. The warden, Mui, uses a technique called the Fire Style: Heavenly Prison to suppress the prisoners’ chakra. Naruto’s task is no longer a conventional rescue or escort; he has to survive an oppressive environment, understand what is happening behind the walls, and find a way to prove the truth.

The prison setting changes the rhythm of the series. Rather than moving quickly from village to battlefield, the story keeps Naruto boxed in with people he cannot immediately trust. Alliances are fragile, every escape attempt carries a cost, and the mystery around Mui’s motives supplies the tension. It is a more claustrophobic kind of adventure, with the fortress itself acting like a constant opponent.

The movie suits viewers who like a mystery layered into their action anime. Naruto’s optimism remains present, but it has to work inside a place designed to crush hope and isolate people. The film is often discussed for its tricky place in continuity; watching it in release order avoids overpromising where it fits relative to every Shippuden arc.

9. Road to Ninja: Naruto the Movie — July 28, 2012

Road to Ninja takes Naruto and Sakura into a version of the Hidden Leaf that feels familiar at first glance and unsettling as they look closer. The masked man Tobi traps them in an alternate reality where many people behave differently. Naruto’s parents are alive, Sakura’s home life has changed in a way she never wanted, and the people they know seem to reflect the desires or fears they usually hide.

The alternate-world idea gives the movie a playful surface and a more personal core. Naruto has always imagined what life might have been like if his parents had been there, but meeting a version of that dream forces him to think about what he has gained through the family and friendships he built himself. Sakura’s experience runs in the other direction: the change she thought she wanted becomes complicated when she has to live with its consequences.

Creator Masashi Kishimoto was directly involved in the story and character concepts, which helped make this film stand out from the earlier side missions. Its alternate personalities create plenty of comedy, while the emotional material gives the film a stronger sense of character than a simple parallel-universe gimmick. It is often a fan favourite and a strong bridge between the stand-alone Shippuden releases and the more consequential films that follow.

The two films that move the larger story forward

The theatrical schedule had a gap after Road to Ninja, and the next pair of movies arrived with a closer connection to the story’s main characters and the next generation. They are the films most worth prioritising if you are following the overall narrative, while still being enjoyable as cinematic finales to the original saga and a starting point for Boruto.

10. The Last: Naruto the Movie — December 6, 2014

Set after the Fourth Great Ninja War, The Last shifts the focus from stopping a war to protecting the peace that followed it. The moon is on a collision course with Earth, and Hanabi Hyūga is kidnapped by Toneri Ōtsutsuki. Naruto, Hinata, Sakura, Shikamaru, and Sai set out on a rescue mission that gradually reveals Toneri’s larger plan and the danger facing the planet.

The movie is also the franchise’s most direct exploration of Naruto and Hinata as a couple. Their bond had been built over years of quiet admiration, encouragement, and shared danger; the film gives those feelings space to become part of the main story. Hinata’s courage is central, and Naruto has to learn to understand the support she has offered him for so long. The romance is not separate from the action: it changes how both characters respond to the crisis.

Unlike most earlier films, The Last is an important narrative bridge between the war’s conclusion and the later era. It is best watched after the Fourth Great Ninja War reaches its ending, rather than early in the Shippuden run. If you want the emotional resolution of Naruto’s journey and the transition toward his adult life, this is the essential theatrical stop.

11. Boruto: Naruto the Movie — August 7, 2015

The final movie in the theatrical release list hands the story to Naruto’s son. Boruto Uzumaki is frustrated by his father’s responsibilities as Hokage and wants to surpass him, even as Naruto’s work keeps him away from home. During the Chūnin Exams, Boruto trains under Sasuke Uchiha and meets a pair of powerful enemies whose attack forces the father and son to fight together.

The film’s emotional centre is the gap between what Boruto sees and what Naruto carries. Boruto sees an absent father; Naruto sees a village leader trying to protect thousands of people. Sasuke, who understands both rivalry and the burden of distant family ties, becomes a guide for Boruto. Their training gives the movie a clear progression from resentment toward respect, while the tournament setting provides spectacle and a natural stage for the next generation to show what it can do.

Boruto: Naruto the Movie closes the original theatrical run and opens the door to the sequel era. The Boruto anime later retells and expands much of the same Chūnin Exams material, so viewers who plan to watch the series can choose between seeing the compact film version first or moving directly to the show’s adaptation. For release-order completeness, the movie belongs here, after The Last.

Which Naruto movies are canon?

The short answer is that most of the movies are optional side stories. The original trilogy and the majority of the Shippuden run introduce characters, villains, locations, and threats that do not become essential parts of the manga’s central plot. You can skip those films and still follow the main anime story without losing a required reveal. Their value is different: they offer more missions with beloved characters, often with a bigger set piece or a fresh setting than a weekly episode could provide.

The Last is the clearest film to watch as part of the main story because it fills in the postwar period and develops Naruto and Hinata’s relationship before the next generation. Boruto: Naruto the Movie also belongs to the official sequel era, though its story is later adapted and expanded in the Boruto anime. This means you do not necessarily need to watch both versions to understand the Chūnin Exams conflict, but the movie remains a distinct theatrical presentation with its own pacing and polished action sequences.

For official franchise background, visit the Naruto Official Site and its pages for Naruto: Shippuden and Boruto. For film availability and catalogue information, check VIZ’s Naruto movie listings. Release dates in this guide refer to the original Japanese premieres; international distribution dates can differ.

How to watch the Naruto films with the anime

If you are revisiting the franchise, a release-order marathon is the easiest route: watch the original Naruto series, add the first three films in order, continue into Shippuden and place its films in the sequence shown above, then finish with The Last and Boruto. This plan preserves the order audiences encountered the movies and prevents the later sequel-era films from appearing before the characters and relationships they assume you already know.

For a more continuity-conscious approach, treat the first three films and most Shippuden movies as optional companion adventures. You can watch each during its corresponding series era, but do not interrupt a major arc just to force an exact episode placement unless you are following a detailed episode-by-episode guide. The Last works best once the war storyline has concluded. Boruto works after the end of Shippuden, or before the anime’s adaptation of the Chūnin Exams material if you want to compare the film with the series version.

New viewers do not need to start with all 11 films. Begin with the television story and add the movies that interest you. Choose Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow for early Team 7, The Will of Fire for a teacher-and-student story, Road to Ninja for an alternate-world character study, The Last for the postwar relationship arc, and Boruto for the next generation. That shortlist offers very different sides of the franchise without turning a first watch into a checklist.

If the movie titles make you want to explore more of the setting, browse our Naruto Characters, Naruto Clans, and Naruto Villages guides. You can also visit the Anime Movies blog for more film watch guides and the Anime blog for broader series explainers.

Frequently asked questions

How many Naruto movies are there?

There are 11 animated theatrical films in the Naruto and Boruto movie sequence covered here. That total includes three original Naruto movies, seven films released during the Shippuden era, and Boruto: Naruto the Movie. It does not count television specials, OVAs, compilation features, or live-action projects.

What is the first Naruto movie?

The first theatrical movie is Naruto the Movie: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow, released in Japan on August 21, 2004. It follows Team 7 on an escort mission involving actress Yukie Fujikaze and the Land of Snow.

Should I watch Naruto movies in release order?

Yes, release order is a straightforward choice for a complete watch. It keeps each movie within the era when it reached audiences and makes the shift from original Naruto to Shippuden and then Boruto easy to follow. It also avoids treating optional movie plots as mandatory continuity chapters.

Do I need to watch every Naruto movie?

No. The earlier theatrical films are enjoyable extras, not prerequisites for understanding the main storyline. If you are short on time, prioritize The Last: Naruto the Movie for the postwar story and Boruto: Naruto the Movie for the sequel-era conflict. Add the others when you want more adventures with the original cast.

Which Naruto movies are most important to the main story?

The Last has the strongest connection to the main Naruto storyline, while Boruto introduces the next generation and a major sequel-era event. Most of the other movies are stand-alone missions. Fans may rank the stand-alone films differently, but their plots are not required to follow the core manga adaptation.

Is Boruto: Naruto the Movie included in the Naruto movie order?

Yes. It is the eleventh film in this theatrical release sequence and the first feature focused on Naruto’s son and his generation. It was released after The Last and is normally watched after completing Naruto: Shippuden.

Does release order match chronological order?

Not exactly. Release order reflects when films premiered, while chronological placement asks where a story might fit among episodes. Because most films are self-contained and some have continuity inconsistencies, there is no single flawless episode-by-episode placement for every title. Release order is the most reliable way to experience the cinema run.

The complete Naruto movie journey

Watched in release order, the films trace a memorable evolution: snowy escort missions with the young Team 7, larger Shippuden-era threats and emotional tests, then a postwar story that points toward the future. The franchise’s theatrical adventures vary in continuity and tone, but together they add more landscapes, rivalries, and character moments to a world built around perseverance and connection.

Start with the first film or jump to the entry that matches your favourite era. However you choose, let the release list guide the journey, keep the distinction between stand-alone stories and main-continuity entries in mind, and enjoy seeing the shinobi world expand from one generation to the next. 🍥✨