With a franchise as popular and prolific as Dragon Ball, the manga/anime series expanded its adaptation from multiple television series to a number of films. With so many movies to choose from the iconic Dragon Ball Z era alone, here’s how to watch them all in order.
Created by the late great Akira Toriyama, DBZ put out a number of anime movies while the long-running series was in production from 1989 to 1996. Though many don’t fit cleanly within the overarching narrative of the series itself, they are interspersed between noticeable moments and eras of the story. The last two anime movies to carry the DBZ branding would help kickstart the sequel series Dragon Ball Super, not only being canonical but serving as the basis for the first two major DBS story arcs. Here are all the DBZ movies in proper viewing order.
All Dragon Ball Z Movies in Order and When to Watch Them
There are 13 DBZ movies released during DBZ’s television run, with the first taking place just before the events of the show. There are multiple contradictions for many of the movies that essentially render them non-canonical to the series, with episode placement largely based on the character’s power level. The final three movies, including the two that set up Dragon Ball Super, are set during the ten-year time jump between Episodes 288 and 289 after the defeat of Majin Buu.
- Dead Zone (between Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z)
- The World’s Strongest (after Episode 39)
- Tree of Might (after Episode 66)
- Lord Slug (after Episode 85)
- Cooler’s Revenge (after Episode 124)
- The Return of Cooler (after Episode 146)
- Super Android 13! (after Episode 146)
- Broly: The Legendary Broly Super Saiyan (after Episode 169)
- Bojack Unbound (after Episode 195)
- Broly: Second Coming (after Episode 207)
- Bio-Broly (after Episode 239)
- Fusion Reborn (after Episode 265)
- Wrath of the Dragon (after Episode 288)
- Battle of Gods (after Episode 288)
- Resurrection “F” (after Episode 288)
What Dragon Ball Z Movies Are Canon
Of all 15 Dragon Ball Z movies, only Battle of Gods and Resurrection “F” are explicitly canonical, with the events of both films created in both the Dragon Ball Super anime and manga series. Most of the other 13 movies are non-canonical, with a handful of exceptions that could be considered in-continuity as they don’t explicitly contradict much of the manga/anime story.
Dead Zone takes place just before the events of DBZ, with Goku and Piccolo still mortal enemies while Gohan is still completely unaware of his latent potential. The movie’s principal antagonist, Garlic, Jr., resurfaces in a filler arc of DBZ, but as this story is strictly in the anime and not written by Toriyama himself, its canonicity is an open debate among fans.
Bojack Unbound and Wrath of the Dragon both fit organically within the timeline of DBZ without major contradiction to the main narrative, existing in a gray area of continuity that could have theoretically occurred but have no bearing on the official story. Dragon Ball GT directly references the events of Wrath of the Dragon, but with DBGT, it is no longer canonical due to its contradictions with DBS, and its continuity status remains nebulous.