A landmark of animated sci-fi melodrama: brutal, psychologically raw, and formally fearless. It’s less a conventional sequel than a catastrophic emotional reckoning, with apocalyptic spectacle used to dissect loneliness, shame, dependency, and the terror of being known.
98% ★★★★★ (652,992)
Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion
Where to watch: In Theaters
Movie · Animation · Science Fiction · NR
1997 · 1h 27m · ★ 98% (653K)
The fate of destruction is also the joy of rebirth.
SEELE orders an all-out attack on NERV, aiming to destroy the Evas before Gendo can advance his own plans for the Human Instrumentality Project. Shinji is pushed to the limits of his sanity as he is forced to decide the fate of humanity.
Director
Kazuya Tsurumaki, Hideaki Anno
Production
GAINAX, movic, Star Child Recording, TV Tokyo, Production I.G, KADOKAWA Shoten
A landmark of animated sci-fi melodrama: brutal, psychologically raw, and formally fearless. It’s less a conventional sequel than a catastrophic emotional reckoning, with apocalyptic spectacle used to dissect loneliness, shame, dependency, and the terror of being known.
Best for
viewers who want challenging, experimental animation
fans of existential or psychological science fiction
people drawn to apocalyptic stories with emotional intensity
audiences who appreciate bold formal swings and symbolic imagery
Skip if
you want a clean standalone plot
you prefer upbeat or cathartic entertainment
graphic body horror and sexualized distress are dealbreakers
you dislike ambiguity, fragmentation, or confrontational filmmaking
Overview
The End of Evangelion is one of the most uncompromising animated films ever made. It takes the emotional and thematic pressure of the series and turns it into a nightmare of invasion, collapse, and self-examination, where every battle feels like a psychic wound and every image seems to carry multiple meanings at once.
Worth noting
What makes it endure is not just its scale, but its honesty about despair. It is vicious, surreal, and often unbearable, yet it never feels empty; the film is constantly wrestling with what it means to exist alongside other people, and whether intimacy is salvation or annihilation.
Bottom line
For some viewers it will feel like a masterpiece, for others like an assault. Either way, it is impossible to dismiss: a major work of animated cinema that helped redefine what the medium could attempt emotionally and formally.
Top Letterboxd reviews
gendoikari (0.5★) · 8535 likes
fuck shinji stupid ass son
Wes (5★) · 7315 likes
mom the animated movie made me retreat into my deepest mental faculties to face what makes me a fundamentally broken person again
•lily• (5★) · 7133 likes
Beautiful film about the importance of going outside and touching some grass
adambolt (3.5★) · 4564 likes
very nice of them to provide an intermission so you have time to scream
•lily• (5★) · 3548 likes
The more depressed you are the better this film gets