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The Ring

An official sequel that came out the same day as the original and then got replaced a year later.

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Where to start with The Ring

This is the franchise where release order does the most damage, because the official sequel came out on the same day as the original and was quietly replaced a year later by a different film. There are two Japanese branches, and you want the second one first.

  1. 1
    Ring (1998) Ring

    The film everything descends from, and still the best of them. Nothing before it, and the American remake follows it closely enough that seeing this one first spoils that one.

  2. 2
    Ring 2 (1999) Ring 2

    Not the sequel that came out first. This one was made after audiences rejected the original sequel, by the first film's own director and writer, and it is the branch everything since has followed.

  3. 3
    Ring 0: Birthday (2000) Ring 0: Birthday

    A prequel released third, about Sadako before any of it. It works here because it explains a character you already have a fixed idea about.

Then what? Sadako (2019) finishes that branch. Then go back for Rasen, the sequel that was set aside, and watch it immediately before Sadako 3D and Sadako 3D 2, which continue the novel line it started; on its own after Ringu it reads as a non-sequitur, but as a setup for those two it makes sense. Sadako DX ignores both branches. The American films are a separate continuity, and the sixteen-minute short called Rings, buried on The Ring Two disc, is a real chapter that film refers back to.

A suggested way in, not an official one. The full list is below — tick anything off in either place.

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