Following the success of the manga and anime, Naruto movies began. The movies allowed for stories that didn’t fit into the context of the series to stand on their own. When comparing the movies side by side, there’s one clear favorite amongst fans, and it happens to be the one that lands at the top of the Internet Movie Database ratings. Site users are able to rate movies on a scale of one (the worst) to ten (the best). Naruto’s movies come out above average, ranging from 6.5 to 7.7.
Of course, the one movie not on the list is Boruto: Naruto Next Generations. Though it is part of the Naruto franchise, it launched the Boruto series, so the ten focusing on Naruto’s generation are the only ones included here.
Naruto The Movie: Guardians Of The Crescent Moon Kingdom (6.5)
The third movie created for Naruto, it occurs right around the 200th episode in the original series. Naruto, Sakura, Kakashi, and Rock Lee were sent on a mission to escort the son of a king. While on what appeared to be an easy mission, things went drastically wrong, as they always seem to do for Naruto. The mission ended up being more than the group bargained for.
It falls right in line with what could have been a filler arc for the anime. Of course, the Crescent Moon Kingdom, and Naruto’s Crescent Rasengan are never seen again after the movie, which might have put some fans off.
Naruto The Movie: Legend Of The Stone Of Gelel (6.6)
Like a lot of the early Naruto movies, Legend Of The Stone Of Gelel relied on additions to the Naruto mythology that never made another appearance. The movie featured a team made of Naruto, Sakura, and Shikamaru who were supposed to return a lost ferret to its village, but things didn’t go as planned.
Instead, the trio ended up in the middle of a conflict between a group of soldiers and a caravan of travelers. Gaara and the people of Sunagakure also found themselves up against the soldiers. While all of the story threads eventually intertwined, the story involved a mysterious stone and a lost civilization that were never heard from again, not encouraging many fans to invest too much time in it.
Naruto The Movie: Ninja Clash In The Land Of Snow (6.7)
Naruto’s Team 7 found themselves tasked with protecting a princess as she returned to her kingdom. The catch, however, was that she wasn’t returning home to rule. Instead, Yukie was an actress whose uncle took over when she was a small child. She happened to be filming a movie in her old kingdom.
What’s interesting about this movie is that it demonstrated the franchise took place in the modern age. Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke begin the movie by watching a movie. There were also cars in the franchise for the first time. It was a stark contrast to the low tech series, which might be why it ranked so low for fans.
Naruto Shippuden The Movie (6.9)
Leading off the Shippuden era, and the last of the Naruto movies ranked under 7, is Naruto Shippuden The Movie. This movie likely ranked a little higher than others because it featured a lot more fan-favorite characters.
While the focus was still on one team (Naruto, Sakura, Rock Lee, and Neji) guarding someone, many more characters got to play a part in the action sequences. Even Temari got in on it, and she wouldn’t feature heavily in Naruto Shippuden until much later. Like many of the movies, however, most of the powers exhibited here wouldn’t be seen in the franchise again.
Naruto Shippuden The Movie: Bonds (7.1)
Unlike many of the other Naruto movies, which could easily be dismissed as filler, this one actually contributed to some of the series’ plot. While Naruto, Sakura, and Hinata accompanied a young ninja and her sensei to their attacked village, it puts Naruto on a crash course with Sasuke’s mission for Orochimaru.
Sasuke traveled to the same village in order to retrieve reincarnation information for Orochimaru. That research would help the missing ninja throughout the rest of the series. It’s a nice small bit of fleshing out Orochimaru’s story, which still giving the audience an entertaining movie as Naruto and Sasuke were forced to temporarily team up to take on a common enemy.
Naruto Shippuden The Movie: The Lost Tower (7.1)
The Lost Tower is one of the movies that doesn’t slot neatly into the Naruto timeline, but it is certainly a fun addition. Most of the events in the movie occur about 20 years before Naruto’s own series.
When Naruto was sent with Sakura, Sai, and Yamato to stop an evil shinobi, it didn’t exactly go as planned. Yamato and Naruto ended up caught in a Jutsu he enacted, sending them back in time. It gave them the chance to defeat the shinobi they were after, but it also gave Naruto the chance to meet and fight alongside his own father - though he didn’t know it just yet.
Naruto Shippuden The Movie: The Will Of Fire (7.2)
During the Naruto Shippuden years of the anime, there was a lot of talk of passing on the “will of fire” to young shinobi and teaching them to continue traditions. That idea provided the basis here. As Kakashi found himself influenced by a mind control Jutsu, Sakura and Naruto set out to save him. Unfortunately, Kakashi had already asked Tsunade to put a seal on him that would sacrifice him when the enemy got ahold of him. Shikamaru was the only member of his generation who knew and was tasked with stopping Sakura and Naruto.
The movie saw all of Naruto’s generation on a path bound for Kakashi. As the story progressed, each team played a part in helping Naruto and Sakura get to their sensei, and it’s definitely one of the better-balanced stories amongst the characters.
Naruto Shippuden The Movie: Blood Prison (7.3)
The Blood Prison is a dark place, even by Naruto standards. That’s why it’s a little odd that a teenager would be sent there, but the Naruto franchise never did play by conventional rules. The movie sees Naruto implicated in an assassination attempt on the Raikage. As a result, he ends up in prison. While in the Blood Prison though, Naruto didn’t act as the model prisoner. Instead, he continually fought against the authority figures around him, knowing something was wrong.
Eventually, he was proven right as most of his friends showed up to help him defeat the real enemy. No one actually believed Naruto could be an assassin, which is nice, but someone should probably have clued him into the fact that he was actually on an undercover mission.
The Last: Naruto The Movie (7.6)
The Last is a special kind of movie in the Naruto franchise. While fans will try to work out where the other movies fall within the timeline, this is the only one officially confirmed as part of the manga timeline. It lands in between chapters 699 and 700 to fill in some of the gaps of the time skip.
In the movie, Hinata joined Naruto, Sakura, Shikamaru, and Sai on a mission to save the world. The mission became a love story for Naruto and Hinata. Though Hinata loved Naruto since she was a child, fans finally got to see through Naruto’s eyes as he fully understood the depth of his feelings for her. Not all fans wanted the love story, which is probably why there’s still one more movie that ranks just a bit higher.
Road To Ninja: Naruto The Movie (7.7)
For fans who are interested in what happens when one thing in a universe changes, this Naruto movie is perfect. Road To Ninja took the world Naruto fans loved and changed things up.
Sakura and Naruto ended up caught in a Genjutsu world where Sakura’s father was the Fourth Hokage instead of Minato Uzumaki. As a result, she had the freedom she craved and Naruto had his parents back. That wasn’t the only change though as some of their friends acted completely differently.
It allowed fans to see different sides of their favorite characters while still tugging at the Naruto heart stings.
