Dragon Ball Z Movies

Since the debut of the anime adaptation of Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball manga in 1986, Toei Animation has produced twenty theatrical films based on the franchise: four based on the original Dragon Ball anime, fifteen based on the sequel series Dragon Ball Z and one film based on the Dragon Ball Super series. No films were based on the Dragon Ball GT series but it did get a television special named Dragon Ball GT: A Hero’s Legacy. There are also several more television specials that were broadcast on Fuji TV and two featurettes, which were shown at the 2008 Jump Super Anime Tour and Jump Festa 2012 respectively. A two-part hour-long crossover TV special between Dragon Ball Z, One Piece and Toriko aired on Fuji TV in 2013. Additionally, there is a two-part original video animation created as strategy guides for the 1993 video game Dragon Ball Z Side Story: Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans, which was remade in 2010 and included with the Raging Blast 2 video game.

As with the franchise’s anime television series, all twenty films and the first three TV specials were licensed in North America by Funimation. Dragon Ball Z movies six and twelve received select theatrical presentations in the United States, as part of a double-feature on March 17, 2006, while movies fourteen and fifteen were given limited theatrical runs in August 2014 and August 2015 respectively. In Europe, AB Groupe licensed the second and third Dragon Ball movies, the first nine Z movies and the first two TV specials.