Attack on Titan Watch Order: The Complete Guide

Four seasons, two of them chopped into parts, a finale that arrived as two feature-length specials, eight OVAs, four recap movies and a compilation film: Attack on Titan has one of the messiest release histories in modern anime. Almost none of that mess affects you. The story itself runs in one straight line, and the order below is both the order it aired and the order it happens.

Attack on Titan watch order at a glance

#	Entry	Episodes	Aired	What it covers
1	Season 1	1-25	2013	The fall of Wall Maria, the Battle of Trost, the Female Titan hunt
2	Season 2	26-37	2017	Clash of the Titans: Utgard Castle and the traitors inside the walls
3	Season 3 Part 1	38-49	2018	The Uprising: the Interior, Kenny Ackerman and the throne
4	Season 3 Part 2	50-59	2019	Return to Shiganshina and the basement
5	The Final Season Part 1	60-75	2020-2021	Marley, four years later
6	The Final Season Part 2	76-87	2022	The War for Paradis
7	The Final Chapters Special 1	88-90	2023	The first hour of the ending, aired 4 March 2023
8	The Final Chapters Special 2	91-94	2023	The 85-minute conclusion, aired 5 November 2023
9	The Last Attack (film)	Optional	2024-2025	Specials 1 and 2 remastered as one 145-minute film

The full watch order, part by part

One exception to the numbering below: the OVAs sit outside it entirely.

1. Season 1 (episodes 1-25, 2013)

Wit Studio, directed by Tetsuro Araki. The opening three episodes do the heavy lifting: a colossal figure appears over Shiganshina, a district falls, and three children enlist. From there it moves through cadet training, the Battle of Trost (where the series proves it will kill almost anyone), and a forest expedition that turns into a manhunt for an intelligent Titan. Eren Yeager, Mikasa Ackerman and Armin Arlert anchor it, and Levi is mostly a rumour until episode 14, where he settles Eren's military tribunal by kicking him across the courtroom to prove the Survey Corps can keep him on a leash. Twenty-five episodes is the longest single block in the series, and the last three move the fight inside a city.

2. Season 2 (episodes 26-37, 2017)

Four years later and only twelve episodes long, Season 2 is the tightest run in the whole show. The Clash of the Titans arc swaps the question "what are Titans?" for the far nastier "who are they?". The Beast Titan opens the season by speaking, Ymir's secret surfaces during the siege of Utgard Castle, and then episode 31 sits Reiner Braun down on top of Wall Rose to tell Eren what he is, proving it by reopening a wound that seals itself. Every cadet-corps scene in Season 1 reads differently afterwards. If you want the mechanics behind what these Titans actually are, our guide to the Nine Titans lays out each power.

3. Season 3 Part 1 (episodes 38-49, 2018)

The Uprising arc is the series at its least monstrous and most political. The Survey Corps become fugitives, the Military Police turn hunters, and Levi's uncle Kenny Ackerman leads an Anti-Personnel Control Squad whose manoeuvre gear and shotguns are designed to kill soldiers rather than Titans. Rooftop gunfights replace forest expeditions, and Titans barely feature for stretches, which makes some viewers impatient. That is a mistake: this is where the walls stop being a mystery and start being a government. Erwin Smith and Hange Zoe carry more of the story than Eren does, and the throne room material pays off directly in the final season.

Spoiler warning: the entries below name arcs, locations and structural reveals in broad terms. Nothing is described in detail, but stop here if you want to go in completely cold.

4. Season 3 Part 2 (episodes 50-59, 2019)

Ten episodes, and by most measures the best run the show ever produced: "Hero", in which Erwin leads a suicide charge to buy Levi one shot at the Beast Titan, has sat at or near the top of IMDb's highest-rated television episodes of any series for years. The Survey Corps march back to Shiganshina to retake Wall Maria, which means the Beast Titan on one side, the Armoured and Colossal Titans on the other, and a plan that requires people to volunteer for near-certain death. The final episode does something almost no shonen attempts: it walks into the Yeager basement, opens a drawer, and reorganises the entire premise of the show. In manga terms this run ends at chapter 90.

5. The Final Season Part 1 (episodes 60-75, 2020-2021)

MAPPA takes over from Wit Studio, with Yuichiro Hayashi directing, and the visual style shifts noticeably: colder colour grading, heavier CG for the Titans, a different rhythm in the fights. More disorienting is the content. Episode 60 opens four years later, in a trench war on another continent, following child soldiers you have never met. Nothing is wrong with your stream. This is the Marley arc (manga chapters 91-106), it fills roughly the first half of Part 1 before the story swings back to Paradis, and the collision between the two halves is worth the patience. It is also where we see more first-time viewers stall than anywhere else in the series.

6. The Final Season Part 2 (episodes 76-87, 2022)

Twelve episodes of the War for Paradis, and the point where the series stops having heroes in any comfortable sense. Alliances form between people who have tried to kill each other, Annie Leonhart re-enters the story, and the season closes with Eren setting the Rumbling in motion. If you finish these episodes unsure what that actually is, our breakdown of the Rumbling explains the mechanism and the reasoning behind it.

7. The Final Chapters: Special 1 and Special 2 (2023)

The ending did not arrive as a normal season. Special 1 premiered on 4 March 2023 and runs about an hour; Special 2 premiered on 5 November 2023 and runs around 85 minutes. Watch them in that order and the series is complete. Streaming platforms later split the two specials into episodes 88-94, which is why some databases say Attack on Titan has 94 episodes while others stop at 89. Both counts describe exactly the same footage.

The Last Attack: what it is and when to use it

Released in Japanese cinemas on 8 November 2024 and in North American theatres on 10 February 2025, Attack on Titan: The Last Attack is a 145-minute cut of The Final Chapters Special 1 and Special 2 played as one film, with brushed-up visuals and a 5.1 surround mix. It reached Crunchyroll on 17 April 2025 in the United States and 1 May 2025 in the United Kingdom.

Pick one or the other, not both. The film wins if you can give it an uninterrupted evening, and it adds a post-credits scene drawn from the alternate-universe spin-off Attack on School Castes: modern-day Eren, Mikasa and Armin bicker about a film they have just watched while Levi cleans the cinema walls with his gear. It is a joke, not an epilogue. The specials win if you would rather stop halfway. No story content is lost either way.

The OVAs: which ones are actually worth it

Eight OVA episodes exist, none of them required. Ranked by how much they add:

No Regrets (two episodes, December 2014 and April 2015) is the one to watch. It adapts the spin-off manga about Levi's life as a thug in the underground city and the day Erwin Smith dragged him into the Survey Corps. It changes how you read every later Levi and Erwin scene, and it works best after Season 1.

Lost Girls (three episodes, December 2017 to August 2018) splits in two. "Wall Sina, Goodbye" spends two episodes on Annie tracing a missing merchant's daughter, Carly Stratmann, during her Military Police posting in the interior, before the events that expose her. It is a proper detective story. "Lost in the Cruel World" imagines a Mikasa whose parents were never killed, so treat it as a what-if, not canon.

The three manga-bundled OADs (2013-2014) are Season 1 side stories: two follow the 104th cadets in training, while "Ilse's Notebook" has Hange and Levi recover a dead scout's journal describing a Titan that spoke to her, long before the series treats that as possible. Pleasant, skippable, and the Ilse one quietly plants a seed. Junior High (a separate twelve-episode TV series, 2015) is a chibi school parody from Production I.G with no connection to the plot. Save it for after the finale, when you need the tonal relief.

The recap films: safe to skip

Four compilation films predate The Last Attack: Crimson Bow and Arrow (2014) condenses episodes 1-13, Wings of Freedom (2015) covers episodes 14-25, The Roar of Awakening (2018) compiles Season 2, and Chronicle (2020) recaps the first three seasons in one go. All of them cut material, so none is a substitute for a first watch. Chronicle has one real use: if you last saw Season 3 years ago and want a refresher before the Final Season rather than a 59-episode rewatch, it does that in one sitting.

Is Attack on Titan finished? (as of September 2026)

Yes, completely. Hajime Isayama ended the manga with chapter 139 on 9 April 2021, and the anime adapted it through to that final chapter, so there is nothing to read ahead for and no cliffhanger left hanging. As of September 2026 no further Attack on Titan anime series or film has been announced, though the franchise remains active elsewhere: Koei Tecmo's Attack on Titan 3 game is due on 10 December 2026. Finished it and want the next series? Our list of anime like Attack on Titan is the place to start, the full characters guide works as a refresher before a rewatch, and the trivia quiz will tell you how much of the timeline actually stuck.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the correct order to watch Attack on Titan?

Season 1 (episodes 1-25), Season 2 (26-37), Season 3 Part 1 (38-49), Season 3 Part 2 (50-59), The Final Season Part 1 (60-75), The Final Season Part 2 (76-87), then The Final Chapters Special 1 and Special 2. Release order matches story order, and there is no filler to skip.

How many episodes does Attack on Titan have?

94, counting the two finale specials as the episodes 88-94 that streaming services split them into. Databases that list the specials as two single entries give a total of 89 instead. Both numbers cover identical footage, so nothing is missing either way.

Should I watch The Last Attack or the two Final Chapters specials?

Either, but not both. The Last Attack is a 145-minute remastered cut of Special 1 and Special 2 with a comedic post-credits scene added. Choose the film for one uninterrupted sitting, or the specials if you would rather split the ending across two nights.

Do I need to watch the Attack on Titan OVAs?

No. All eight are optional side stories. No Regrets, covering Levi's past in the underground city and his recruitment by Erwin, is the one most fans consider worth the hour, and it plays best after Season 1.

Is Attack on Titan Season 4 Part 3 the same as The Final Chapters?

Broadly, yes, but there was never a normal Part 3 broadcast run. The ending arrived as two feature-length specials, Attack on Titan Final Season THE FINAL CHAPTERS Special 1 (4 March 2023) and Special 2 (5 November 2023). Listings that number the parts usually call Special 1 Part 3 and Special 2 Part 4, while fans use "Part 3" loosely for the whole ending.

Where can I watch Attack on Titan in 2026?

Crunchyroll carries the complete run plus The Last Attack in most territories, and the series also streams on Hulu in the United States. Licensing differs by country, so check your regional catalogue before assuming a platform has every season.

Can I skip Season 3 Part 1?

No. The Uprising arc looks like a detour because the Titan action drops away, but it establishes the monarchy, the Ackerman bloodline and the succession that the Final Season depends on. Skipping it makes the last twenty episodes far harder to follow.