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Anime films

Twenty animated theatrical films based on the Dragon Ball series have been released in Japan. The most recent films, Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods (2013), Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F' (2015), Dragon Ball Super: Broly (2018), and Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero (2022), were produced as full-length feature films and were given stand-alone theatrical releases in Japan (as well as limited theatrical releases in the U.S.). They've also been the first movies to have original creator Akira Toriyama deeply involved in their production; Battle of Gods and Resurrection 'F' were remade into the first and second arcs of the Dragon Ball Super anime, which told the same stories as the two films in expanded detail. The 1996 feature film, Dragon Ball: The Path to Power, was also a full-length theatrical release with a running time of 80 minutes, and was produced to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the anime as a re-imagining of the first few arcs of the series.

All previous films were mostly below feature length (around 45–60 minutes each), making them only slightly longer than one or two episodes of the TV series; this is due to them being originally shown as back-to-back presentations alongside other Toei film productions. These films are also mostly alternate re-tellings of certain story arcs (like The Path to Power), or extra side-stories that do not correlate with the continuity of the series. The first three films, along with The Path to Power, are based on the original Dragon Ball anime series. The remaining thirteen older films are based on Dragon Ball Z. The first five films were shown at the Toei Manga Festival (東映まんがまつり, Tōei Manga Matsuri), while the sixth through seventeenth films were shown at the Toei Anime Fair (東映アニメフェア, Toei Anime Fea).