Best Anime of All Time: 15 Essential Series, Ranked

What Is the Best Anime of All Time?

The best anime of all time, by our editorial ranking, is Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood — a 64-episode series that pairs a complete, tightly-plotted story with characters and themes that reward viewers of any experience level. Behind it sit fourteen more essentials, from Cowboy Bebop and Neon Genesis Evangelion to modern landmarks like Attack on Titan and Frieren: Beyond Journey's End.

Let's be clear about what "best" means here: this list is opinion, argued openly. We rank on writing, animation, pacing, emotional payoff, and influence — and we explain the reasoning for every pick so you can tell whether our taste maps to yours. No spoilers beyond basic premise, and everything here is available on legal streaming platforms in most regions.

The Full Ranking at a Glance

How We Ranked These Series

A "greatest anime ever" list is only useful if you know the rules behind it. Ours are simple:

• Complete experience over hype. A strong ending counts. Series that stumble late rank below series that stick the landing.
• Rewatchability and influence. The classics here shaped everything after them; the modern picks are already doing the same.
• Accessibility matters, but doesn't rule. Some entries are demanding. We flag which ones, so you can pick your lane.
• Series only. Films like the Studio Ghibli catalog deserve their own list.

If you're brand new to anime, several of these are friendlier entry points than others — our guide to the best anime for beginners sorts that problem out directly.

The Top 5: Undisputed Essentials

1. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (2009)

Studio Bones · 64 episodes. Two brothers attempt forbidden alchemy to resurrect their mother, pay a terrible price, and set out to undo it. What follows is the rare long-form story where every subplot pays off: a huge cast with no wasted characters, villains with real ideology, and a finale that resolves everything it set up. It's our number one because it has no meaningful weakness — newcomers love it, veterans rewatch it, and its themes of sacrifice and consequence hold up on every pass.

2. Cowboy Bebop (1998)

Sunrise · 26 episodes. A crew of broke bounty hunters drifts through the solar system, chasing paydays and outrunning their pasts. Director Shinichiro Watanabe's space-western remains the standard for episodic storytelling: jazz-soaked, gorgeously animated for its era, and quietly devastating by the end. Its English dub is also widely considered one of the best ever recorded, which makes it an ideal test case if you're weighing the subbed vs dubbed question.

3. Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995)

26 episodes. Teenagers pilot giant bio-machines against monstrous invaders — and that summary is a trapdoor into one of the most psychologically intense character studies ever animated. Evangelion interrogates depression, connection, and the mecha genre itself. It's demanding, occasionally abrasive, and endlessly debated three decades on. That staying power is the point: no other series on this list has generated as much analysis, homage, and argument.

4. Hunter x Hunter (2011)

Madhouse · 148 episodes. A cheerful boy enters a deadly examination to become a licensed Hunter and find his absent father. Yoshihiro Togashi's story starts as a bright adventure and escalates, arc by arc, into some of the most sophisticated writing in shonen — culminating in the Chimera Ant arc, a stretch many fans consider the genre's peak. The catch: the anime ends without adapting the manga's later material. The journey is still unmissable.

5. Attack on Titan (2013)

Wit Studio, later MAPPA · 4 seasons. Humanity lives behind giant walls, hiding from man-eating titans — until the walls fail. What begins as survival horror becomes a decade-spanning story about cycles of hatred, told with twists that are genuinely earned rather than cheap. Its final seasons divide fans, which keeps it out of our top three, but few series have ever gripped a global audience this completely.

Ranks 6–10: Modern Classics

6. Monster (2004)

Madhouse · 74 episodes. A brilliant surgeon saves a young boy's life — and years later realizes what he saved. Naoki Urasawa's thriller is patient, novelistic, and aimed squarely at adult viewers. No powers, no spectacle: just dread, moral weight, and one of fiction's great villains. It ranks this high precisely because nothing else in anime feels like it.

7. Steins;Gate (2011)

White Fox · 24 episodes. A self-proclaimed mad scientist accidentally invents a way to send messages to the past. The first half is a slow, chatty hangout; the second half weaponizes every one of those casual moments. Stick with it — the payoff makes it the best time-travel story in the medium, and one of the few whose mechanics actually hold together.

8. Death Note (2006)

Madhouse · 37 episodes. A top student finds a notebook that kills anyone whose name is written in it, and a legendary detective sets out to catch him. The resulting duel of intellects is anime's most bingeable thriller and one of its most common gateway series. The second act doesn't quite match the first — a consensus we share — but the peak is untouchable.

9. One Piece (1999)

Toei Animation · 1,000+ episodes and ongoing. Monkey D. Luffy sets sail to find the ultimate treasure and become King of the Pirates. Yes, the episode count is intimidating — but no series in anime builds a world this vast or delivers emotional payoffs planned literally decades in advance. It's ranked ninth on accessibility grounds alone; on pure imagination, it's top three.

10. Code Geass (2006)

Sunrise · 2 seasons. An exiled prince gains the power to compel absolute obedience and launches a rebellion against a superpower empire. It's chess-match strategy, mecha battles, and gleeful melodrama all at maximum intensity, capped by one of the most satisfying endings in anime. Pure, propulsive entertainment.

Ranks 11–15: The New Canon

11. Vinland Saga (2019)

Wit Studio, season 2 by MAPPA. A Viking-era revenge story that spends its first season building a warrior and its second season asking whether violence was ever the answer. That pivot — from bloody spectacle to a meditation on what a life is for — is one of the boldest moves in recent anime, and it works completely.

12. Mob Psycho 100 (2016)

Bones · 3 seasons. A shy middle-schooler with overwhelming psychic power just wants to be a normal kid. From the creator of One-Punch Man, it delivers some of television animation's most explosive action — then insists, sincerely, that kindness matters more than power. Few series are this fun and this warm at once.

13. Frieren: Beyond Journey's End (2023)

Madhouse. The adventure is over when the story begins: an elven mage who outlives her hero companions sets out to understand what their time together meant. Gentle, melancholy, and beautiful, it became an instant favorite among fans and critics alike. The newest entry here, and we're confident it will stay canon.

14. Haikyu!! (2014)

Production I.G · 4 seasons. A short, springy underdog joins his high-school volleyball team and aims for nationals. You do not need to care about volleyball — Haikyu!! makes every rally legible and every rival likable, and its ensemble writing is the best in sports anime. The series that converts skeptics of an entire genre earns its spot.

15. Demon Slayer (2019)

Ufotable. A kind-hearted boy becomes a demon slayer after his family is attacked and his sister is transformed. The story is classic shonen; the execution is not — Ufotable's production set a new visual bar for television anime and pulled an enormous new audience into the medium. Influence of that scale belongs on an all-time list.

How to Pick Your Starting Point

Fifteen essentials is still a lot of television. A quick triage:

• Short and complete: Cowboy Bebop, Steins;Gate, Death Note, Evangelion — all 37 episodes or fewer.
• Long but worth it: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Hunter x Hunter, One Piece.
• Newcomer-friendly: Demon Slayer, Haikyu!!, Death Note, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood.
• For seasoned viewers: Monster and Evangelion reward patience and attention most.

Where to Watch These Series

Every series on this list streams on major legal platforms in most regions, though catalogs vary by country and shift over time — always check current availability before subscribing. For a practical breakdown of which services carry deep anime libraries and what they cost, see our comparison of where to watch anime legally.

One honest closing note: any all-time list is a snapshot of taste. If your number one isn't here, that's not a verdict on you — it's an invitation to argue, which is half the fun of loving this medium in the first place.