How do the Rebuild of Evangelion films differ from the TV series?

Rebuild of Evangelion is a four film series made by Studio Khara, the company Hideaki Anno founded after leaving Gainax. The films are Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone (2007), 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance (2009), 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo (2012), and 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time (2021), and they were presented at first as a cleaner, more accessible retelling for a new audience.

The first film earns that description. It compresses the opening six television episodes with redrawn animation, new computer generated Evangelion designs, and small but pointed changes, such as an ocean stained red from the start, that tell returning viewers this world is not quite the one they remember. The second film diverges openly: it introduces the new pilot Mari Illustrious Makinami, gives Asuka a different surname and role, and ends on an event with no television equivalent.

The third film jumps fourteen years and discards almost every expectation the second film set up, following an older conflict between new organisations in a ruined world. The fourth, delayed repeatedly and released in March 2021 after a pandemic postponement, closes the Rebuild continuity and, in Anno's framing, closes his work on Evangelion as a whole.

For collectors the Rebuild films restarted the physical line from zero. Each film received Japanese Blu-ray and DVD editions with distinctive packaging, English editions followed from Funimation and later GKIDS, and the version numbers matter: Japanese discs carry revised cuts such as 1.11, 2.22 and 3.333, which add or adjust footage compared with the theatrical releases.