Skip to main content
The End of Evangelion film image

The End of Evangelion

This event has passed

“One of the most beautiful, inventive, and poignant works in anime” (Anime News Network), this legendary 1997 feature has never been released to North American theatres before. It was conceived as a do-over, an alternate ending on the grandest scale, after Japanese fans of the original Neon Genesis Evangelion TV series voiced their disappointment at the low-key, ambiguous resolution of that popular show. By contrast, End of Evangelion offers a spectacular, even bombastic dystopian apocalypse — full of sound and fury, signifying plenty.

Tokyo-3 is under attack from Eldtrich alien monsters, “Angels”, and defended by giant mechs — Evas — piloted by humans like teenager Shinji Ikari. The film begins with him at rock bottom, and things only get worse…

SEELE plans an attack on NERV after failing to create a man-made Third Impact. After reaffirming both her own and her mother’s existence in a state of despair, Asuka returns and begins the counterattack. However, new enemies descend from the heavens.

The End of Evangelion is reputed as a depressing and fatalistic film – but it’s far from it. Its emotional breakthrough is given vivid, thrilling form, told with more optimism than is often credited, even as the imagery becomes more and more hellish and macabre. It’s also simply incredible to look at, with bold splashes of colour in every frame, with nuanced movements from the humans and humanoid robots alike, with weight and detail in both its action and its quieter moments of drama.That being said, this is still a film filled with plenty of action, and is among the finest Anno has ever directed.

Kambole Campbell, Little White Lies

Perhaps one of the most nihilistic, avant-garde and devastating endings to an anime series ever conceived… It is the best and worst of everything that is Evangelion combined to create a film that is unlike anything that had come before it.

Toussaint Egan, Paste Magazine

This may be, if not the greatest, certainly one of the most harrowing anime experiences ever made.

John G Nettles, Pop Matters

Director

Hideaki Anno

Credits
Country of Origin

Japan

Year

1997

Language

In Japanese with English subtitles

Content Warning

Violence

14A

Open to youth!

87 min

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Credits

Screenwriter

Hideaki Anno

Cinematography

Hisao Shirai

Editor

Sachiko Miki

Original Music

Shirô Sagisu

Art Director

Hiroshi Katô

Also Playing

No Other Land

Dir. Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham & Rachel Szor
96 min

Deemed by many critics one of the essential films of 2024, a multiple festival award winner and Academy Award winner for Best Documentary, No Other Land is a reminder that mass expulsion is by no means a new reality for Palestinians.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Misericordia

Dir. Alain Guiraudie
103 min

Edgy, eccentric, and unapologetically queer, this film goes from drama to comedy without putting a foot wrong. Sex and murder are the subjects, and writer-director Alain Guiraudie (Stranger by the Lake) mines them for suspense and outrageous laughs.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Way, My Way

Dir. Bill Bennett
93 min

All manner of pilgrims flock to France and Spain to walk the 800 km Camino de Santiago. One such is Bill, a stroppy sexagenarian Australian filmmaker who's determined to do the Camino with minimal prep, a dickey leg, and no firm idea why.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
Heart of Gold
Heart of Gold film image; woman crouching by a burning miniature house

Heart of Gold

Dir. Patricia Gruben
80 min

Writer-director Patricia Gruben explores the history of an American deserter in 1969 who escapes to BC and finds shelter with a Russian dissident community.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema