Watch Order
0 / 3 watchedRelease order. The 1993 film is standalone; the animated pair connect.
About Super Mario Bros. (films)
Mario has exactly three films and they could not be more different. The 1993 live-action Super Mario Bros. strands the brothers in a cyberpunk Dinohattan and has lived as a cult curio ever since. Thirty years later, Illumination's animated The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) played the games straight and became one of the biggest animated films ever.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (2026) continues the animated continuity into space with Rosalina and Bowser Jr., grossing over a billion worldwide. Watch the 1993 film as a historical oddity, then the two animated films in order: they are a genuine duology. The games themselves are no homework for any of this.
Good to know
The 1993 film's directors have disowned the production battles behind it, which explains the tonal whiplash: appreciate it as a strange artifact, not as Mario canon. The two Illumination films share directors, writers and cast, so the Galaxy film assumes you know the 2023 one. A third animated film had not been announced at the last check, though the box office makes one likely. The 1993 film streams in varying cuts, so runtimes differ by service.
