How to Watch the Death Note Franchise In Order: A Streaming Guide

Published on 27 March 2024

Updated on 07 June 2026

Having immersed many an Indian “weeb” into the anime world, Death Note endures as a cult classic more than a decade since its Japanese premiere in 2006.

How to watch Death Note in order?

The original 37-episode-long anime Death Note can be watched as a standalone installment on its own. The series revolves around the antiheroic exploits of Light Yagami, a youngster who comes across a life-changing notebook on which any name that he writes is destined to die. Accompanied by the shinigami (spirit) Ryuk, Light’s homicidal scribbling makes him cross paths with ominous hacker L, Yagami’s own lawman father, and the who’s who of the Japanese mafia.

The Japanese live-action Death Note movies, however, can be watched in the same order as their release date. A web series Death Note: New Generation is also sandwiched in between the movies.

Death Note (2006)
Death Note 2: The Last Name (2006)
L: Change the World (2008)
Death Note: New Generation (2016)
Death Note: Light Up The New World (2016)

The movies largely follow the same premise as the comics but L: Change The World acts as a standalone spinoff for the movie’s take on the character L. Death Note: New Generations was a three-episode long web series that took place directly from the events of Death Note 2: The Last Name and L: Change the World.

In 2015, a Japanese live-action adaptation of Death Note was also broadcast, faithfully recreated from the original manga.

Additionally, Netflix produced a 2017 Hollywood movie adaptation too, simply called Death Note. Despite boasting mainstream names like Nat Wolff, Willem Dafoe, and LaKeith Stanfield, the film was panned universally and the sequels that it teased in the end were all scraped off.

Are there any future Death Note shows being made?

Despite the disaster of Netflix’s 2017 Death Note movie, the streaming platform has commissioned Stranger Things showrunners The Duffer Brothers to conceive a new Death Note live-action TV series. The release date remains unknown for now.

We’ve got you covered with a definitive guide to watch all things Death Note in order and where to stream them.

Death Note

2006

8.9

Light Yagami is an ace student with great prospects—and he’s bored out of his mind. But all that changes when he finds the Death Note, a notebook dropped by a rogue Shinigami death god. Any human whose name is written in the notebook dies, and Light has vowed to use the power of the Death Note to rid the world of evil. But will Light succeed in his noble goal, or will the Death Note turn him into the very thing he fights against?

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1 Season HD

Death Note

2006

7.5

Light Yagami finds the "Death Note," a notebook with the power to kill, and decides to create a Utopia by killing the world's criminals, and soon the world's greatest detective, "L," is hired to find the mysterious murderer. An all out battle between the two greatest minds on earth begins and the winner will control the world.

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Death Note: The Last Name

2006

7.1

In the second installment of the Death Note film franchise, Light Yagami meets a second Kira and faithful follower Misa Amane and her Shinigami named Rem. Light attempts to defeat L along with Teru Mikami (a Kira follower) and Kiyomi Takada (another Kira follower) but in the end will Light win? or will a Shinigami named Ryuk make all the difference in Light's victory or his ultimate death?

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Death Note: L Change the WorLd

2008

6.0

"The human whose name is written in the Death Note shall die." After making the hardest decision ever, another serious case confronts L. There are only 23 days left and without his best partner Watari, L has to solve the case all by himself for the very first time.

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Death Note: New Generation

2016

5.8

The miniseries focuses on the three new lead characters of the film Death Note: Light Up the NEW World: Tsukuru Mishima, Ryuzaki, and Yuki Shien. Each episode provides backstory for one of the characters and bridges the 10-year gap between the previous films, which canonically took place in 2005-2006, and the new film taking place in 2016.

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Death Note: Light Up the NEW World

2016

5.7

10 years has passed since the confrontation between Kira and L. Again, Shinigami sends death notes to the ground and due to this, the world soon falls into chaos. Tsukuru is a member of the Death Note special task force team with 6 other investigators including Matsuda who experienced the Kira case of 10 years ago. Mass murders caused by the death note takes place on Wall Street in the U.S., Shibuya in Japan and other places. World famous private investigator Ryuzaki, who is the rightful successor of L, also investigates the mass murders. They discover that 6 death notes exists in the world. A computer virus called Kira spreads in the world. A message in the Kira virus says to turn in 6 death notes. A person who has 6 death notes overwhelm the world. The confrontation begins between the person who wants Kira’s revival and the people who want to stop it.

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Death Note: Desu nôto

2015

7.0

Light Yagami, an ordinary university student, receives a death note which changes his life. The death note awakens his warped sense of justice and genius.

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