The Ring films covered here run from 1998 to 2017 across five features: Hideo Nakata's Japanese Ring (1998) and Ring 2 (1999), then the American remake The Ring (2002) and its sequels The Ring Two (2005) and Rings (2017). All of them grow from Koji Suzuki's novel about a cursed videotape that kills its viewer seven days later unless a copy is passed on. In Japan the ghost is Sadako Yamamura, a psychic girl left to die in a well; the American films rename her Samara Morgan and move the story to the Pacific Northwest.
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No. 01 · 1998 · Film
Ring recap
Ring (1998) follows Reiko Asakawa, a TV journalist who watches a cursed videotape while looking into her niece's death and has seven days to break the curse. Hideo Nakata directs from Hiroshi Takahashi's adaptation of Koji Suzuki's 1991 novel. After teenage Tomoko (Yuko Takeuchi) dies of fright on the same night as three friends, Reiko (Nanako Matsushima) traces them to a rental cabin in Izu, finds an unlabeled tape and plays it: a jumble of eerie images ending on a well. The phone rings at once. She turns to her ex-husband Ryūji Takayama (Hiroyuki Sanada), a professor with a sixth sense, and makes him a copy; their young son Yōichi (Rikiya Otaka) later watches it too. A dialect on the tape points them to Ōshima island, where they learn about Shizuko Yamamura, a psychic who killed herself, and her daughter Sadako (Rie Inō), whose powers could kill. Spiral, a 1998 sequel shot alongside it, was later set aside by Ring 2.
How Ring ends
Ring ends with Reiko driving to her father's house with a copy of the tape. Under the Izu cabin she and Ryūji find a sealed well where Sadako's father, Dr. Ikuma, threw her; they recover her bones, and when Reiko's deadline passes, they think the curse is broken. The next day Ryūji's television switches on, and Sadako climbs out of the well and through the screen to kill him. Reiko realizes she survived only because she copied the tape and showed it to Ryūji, so she sets out to save Yōichi by making her father watch. The novel's hero is a male reporter, Kazuyuki Asakawa.
Post-credits scenes
No. Ring has no mid- or post-credits scene.
No. 02 · 1999 · Film
Ring 2 recap
Ring 2 (1999) picks up days after Ring as Mai Takano, the late Ryūji's student, searches for Reiko and her son while police investigate the deaths. Hideo Nakata returns to direct this sequel, which replaces the earlier follow-up Spiral. Sadako's remains are recovered and her uncle Takashi (Yoichi Numata) buries them at sea. Mai (Miki Nakatani) teams up with Okazaki (Yūrei Yanagi), a reporter colleague of Reiko's, who hides a copy of the tape he got from a schoolgirl, Kanae Sawaguchi (Kyoko Fukada), instead of watching it to save her. Tomoko's friend Masami (Hitomi Satō), who saw her die, sits silent in a hospital, where Dr. Kawajiri (Fumiyo Kohinata) tries to draw the psychic energy out of her onto blank tape and only produces Sadako's images. Mai finds Reiko (Nanako Matsushima) and Yōichi (Rikiya Otaka), who has stopped speaking and whose powers are growing. It follows Ring directly.
How Ring 2 ends
Ring 2 ends at the Yamamura inn on Ōshima, where Kawajiri tries to drain Sadako's rage from Yōichi into a pool of water, with Mai as the channel. Reiko has already been killed by a truck while fleeing the police with Yōichi. The experiment goes wrong: Sadako's presence fills the pool, Takashi jumps in and Kawajiri dies with his equipment. Mai and Yōichi find themselves in the well, Ryūji's spirit helps them climb out, and Sadako asks why only they were saved. They emerge free of fear, while the institutionalized Okazaki is photographed with Kanae's ghost laughing behind him.
Post-credits scenes
No. Ring 2 has no mid- or post-credits scene.
No. 03 · 2002 · Film
The Ring recap
The Ring (2002) follows Rachel Keller, a Seattle journalist who watches a cursed videotape while looking into her niece's death. Gore Verbinski directs this American remake of Ring, written by Ehren Kruger. Rachel (Naomi Watts) learns that her niece Katie (Amber Tamblyn) died the same night as three friends after a stay at a mountain cabin. She finds the tape there, watches its stream of strange images, and gets a call whispering "seven days." Noah Clay (Martin Henderson), a video expert and the father of her son, studies a copy, and their eight-year-old Aidan (David Dorfman) watches it too. A woman in the footage leads Rachel to Moesko Island and the horse breeder Anna Morgan, who drowned herself after her horses went mad, and to Anna's husband Richard (Brian Cox). Their adopted daughter Samara (Daveigh Chase) could burn images into minds, and they hid her in the barn. It begins the American series.
How The Ring ends
The Ring ends with Rachel helping Aidan copy the tape. Richard electrocutes himself, and under the cabin Rachel falls into a well and sees that Anna drowned Samara there, where the girl lived for seven days. They bring her body up for burial, and Rachel thinks the curse is lifted. Aidan tells her she should not have helped Samara. That night, Samara crawls out of Noah's television and kills him. Rachel realizes she survived because she copied the tape for Noah, and she sits Aidan down to make a copy of his own, ignoring his question about who will watch it.
Post-credits scenes
No. The Ring has no mid- or post-credits scene.
No. 04 · 2005 · Film
The Ring Two recap
The Ring Two (2005) finds Rachel Keller and her son Aidan in Astoria, Oregon, when the cursed tape resurfaces and Samara tries to possess the boy. Hideo Nakata, director of the Japanese Ring, takes over, with Ehren Kruger writing again. Rachel (Naomi Watts) works at the local paper for editor Max Rourke (Simon Baker). When a teenager, Jake, dies after trying to pass the tape to a classmate, Rachel burns the copy, and Samara (Kelly Stables) turns her attention to Aidan (David Dorfman), who runs cold and bruised. Deer attack their car. In the bath Rachel sees Samara in Aidan's place and tries to drown her, and psychiatrist Emma Temple (Elizabeth Perkins) suspects abuse. Rachel goes back to Moesko Island and finds Samara's birth mother, Evelyn (Sissy Spacek), who once tried to drown her baby. A 2005 short film, also titled Rings, bridges the gap between the first two American films. It follows The Ring.
How The Ring Two ends
The Ring Two ends with Rachel trapping Samara in the well. The possessed Aidan kills Dr. Temple, and Rachel finds Max dead in his truck. Following a dream, she sedates the boy and holds him under the bathwater until Samara leaves him. Samara appears on television, and Rachel lets herself be pulled into her black and white world. At the bottom of the well she climbs out with Samara scrambling after her and slams the lid shut on her. She then falls from the cliff where Anna died, wakes back in the real world and is reunited with Aidan.
Post-credits scenes
No. The Ring Two has no mid- or post-credits scene.
No. 05 · 2017 · Film
Rings recap
Rings (2017) follows Julia, a college student, who watches Samara's cursed video to save her boyfriend and finds her copy hides new images no one has seen. F. Javier Gutiérrez directs, from a script by David Loucka, Jacob Aaron Estes and Akiva Goldsman. Professor Gabriel Brown (Johnny Galecki) finds the tape inside a secondhand VCR and runs an experiment with students, the Sevens, who watch it and pass copies to new viewers called tails. Julia (Matilda Lutz) comes looking for her boyfriend Holt (Alex Roe), who has 12 hours left, and watches his copy in his place. Her version cannot be copied and carries extra images of a strange woman, and the phone call burns a mark into her hand. Hoping to free Samara by cremating her, Julia and Holt drive to Sacrament Valley, where the blind caretaker Galen Burke (Vincent D'Onofrio) says the body was moved. Set years after The Ring Two, it closes the American series.
How Rings ends
Rings ends with Samara reborn through Julia. In a hidden chamber under the church, Julia learns Samara's mother Evelyn was held and raped by the town priest, who turns out to be Burke, Samara's father, who blinded himself to escape her power. He attacks Julia after she finds Samara's body behind a wall; Samara restores his sight through Julia's phone and kills him. Julia and Holt cremate the remains and go home. Gabriel had decoded the mark as Braille for "rebirth": Julia coughs up hair and a cicada, her copy of the video spreads to all her contacts, and Samara's face looks back from Julia's mirror.
Post-credits scenes
No. Rings has no mid- or post-credits scene.
Common questions
What is the Ring story so far?
The Ring films covered here run from 1998 to 2017 across five features: Hideo Nakata's Japanese Ring (1998) and Ring 2 (1999), then the American remake The Ring (2002) and its sequels The Ring Two (2005) and Rings (2017). All of them grow from Koji Suzuki's novel about a cursed videotape that kills its viewer seven days later unless a copy is passed on. In Japan the ghost is Sadako Yamamura, a psychic girl left to die in a well; the American films rename her Samara Morgan and move the story to the Pacific Northwest.
Where did Ring leave off?
Rings (2017) is the latest. Rings ends with Samara reborn through Julia. In a hidden chamber under the church, Julia learns Samara's mother Evelyn was held and raped by the town priest, who turns out to be Burke, Samara's father, who blinded himself to escape her power. He attacks Julia after she finds Samara's body behind a wall; Samara restores his sight through Julia's phone and kills him. Julia and Holt cremate the remains and go home. Gabriel had decoded the mark as Braille for "rebirth": Julia coughs up hair and a cicada, her copy of the video spreads to all her contacts, and Samara's face looks back from Julia's mirror.
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