Ring (1998): Tomoko Oishi and her friend Masami Kurahashi discuss the Urban Legend of a boy on vacation in Izu, who tried to record an episode of his favorite TV show but instead created a cursed videotape that kills whoever watches it within seven days. Tomoko implies she watched said tape, but then shows that she was joking. After that, however, Tomoko and Masami hear the phone downstairs. But it is only Tomoko's mother, who will be returning late from a baseball game. As Masami returns upstairs, Tomoko gets herself a drink but begins to hear strange noises and turns around, only to be killed by an unseen force.
Tomoko's maternal aunt, TV journalist Reiko Asakawa, is interviewing some girls on the same cursed video legend. One of them reveals they heard about a couple who died after seeing the tape. Reiko later learns that the girl in said couple had gone to Sekei Academy, which is where Tomoko also went. After Tomoko's funeral, Reiko decides to investigate. She begins by interviewing some of Tomoko's friends, who explain that the three had gone to a resort with Tomoko's boyfriend Iwata, where they saw a strange video. Iwata also died at the exact same time as they did.
Early on, Reiko investigates in Tomoko's room where she finds a receipt from a photo shop. She inspects the pictures from said shop and learn the teenagers stayed at a resort in Izu. Reiko travels to said resort. At first, nothing seems that out of the ordinary. However, when she interviews the clerk, she notices an unlabeled VHS tape, and asks to see it. Back in her cabin, Reiko watches it. It turns out to consist of abstract and in general bizarre footage, concluding with a shot of a well in a forest clearing. After she turns off the TV, she notices a mysterious reflection in the mirror. She then receives an anonymous call which is merely the screeching noise from the tape. Taking the threat of death seriously, Reiko immediately flees the cabin.
Reiko recruits her ex-husband Ryuji Takayama, a former medical student turned mathematics professor, to help study the tape. They take a picture of Reiko and find her face blurred in the photograph, then Ryuji watches the tape for himself. Ryuji, who has ESP, senses something wrong with Reiko's apartment and the tape. The next day, Reiko makes a copy of the tape for him, and the two privately begin to study it before being interrupted by Ryuji's student Mai Takano. After going elsewhere to continue the study, they pick up a slowed down dialect ("Frolic in brine, goblins be thine"), which is said by a figure called the Towel Man, whose face is obscured by a cloth. The next day, Ryuji explains that it is a dialect originating from Oshima Island.
Reiko takes her son Yoichi to stay with her father. That night, Ryuji calls Reiko, and explains that he identified a woman on the tape as Shizuko Yamamura, a psychic medium. They agree on a plan to go to Oshima to further investigate. That night, Reiko receives a vision of the Towel Man and discovers Yoichi watching the tape. When asked why, Yoichi claims Tomoko's ghost told him to do it. Asakawa and Ryuji travel to Oshima to find Shizuko.
Ryuji explains that Shizuko's abilities were exploited by Dr. Heihachiro Ikuma, but the resulting press demonstration led to her being humiliated and she committed suicide by jumping into a volcano whose eruption she had predicted. Asakawa and Ryuji stay overnight at an inn run by the son Shizuko's brother Takashi, learning she had a daughter named Sadako. The next day, Ryuji tries to interrogate Takashi, but he flees until he trips. Through a vision, the couple learn Takashi was responsible for exposing Shizuko to the media, hoping to make money from the situation. Soon, Dr. Ikuma held a demonstration, with Takashi, Sadako and several journalists attending.
Shizuko successfully displayed her psychic abilities throughout the demonstration but one journalist spitefully denounced her as a fraud. Sadako killed the journalist and after the demonstration, Dr. Ikuma was fired, escaping the limelight with Sadako, with their whereabouts currently unknown. Reiko and Ryuji then deduce that Sadako psionically created the cursed videotape, to express her fury against the world. Reiko eventually realizes that the phone only rang when she was at the cabin, which in turn points to where Sadako is. The two go back to Izu, uncovering a well underneath the cabin. Through a vision, they discover that Dr. Ikuma bludgeoned Sadako with a machete and threw her into the well, where Sadako died struggling to escape. They try to find Sadako's body in an attempt to appease her spirit. Minutes before her seven days are up, Reiko finds Sadako's corpse, and they believe that the curse is broken. Ryuji escorts Asakawa home.
The next day however, Ryuji is at home and his TV switches on by itself, showing the well from the end of the tape. The ghost of Sadako crawls out of the well, and out of Ryuji's TV set. Sadako's ghost gives Ryuji a Death Glare that frightens him into a fatal state of shock. Reiko, who had been trying to call Ryuji at the time, hears his last minutes over the phone and races to Ryuji's apartment, but his body has already been removed by the time she arrives. Reiko finds a devastated Mai and sneakily removes the copy of the tape. Desperate to save Yoichi from certain doom, Reiko realizes that copying the tape and showing it to someone else saved her. So with a VCR and Ryuji's copy of the tape, Reiko plans to show the tape to her father, realizing that this is a never-ending cycle: the tape must always be copied and passed on to ensure the survival of the viewers.
Ring 2 (1999): About two weeks after the events of the first film, forensic experts are inspecting the corpse of Sadako Yamamura. They note evidence that Sadako died only a year or two ago, meaning that she was still alive in the sealed well for almost 30 years. They later reconstruct her body and send it to Takaishi Yamamura, Sadako's uncle, who takes it on his boat and later casts it into the bottom of the ocean.
Mai Takano, Ryuji Takayama's assistant, continues to search for answers in regards to Ryuji's sudden death. While searching for Ryuji's ex-wife Reiko Asakawa, she meets Okazaki, Reiko's co-worker, who is investigating the cursed tape in Reiko's stead. Okazaki, still searching for a person who has actually seen the tape with their own eyes, tracks down and interviews a girl named Kanae Sawaguchi. Although she has not yet seen the tape, she agrees to sell him a copy for ¥20,000. Upon giving the tape to Okazaki, Kanae admits that she watched the tape and begs him to watch it to spare her life. However, Okazaki is too afraid to watch it.
Okazaki and Mai visit a mental hospital to see Masami, who is now mute and refuses to leave her room, afraid of the TV in the lounge area. While there, they meet a university classmate of Takayama's, Dr. Kawajiri, who is a prominent paranormal researcher and recognizes that Sadako Yamamura's lingering hatred resides within the tape and can be transferred to people such as Masami. Determined to remove Sadako's spirit from Masami, who has become imbued with psychic powers and can project the tape's images onto nearby TV sets, Dr. Kawajiri arranges a risky experiment based on his theories involving energy transfer. The experiment requires Masami to attempt to drain Sadako's energy out of her by projecting the images onto a blank tape. Mai warns Masami not to participate, but the experiment goes ahead. Images begin to appear on the TV when there is a massive energy surge and Masami collapses in her chair. Mai takes the opportunity to grab the tape and destroy it.
Mai finally meets up with Reiko Asakawa and her son Yoichi, both of whom have been in hiding out of fear from the authorities. Yoichi, having watched the tape, has begun exhibiting psychic abilities and become mute. A while later, Mai is ordered to give the Asakawas' whereabouts. At first Mai refuses to cooperate, but this confronation is interrupted when the police are called to a scene: Kanae Sawaguchi has been found dead in her home. Mai relents after seeing that Kanae was claimed by the curse, and soon after the authorities close in on Reiko and Yoichi. At the police station, Mai utilizes her limited psychic abilities to tell Yoichi to flee. Yoichi regains his voice and alerts Reiko. They escape, but Reiko experiences a vision in which her late father appears. He tells her that "the child you carry with you isn't Yoichi anymore". Reiko is killed by a truck while experiencing the vision. The police arrive and Yoichi focuses his killing intent on one of the detectives for a moment, before Mai interrupts and whisks Yoichi away as she gets promoted to parent. While trying to erase the footage of Kanae's interview, Okazaki finds that the tape won't erase, and the tape sticks. Kanae's face appears on the screen and slowly turning into a ghostly hair-covered face like Sadako's. The grinning Kanae comes closer to the screen and Okazaki screams.
The next morning, Mai and Yoichi head for Izu, hoping for answers from Takaishi Yamamura. Dr. Kawajiri, who also experiments with spirit photography ("nensha"), arrives with equipment and is looking for Mai. Takaishi takes Mai to the River of Offering, and upon returning to the inn she and the doctor see a vision of Shizuko in a scene from the video tape, caused by Yoichi.
That evening, Dr. Kawajiri sets his equipment up next to a pool of fresh water which serves to sap Sadako's energies from Yoichi with Mai as a channeler. The process suddenly becomes chaotic when Yoichi's powers awaken. Takaishi, seeing Sadako's coffin in the pool, swims out towards it and is killed while yelling "Take me! End this with me!" The doctor commits suicide by electrocution under Sadako's influence, which also kills the nurse trying to stop him. Mai runs to Yoichi before blacking out.
Waking up, Mai and Yoichi find themselves in the well before both of them fall in. Ryuji appears, telling Yoichi and Mai to give him their fear in order to escape. Ryuji's grip leaves nensha marks on Yoichi's hand. The well's lid opens and the end of a rope is dropped into its depths. Mai climbs the well with Yoichi on her back when Sadako appears, wearing her reconstructed face like a mask, and climbs the wall, easily catching up to them. But all that happens is that she simply asks them, "Why is it only you were saved?" Sadako then falls back into the well as Mai and Yoichi escape. Mai and Yoichi emerge from the well, only to find themselves in the pool used in the experiment. The bodies of Takaishi, the doctor, and the nurse float around the two as they reach the catwalk. When asked by Mai, Yoichi says he is no longer afraid, which means he is safe now.
In the hospital, a nurse comes into a holding room to take Okazaki's picture before leaving. As the photo develops, her eyes widen in shock before looking back at the room. Behind Okazaki is the laughing ghost of Kanae Sawaguchi.
Ring 0: Birthday (2000): The prequel to the first two films, but plays more like a tragedy than a horror. Thirty years before the first film, a reporter named Miyaji Akiko, whose fiance was the reporter Sadako killed during Shizuko's ESP demonstration detailed in the first film, attempts to gather more information on Sadako's past from a grade school Sadako stayed at. Akiko meets Sadako's governess, who states that Sadako doesn't have any pictures and that she was a very pretty girl. She also tells a story about Sadako, warning the students who were going to go to the sea for camping that they would die if they went there. It was later reported that the students indeed drowned.
Miyaji then begins searching for information from Sadako's therapist, who claims that Sadako was a normal girl and refuses to help. Meanwhile, a nineteen-year old Sadako is a Shrinking Violet who works as an understudy in a theatre troupe as a form of therapy advised by her therapist. Sadako remains quiet and keeps to herself, causing other troupe members to hate her as she creeps them out. But other members of the acting troupe see that she has talent in acting. At the time, another girl, who has been mean to Sadako, played the main role in the troupe's play. She dies suddenly at the hands of an unknown person dressed in white. As the result, Sadako receives the main role (which suits her gentle and quiet personality). Soon enough, Sadako falls in love with one of the other members of the troupe, Hiroshi Toyama (Seiichi Tanabe). She is continually tormented by her own psychic abilities and the hatred from members of her troupe. Some troupe members then experience the same dream where they see a well and an old house every night and blame it all on Sadako's presence. They also experience added supernatural activities. Meanwhile, Miyaji meets with Sadako's governess again, who tells her the story of Sadako's mother (who also had supernatural power). Sadako's mother was also nice, but she was soon driven mad after she and Sadako moved to Dr. Ikuma's house (a character which also appeared in Ringu). Back at the troupe, as Sadako and Toyama talk, Sadako sees the dead girl's ghost, who points at her to imply that Sadako killed her, causing Sadako fear and confusion. These events causes Toyama to be concerned. The two are interrupted by the director, who says that Sadako did incredibly well in the play.
As the film progresses, Sadako and Toyama become close friends. Miyaji finds out that Sadako is acting in the troupe and confronts her, taking pictures of her, only to be interrupted by an invincible force that breaks the camera. Miyaji soon discovers the disturbing truth that the entire troupe has become "cursed" by Sadako's presence. A ghostly face is seen in every picture of the troupe members. A "second" Sadako appears next to the real Sadako when her photo is taken. The second Sadako is believed to be an evil child who is responsible for the deaths of the reporters at the ESP demonstration. Miyaji's colleague advises her not to put this on an article. Miyaji then replies that this was never meant for an article, as she seeks revenge for her fiance. At the opening day of the troupe's play, one of Toyama's co-workers is able to help Miyaji in playing the recording of the ESP demonstration. Upon hearing this while on stage, Sadako remembers that day. Sadako sees the ghosts of all the dead reporters from the event pointing at her, along with her mother's ghost (or hallucination) standing afar with a gentle smile. Sadako's mother tries to tell her something, but disappears before she can say it. Sadako once again loses control of her psychic abilities, destroying the stage and killing the doctor counseling her. It is determined that it was the second Sadako who killed the doctor, not Sadako.
The rest of the troupe (except for Toyama) gangs up on Sadako, blaming her for the recent deaths. Sadako pleads to them to let her be, causing things to fly away and breaking the mirror into pieces. The troupe's members brutally beat her, leaving her seemingly dead. Toyama is devastated as he looks upon a seemingly dead Sadako. Miyaji then tells them of the second Sadako, and that they must rid themselves of the Sadako they have known in order to avoid the second child. When they arrive at Sadako's old home, Dr. Ikuma is horrified when he finds that the troupe members have bought the real Sadako to his house. He informs them that he has been using drugs to keep the second Sadako from growing up and that they are in danger for bringing Sadako there. Toyama is shocked when Sadako revives, hold his hands and demands that he leave her before it is too late. Toyama, however, refuses, and tries to escape with her.
After running to the edge of a cliff, Sadako is suddenly overcome by her second self, undergoes a Fusion Dance with the second one, and kills Toyama. Toyama dies as he tells Sadako that he loves her. Eventually, Sadako kills the rest of the acting troupe one by one, leaving Miyaji and a girl. The girl is still alive but unable to move. Miyaji helps the girl through the woods as Sadako chases them. Miyaji and the girl hide in a cottage, which Sadako manages to find. The two girls kill themselves to escape from Sadako.
After Miyaji's death, Sadako comes to her senses and mourns her actions. Sadako's adoptive father, Dr. Ikuma, decides that he must destroy her. He drugs Sadako by injecting her with poison. She escapes and crawls to the family well. She sees Ikuma coming towards her with a machete. She pleads for her life, but Ikuma brings down the blade on her head. Ikuma brings down the weapon again and throws the body down the dark well. Sadako wakes and sees Tomoya, but soon realizes it was just a hallucination. As she realizes where she is, she looks up in time to see a stone being slid into place, sealing her alive inside and cutting off her screams. Cue the waterworks.
