Fate/Grand Order Timeline: The Real Story vs. the Side Shorts, in order

Here's the actual shape of it. The real narrative is four pieces: First Order (the 2016 special that sets up Chaldea, Ritsuka, and Mash), then Babylonia, then the two-part Camelot movie, then the Solomon finale. Watch those four in order and you've seen the entire Grand Order storyline start to finish. That's it. That's the whole plot most people are here for.

Everything else in the catalog falls into one of two buckets. The first is side comedy: "You've Lost Ritsuka Fujimaru" and its many follow-up batches are 2-minute chibi gag shorts about life at Chaldea, completely disconnected from the main story. There's also a Camelot-era OVA that's played entirely for laughs. None of it is required, but if you're attached to the cast after Babylonia, it's a fun detour.

The second bucket is promotional material. FGO has an ongoing library of ~1-minute CM shorts advertising the mobile game, running since 2014, plus a handful of New Year's specials built around the game's Lostroom concept. Some of these are animated by genuinely great studios and worth a watch for the visuals alone, but there's no plot to follow. There's also a clip-show recap tucked into the TV run that you can skip without losing anything.

I've grouped everything below by era so you can see where each piece fits, and tagged each one essential, optional, or skippable so you know exactly what you're signing up for before you hit play. If you only want the story, follow the essential tags and you'll cut a 20+ entry list down to four.