neon genesis evangelion, or other times known as shin seiki evangelion has quite a lot to it's series but it starts off with the original 26 episode anime series from 1995-1996. nge has 2 versions for english dubs, one being the classic 1996 dub and the other being netflix's 2019 redub. i've watched this series 4 times, twice on sub and twice more for each of the dubs, personally i prefer the jp sub especially for first time watchers and if you want to watch you friends who havent watched yet cry but each to their own.

the end of evangelion was offically said by hideki anno to be an alternate ending from the original series. that being said though a lot of people like to interpret the two as the same one ending, just told from a different perspective. whether or not you choose to believe that they are the same ending or not though doesn't matter much since it's legit evangelion, there's really no wrong way to interpret it. but some people say to watch this before 25-26 of the main series, that i would suggest not since release order is the original ending first.