anime

Fate is really solid if you like urban fantasy, just know that with many things regarding visual novel adaptations the anime cuts out a lot of stuff which does change context.

As for watch order: start with stay night (Unlimited Blade Works, then Heavens Feel) and only after should you watch zero as it is written in a way that it expects you to have stay night as context. After zero it's largely just a pick what you want to watch although it's recommended you also watch Deens Fate route adaptation as it covers some stuff of the route you might want to have.

If you want the universe has a couple other stories that are loosely related and also worth a shot, these are Mahoutsukai no Yoru (Witch on the Holy Night), Kara no Kyoukai (The Garden of Sinners), and Tsukihime, all of them have or are getting some sort of anime adaptation which are worth watching (except tsukihime's which should be actively avoided unless you read the entire VN and have copious amounts of alcohol). You can really watch these in any order (even before fate) as they are only loosely related but fate is definitely the most popular of them all.

If you have any further questions feel free to ask me and I'll try my best to explain.

Personally I'd say no.

You have to consider the highs and lows when deciding to embark on >20 hrs commitment to consume any particular media. I think the absolute high of the series is Carnival Phantasm, which is a joke slice of life OVA. It is legitimately fantastic.

But to enjoy Carnival Phantasm you have to understand Fate stories and Tsukihime. IMO, Fate never recovered from its origin of being a schlocky early 2000s visual novel with obligatory sex scenes. They awkwardly tied a critical in-story magic mechanic to sex, and the sex scenes are hilariously baaad and really out of place, until the 3rd timeline/storyline of Heaven Feel, where the themes are more mature, and even there it is still edgy. You generally have 3 options, 1. Just tank through the awkward and hilarious sex scenes. 2. Read the PG13 version, where they cuddle instead. But the cuddle version makes so much less sense in term or character relationship and growth compared to explicit sex version. 3. Just fast forward through the sex scene once you hear the sleazy porn music. You still suffer through the cons of (2) that you missed out on some genuine character development. And (4) skip the VN entirely, for anime adaptation, which is an adaptation of the PG13 VN, but there you still suffer the same caveats as some development in character relationship made less sense.

I'm not a prude or anything, but they never got around Fate's origin of being sleazy early 2000s VN. There's structural weakness around the storytelling, around the sex mechanic that they never patch up properly, and instead they build upwards onto spinoff games and multi-billion gacha game.

Watch Kara no Kyoukai instead, it's superior Nasuverse material.

If you really really really like it, then maybe watch fate, but the DEEN adaptation is Deen, and the ufotable UBW, etc is cool, but I'm less into them than the VN

I did greatly enjoy Fate Zero back in the day when I watched it.

Wait until they make a new Fate route anime and then start with that