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3 days ago · All Studio Ghibli Movies Ranked by Tomatometer. Studio Ghibli has been gently revolutionizing the animation world since 1986, combining an endearing and empathetic worldview with rousing...
Sep 7, 2023 · Almost all of Studio Ghibli’s films are on Netflix and Max. To help prioritize your animation binge, we’ve ranked every single one.
Mar 10, 2024 · From ‘Spirited Away’ to ‘The Boy and the Heron,’ Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata’s Japanese animation group Studio Ghibli has produced some of the most critically acclaimed and ...
- Brian Tallerico
- Contributor
- Overview
- 1. Spirited Away (2001)
- 2. My Neighbor Totoro (1988)
- 3. Kiki's Delivery Service (1989)
- 4. Howl's Moving Castle (2004)
- 5. Nausicaä and the Valley of the Wind (1984)
- 6. Princess Mononoke (1997)
- 7. Porco Rosso (1992)
- 8. The Tale of Princess Kaguya (2013)
- 9. Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
Best
By Henry St Leger
published 12 April 2020
From My Neighbor Totoro to Howl’s Moving Castle
(Image credit: Studio Ghibli / Netflix)
Studio Ghibli movies are close to the hearts of many, and it's not hard to see why. The Japanese film studio has created some of the best anime flicks of the past four decades, and has become synonymous with anime for Western audiences.
Spirited Away is often the first Studio Ghibli to come up in conversation, and for good reason. This powerful tale – of a human girl who travels to the spirit world, and is contracted to work in a mystical bathhouse in the hope of returning to her normal life – is undoubtedly a landmark piece of animation, and one of the greatest films of all time.
The cast of characters are truly unforgettable, from the spider-limbed coal master and his tiny army of soot sprites, to the toads and spirits that frequent the bathhouse – with the central character of Chihiro seeming smaller and more helpless the larger and more indecipherable the world around her becomes.
Next up in our list is that family classic, My Neighbor Totoro. In usual Ghibli fashion, it centers on a young girl – two, in fact – encountering the supernatural world.
The Totoro of the title is the ‘king of the forest’, a woodland spirit with a massive smile, adorable whiskers, and cuddly body that seemed made for tie-in plushies (which at least one TechRadar writer admitted to owning). When a family moves into an old, seemingly haunted house in rural Japan, two sisters quickly stumble across this Totoro and the magical forces enlivening the landscape around them.
Kiki’s Delivery Service is an utterly charming piece of animation, following the fortunes of a young witch, Kiki – complete with animal familiar and flying broomstick – who travels to a bustling city in the hope of forging her own path.
Despite the occult overtones, Kiki is mostly interested in using her witchy powers as a personal courier for baked goods and children’s toys – and becomes central to a rescue operation when an airship demonstration goes wrong.
Another classic of the Ghibli oeuvre, Howl’s Moving Castle is packed with magical elements that make the Star Wars movies look positively mundane.
The film follows a young girl (seeing a pattern here?) who’s cursed by a witch to lose her youth – and finds employment in the travelling mechanical castle of a vain wizard without a heart (Howl), powered by an adorable fire demon (Calicifer).
Nausicaä and the Valley of the Wind is the first Ghibli movie, and also one of the studio’s best. It takes place in a world devastated by war, now turned largely to desert, with only a few patches of forest and greenland left.
Princess Nausicaä is a dedicated explorer and scientist, who takes to the skies in a glider and attempts to discern how to restore nature to its former glory – with thrilling villains, gorgeously rendered wildlife, and a thoughtfully environmental message at its core.
While American dubs can often feel disconnected from the emotions of the characters onscreen, you’ll find that there’s an incredible voiceover cast here, with Uma Thurman (Kill Bill), Patrick Stewart (Star Trek: Picard) and even a young Shia LeBeouf (Lawless).
The film also features animation work from a young Hideaki Anno, who went on to create the iconic Neon Genesis Evangelion anime – and is worth watching for his incredible molten warrior set piece alone.
Combining the ecological message of Nausicaä with the world of nature spirits, Princess Mononoke is one of Ghibli’s more mature films. There are the requisite cute characters that Ghibli is famous for (those tree spirits are adorable), but even the cute stuff is nestled among some pretty heavy themes and moments of shocking violence.
That can make Princess Mononoke a difficult film for people more used to the whimsical side of Ghibli, but if you persevere and put aside your preconceptions about what a Ghibli film should be, you’ll be rewarded with one of the studio’s very best films.
Set in feudal Japan, the story focuses on a young prince called Ashitaka, who becomes embroiled in a war between resource-hungry humans and the gods of a forest that humans are destroying. During his adventure he meets a wolf-riding human girl, San, also known as Princess Mononoke, who was raised by the wolf goddess Moro.
San hates the humans, the humans fear the gods, and Ashitaka is stuck in the middle. It gets complicated – and at times very odd – and you could argue it’s a bit like a violent version of Fern Gully. But it’s so much more than that, too, with stunning visuals and a powerful message behind it all. There’s a reason it smashed Japan’s box office record, keeping its crown until 2001 when it was beaten by another Ghibli masterpiece… Spirited Away.
“I’d rather be a pig than a facist.”
That one line tells you more about Porco Rosso than anything else – a heavily politicized animation that sits somewhere between fairytale fantasy and war film. It tells the story of Marco Rossolini, AKA Porco Rosso, or ‘The Red Pig’. An ex-World War I Italian fighter-pilot hotshot, Rossolini received a mysterious curse that turns him into an anthropomorphized pig – hence that ‘Porco’ moniker.
The Tale of Princess Kaguya is undoubtedly the most beautifully-animated movie in this list. Using an illustrative, paint-brush style, it stands out boldly from the traditions of modern animation and is unafraid to let minimally-drawn sketches and colors take center stage.
The thumb-sized Princess Kaguya is discovered living in a bamboo shoot, and taken home by a tree-cutter who raises her as his own child. She quickly (and we mean quickly) grows into a young woman of both grace and unburdened joy, but their simple lifestyle is upended when the tree-cutter moves his family to the capital, in search of a noble lifestyle more befitting his mystical daughter.
Grave of the Fireflies is slightly infamous as the Ghibli movie we’re often told not to watch, given the difficult subject matter.
Set during the final months of the Second World War, it’s a devastating tale of pain, suffering, and survival, as two siblings try not to starve while their family – and country – is rocked by the global conflict.
Jul 10, 2023 · The best Studio Ghibli movies offer gorgeous hand-drawn animation from the wild imagination of Miyazaki.
- Ro Moore
Jan 5, 2021 · 1. My Neighbor Totoro (1988) Photo : Courtesy of Studio Ghibli/Everett Collection. Hayao Miyazaki’s masterpiece isn’t just the best feature that Studio Ghibli has made; I reckon it’s the...
Aug 15, 2022 · Studio Ghibli is one of the best animation studios in history, so we ran down their filmography and ranked their movies from worst to best.
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