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Studio Ghibli is scheduled to release its upcoming movie, How Do You Live? in 2023, with Hayao Miyazaki taking up the reins once more. Producer and studio executive Toshio Suzuki confirmed that animation for the movie began in 2016.
However, the reduced manpower combined with Ghibli’s trademark hand-drawn panels meant that the movie was only 15% completed by 2019, and would possibly take around three more years to be finished.
With the studio releasing its first digitally-animated movie in 2020, Earwig and the Witch by Goro Miyazaki, now seems like a good time to look back at some of the best rated Ghibli movies of all time.
7 Ghibli movies that are essential watches for anime lovers
7) The Wind Rises (2013)
The Wind Rises was the last movie to be directed by Hayao Miazaki before his retirement in 2013. The movie follows a fictionalized biography of Jiro Horikoshi, the designer of the wartime Japanese fighter planes Mitsubishi A5M and its successor, the Mitsubishi A6M Zero.
The fictional details of his personal life were adapted from Tatsuo Hori’s 1937 novel, “The Wind has Risen”.
Despite the realism of the plot, this Ghibli movie manages to add a touch of fantasy through Horikoshi’s dreams where the Italian aircraft designer Giovanni Batista Caproni appears during crucial moments of his life, telling him of the terrible beauty of planes, which would inevitably end up destroyed, with only the glory of their flights left behind.
6) The Tale of Princess Kaguya (2013)
Isao Takahata was always more inclined towards more mature themes, favoring expression of emotions and the pathos of life. Based on the 10th century Japanese tale, “The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter," this Ghibli movie deals with themes like beauty, sorrow, feminism and restriction of women.
The Tale of Princess Kaguya has a more traditional animation style, mimicking the art of traditional Japanese paintings.
5) Howl’s Moving Castle (2004)
Based on the 1986 novel of the same name by Diana Wynne Jones, Howl’s Moving Castle is one of the most popular movies by Studio Ghibli. The movie begins with the plain and unassuming Sophie who gets cursed and turns into an old woman.
Her adventure begins when she finds employment as a housekeeper in the strange walking castle belonging to Howl while trying to undo the curse. While prominently championing anti-war themes, what makes this anime movie especially appealing is its host of enigmatic and bizarre characters, with the charismatic wizard Howl at its center.
4) My Neighbor Totoro (1988)
Abounding with skittish dust spirits and a large benign forest spirit dubbed “Totoro”, My Neighbor Totoro is a Ghibli film popular with children and adults alike. The movie follows the adventures of two sisters Satsuki and Mei who move to a house in the countryside with their father while their sick mother recovers at a hospital close by.
While apparently childlike and whimsical, many interpret the movie to represent death and loss, while Totoro watches over the spirits of children who have lost their way back home.
3) Princess Mononoke (1997)
Princess Mononoke, like most Ghibli movies, has a distinct theme, in this case featuring environmentalism. The anime movie provides a deeper look into nature being ravaged due to human greed, with the focus being on the constant conflict between man and his environment.
Seen from the perspective of Ashitaka, we see both the forest and the people from the iron-mining village situated in its heart, fighting for survival. Till the end, Ashitaka gives the viewers a neutral commentary, seeing “with eyes unclouded by hate.”
2) Spirited Away (2001)
Probably the most famous movie by Studio Ghibli, and often called Miyazaki’s masterpiece, Spirited Away is both elaborate and mind blowing. Set in the land of spirits, the movie follows Chihiro’s journey as she agrees to work at the witch Yubaba’s bathhouse to rescue her parents who were turned into pigs after eating the spirit world’s food.
The delightfully absurd movie however has a much darker interpretation, with the bathhouse symbolizing a brothel and Yubaba taking away Chihiro’s name and addressing her as “Sen,” representative of her being assigned a price, since “sen” in Japanese translates to “one hundred”.
Spirited Away is also the first anime film to win the Academy Awards in 2003.
1) Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
In sharp contrast to Spirited Away, Isao Takahata’s Grave of the Fireflies is dark and graphic. Set during wartime Japan, this Ghibli film follows siblings Seta and Setsuko struggling to survive after their mother dies after being horrifically burned by a firebombing in Kobe.
The cyclical narrative shows them slowly succumbing to illness and starvation, as the war ravages the economy and humanity of the people, with no place for a young boy with his younger sister.
This is definitely not a movie for children, but as heartbreaking as it is, it is a masterpiece in its own right, skillfully portraying human life and emotion.
Studio Ghibli has created countless anime masterpieces, beginning with Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind in 1984. There were rumors of the studio shutting down in 2014. However, with the release of Goro Miyazaki’s 2020 movie and Hayao Miyazaki’s ongoing project, the studio will hopefully continue to create more such animated films to win hearts of audiences worldwide.
