Ranking every single Studio Ghibli film
Yeah, this is going to be a long one. I had hoped to publish this list many weeks ago, when I saw The Boy and the Heron, also known as How Do You Live?, at the Chicago International Film Festival. (My review for that film can be found here, though I‘ll briefly summarize my thoughts on it when I get to it in this list…) As it turns out, ranking the Ghibli filmography isn’t a particularly easy task, and I could deliberate for years over where each film should land. It especially complicated things to have to decide a space for a new film, having to contend with competing factors of recency bias and the untouchable iconicism of basically every Ghibli film. So consider this list only a snapshot in time, only representative of my thoughts in this very moment, and even then maybe not. I suspect when I rewatch The Boy and the Heron, with there now being a couple months since I first saw it, the nuances of my opinion on it could change and that could undoubtedly affect the list.
I think I’ve said enough to cover my butt. Today is the last day I really have to get this out ahead of the pack, as the film has IMAX previews in the United States tonight, followed by early access shows on Wednesday before the movie officially releases nationwide this weekend. (It’s also been playing for a couple weeks in New York and Los Angeles. It’s a weird rollout.) Anyways, here’s the list.
24. Earwig and the Witch
I don’t think there is any question that this is the weakest film Studio Ghibli has ever produced, but I also feel bad even mentioning it because of how much of a punching bag it quickly became, even before release. Especially because, to be honest, I don’t think the animation in the film is that bad. I feel like many people’s kneejerk reactions came from a place of protecting the sanctity of Studio Ghibli, which is seen as one of the few remaining pillars of mainstream traditional animation. I don’t really see it that way, though, in that I don’t think this film is indicative of the studio’s future, and I definitely don’t think it retroactively ruins some illusion of sanctity. Taking the film on its own terms, the animation isn’t all bad.
Weirdly, the main character is the roughest looking, but the rest of the characters are largely well-designed and appealing. There’s nice lighting at points, there are backdrops that are very reminiscent of the studio’s 2D work, and there are interesting things done here or there with the CGI. Still, it’s noticeably low budget, and there isn’t nearly the attention to detail you might expect from Ghibli. I think this is most apparent with the characters’ hair. In most Ghibli movies, hair is animated in this dynamic, expressive way that reacts both to the environment and the characters’ emotions. Here, all the hair is immobile, stuck in place like rubber.
The main problem with the film isn’t the animation. I’m sure with truly gorgeous animation it would have been easier to ignore faults elsewhere, but those faults do exist in the form of the film’s story, which feels derivative despite coming from adaptation, and ultimately is unsatisfying and incomplete.
(If you want to learn more about Studio Ghibli’s history with CGI, check out my piece on lesser-known Ghibli projects.)
23. Ocean Waves
This is another that seems slightly unfair to punch down on. If you don’t know anything about it, it was intended as a lower budget TV movie for the studio’s less senior animators to be able to take leadership on. I don’t hate it at all, and in fact with relatively minor plot changes I could see it being a masterpiece. As it stands, though, it’s a little rushed at times, and the plot veers on melodrama in inconsistent ways. I love the artstyle here, with its beautiful color palette and appealing 90s animation look (hence why it tends to show up on those “aesthetic anime” pages despite virtually nobody having seen it). What I admire the most about Ocean Waves is that it doesn’t feel like a pale imitation of Miyazaki’s or Takahata’s work. It was the first Ghibli film not to be directed by either of those master directors, and it feels very much like its own thing. Meanwhile, some future Ghibli films directed by new directors would end up feeling a little too much like trying to make a Miyazaki movie but worse. (Foreshadowing?)
22. My Neighbors the Yamadas
I wish my previous comment were a more direct segue, but we’re not quite there yet. First we have to take a look at Isao Takahata’s idiosyncratic comic strip adaptation. Director Takahata really never made two movies that are alike, and this one feels particularly unique among the Ghibli filmography, with its comic-strip style character designs and pleasing digital watercolor style that would later be iterated upon for his final film, The Tale of the Princess Kaguya. This is really just a sweet little family comedy, and it doesn’t feel much different from just reading a bunch of comic strips back to back, as it’s structured as a series of very short vignettes, sometimes only a minute or so long. It’s not that long of a movie, but it threatens to overstay its welcome without any real plot to propel it forward. It’s certainly Takahata’s weakest, but I still appreciate all of the innovation he was able to bring to his work and to the studio, never afraid to try new things or make a film that stands out.
21. The Cat Returns
Ocean Waves and Earwig and the Witch may have been Ghibli’s only TV movies, but The Cat Returns is the closest they’ve ever gotten to making one of those direct-to-DVD sequels Disney used to pump out for every one of their hits. This is an incredibly funny film, leaning fully into the absurdist humor that’s seen in glimpses elsewhere in the studio’s filmography. There’s not much to say about it, except that the animation style is jarringly distinct from any other Ghibli film, and that this is technically the only full length sequel the studio has ever produced, though it’s really just a loose spinoff of an in-universe story in Whisper of the Heart. It’s honestly just wild to me that this even exists, and it’s a fun time. I don’t really have the childhood nostalgia for this one that many people do — I feel like I must have seen it at some point as a kid, but not as often as the likes of Totoro or Ponyo — but I can certainly imagine the enjoyment a kid would get out of this.
20. From Up on Poppy Hill
Goro Miyazaki’s reconciliatory collaboration with his esteemed father is an interesting one. After his debut fantasy film, Tales from Earthsea, was greatly maligned, the younger Miyazaki turned to another genre that his mentors have played often in, that being the nostalgic slice-of-life drama, working off a script by Ocean Waves scribe Keiko Niwa and none other than Hayao Miyazaki himself. It’s hard to say what elements of the film were influenced by who, but the main problem is that it seemingly desires to have a melodramatic backbone to it, while also striving to be a nice no-plot-just-vibes piece (actually, considering Ocean Waves also kinda has that problem, it wouldn’t be a stretch to attribute this to Keiko Niwa, but I’m hesitant to let either Miyazaki off the hook). Being caught between these two places, it doesn’t feel like there is enough development to justify the melodrama, and the plot twists could’ve been handled more gracefully. Still, when it does lean into the vibes, it’s beautiful, and it feels sweet and delicate, with a wistful, nostalgic tone.
19. Arrietty
Interestingly, we have another film here that was co-written by Hayao Miyazaki and Keiko Niwa while directorial duties were handed off to someone else. This time, that “someone else” was Hiromasa Yonebayashi, making his feature directorial debut. It’s a shame that Hayao Miyazaki doesn’t have the time to direct every screenplay he wants to, but if any scripts are going to be handed over to other talent, I’m not too broken up about this one being one of them, as it ultimately feels pretty minor. Arrietty offers an exciting little fantastical story and plenty of beautiful animation, with some fascinating work done to highlight how small the protagonists are, but it doesn’t affect me as much as some of the studio’s best, and the aesthetics don’t quite outweigh the simplicity of the plot and themes.
18. Tales from Earthsea
Yeah, I actually think this is Goro Miyazaki’s best film. It’s overstuffed, it’s probably a great simplification of the source material that I have yet to read, and the main character has some generic anime boy qualities that prevent him from being as complex as some other Ghibli characters. However, I quite like the animation style overall, which Goro takes in a bit of a different direction than his father, before aligning more with his father’s style for Poppy Hill. It can look a little cheap at times, but I will always appreciate a bit of stylistic deviation. I also just really admire the ambition on display, this is a grand and thematically rich story. If Hayao Miyazaki had directed this as originally intended, maybe he could have turned it into a masterpiece. But, then again, fans of the books would still probably be unhappy with how he would treat the source material, given he isn’t too fond of sticking to the text, as demonstrated by Howl’s Moving Castle (and The Boy and the Heron and The Wind Rises, but those respective source materials don’t exactly have fervent fans, and those might be such large deviations from the text that it circles back to being hard to complain about).
17. Castle in the Sky
This is the first time we see Hayao Miyazaki’s directorial work on this list, though we’ve passed a couple films he wrote. We’re already at the point in the list where it’s hard to say anything negative about these films, because this is truly a magical film. It was Miyazaki’s third directorial feature, and already he was grappling with the themes that define many of his films, from environmentalism to pacifism to the purity of childhood. Castle in the Sky incorporates both the grand, elaborate fantasy of Miyazaki’s most famous work and the action-adventure charm of his previous two films, especially his debut The Castle of Cagliostro (which can’t be included in this list because it was pre-Ghibli, but is a great film). Joe Hisaishi, who has done the score for almost every Miyazaki film, wrote absolutely iconic music for this one. It all comes together into something that really feels like a distillation of childhood fantasy while also not shying away from deeper, darker themes below the surface. It almost feels unfair to rank this in the bottom half, but as I mentioned, it gets really difficult to rank these from here on out.
16. Pom Poko
For all of the scrotum stretching and similarly absurd stuff that happens in this film, it’s a surprisingly dark and beautiful film, backed up by some of the more impressive animation Ghibli has done. The film reckons with the modern world more than any of the studio’s other work, as it’s the rare Ghibli film that takes place in a contemporary normal world, as opposed to being a period piece or pure fantasy. Of course, this also has highly intelligent shapeshifting tanuki in it, but I think you can understand what I mean if you’ve seen this. Like much of Takahata’s work, the film is kinda the black sheep of the family, but absolutely a worthy addition.
15. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
While this was technically not originally produced as a Ghibli film, as it predated the studio’s existence, it’s generally accepted as part of the filmography because the studio that did produce it directly led to Studio Ghibli’s existence. Taking it as the inaugural film of the studio, it really set the bar high. Miyazaki would explore certain themes in more depth and to greater impact in some of his future films, but even with his first original film right out of the gate, he was creating such a rich work of art set in a complex, believable fantasy world. My only real qualm with Nausicaä is that it feels like there’s so much more that didn’t make it to the screen, as it features the grand fantasy of some of Miyazaki’s mid-career work but takes a relatively simplified approach to it. It’s caught somewhere between the adventure entertainment of Castle in the Sky or Lupin and the deeper explorations of Princess Mononoke or Spirited Away. I haven’t read Miyazaki’s manga, but I imagine it expands upon the story in ways that would deeply enhance the characters and themes here.
14. Porco Rosso
This stands out as one of Miyazaki’s most fascinating films. There’s an emerging melancholy to the film and an introspective maturity set against a backdrop that often incorporates action and comedy. Miyazaki’s films always involve metaphors, but this is one that very explicitly contains a central allegory, giving it a tight thematic focus. Miyazaki’s films had touched on the terrors of war before, but this one is very explicit about the endless tragedy of the aftermath, and is made particularly tangible by the fact that it takes place in the wake of a very real war. The film is at its most gorgeous when we get glimpses of the titular character’s past, and was arguably Miyazaki’s most devastating film at the time, even if it often presents itself as a comedy adventure. As far as Miyazaki’s male protagonists go (of which there are only a handful, most of whom are stoic and emotionally closed-off), this is likely his most complex, and the most interiority we get of one. “Seeing you makes me wish I’d never given up being human.”
13. Howl’s Moving Castle
This is assuredly number one in the hearts of those who grew up on Tumblr, and it’s a great film, but as we get closer to the top 10 there becomes a razor-thin margin between any two given films. This is one of Miyazaki’s messier films, which honestly only makes it more appealing to me. He filters Diana Wynne Jones’ original fantasy novel through the lens of his early Iraq War rage, and out pops something wholly unique, if potentially frustrating to fans of the novel. The visuals are as lavish and complex as ever, potentially motivated by his desire to one-up his previous film, Spirited Away, which was already about as detailed as can be, as far as the animation goes. Beyond the aesthetics, I think what draws people so strongly to this film is the characters, and they really are what make it so lovely. The idea of a found family is one that connects with many people, and everyone in this is just so charming. I appreciate the sheer abstractness of Miyazaki’s approach to this film, but he had done, and later would again do, similar things to slightly greater effect.
12. Kiki’s Delivery Service
It’s impossible not to love a film like this, and it really becomes quite difficult to critically differentiate between Miyazaki’s main trio of excellent films aimed at a young audience. Kiki’s has incredible characters and a subtle complexity. The film speaks to children in essentially every way, though perhaps to a slightly older audience than Totoro or Ponyo. Kiki is such a well-written and relatable character, and much of the power of the film comes from her discovering the humanity of others while also learning about herself through her internal struggles. Miyazaki understands the problems faced by his characters, and never lets it feel like he is looking down on them: Not for their flaws or struggles, not for their age, not for their gender. He gives every character every opportunity to shine. This film is small, simple, and comforting, and features a dream that many of us surely have, which is to live in a forest among the crows.
11. Ponyo
I’ve never really understood why people tend to dismiss this one while holding Miyazaki’s other children-oriented work in such high regard, considering Ponyo is pure storybook magic, and fires on all cylinders from a technical standpoint. The animation is fluid and dynamic in a way unlike anything Miyazaki had ever done, and the artstyle is a rare deviation for him, with backdrops that delightfully look like they were drawn with color pencils. Every character is charming and feels so human, and it’s hard not to get pulled into the fantasy with them. Miyazaki is a master at creating films for young children that don’t talk down to them, as he clearly understands their intelligence. There are few movies that are such a joy to watch unfold. As Miyazaki winds down his career, I’ll be glad that this one will have been among his last, leaving a joyous fairy tale fantasy for the young ones.
10. The Boy and the Heron
Much like Ponyo, this film features everyone behind the scenes working in their highest caliber, with some of the most beautiful animation the studio has ever produced. Produced by a small, select team over the better part of a decade, it’s a meticulously constructed masterpiece that recalls the chaotic beauty of Howls Moving Castle and Spirited Away while undoubtedly standing as something completely new, demonstrating that the Ghibli team still has plenty of tricks under their sleeves, and that Hayao Miyazaki still has a mind bursting with ideas to explore. Thematically, it feels like the natural continuation of The Wind Rises, as Miyazaki’s autobiographical musings are far more at the forefront than in his earlier films, which leads to a certain darkness and maturity that carry through the entirety of the film. There’s plenty of humor akin to that of Spirited Away, but there’s also a certain unavoidable emptiness and desperation that can’t completely be outweighed by silly creatures and visual gags. I can’t wait to watch it again.
Read my full review from October here.
9. When Marnie Was There
This one’s interesting. I honestly only love it more every time I rewatch it, and it’s admittedly snuck up the ranks of my list over time. The film offers such a shatteringly poignant representation of adolescent loneliness, depression, and angst that only a couple other Ghibli films access. It’s devastatingly painful how relatable a character Anna is in this film, and how realistically she’s rendered. She’s the younger version of any number of people, people who would love to go back in time and tell that younger version all about how things will turn out alright in the end. I actually first watched this when I was about Anna’s age, but I don’t think I consciously connected myself to the film back then, it required the power of hindsight. It’s a beautiful, serene waterside tale, and certainly Hiromasa Yonebayashi’s best work. It’s not made with exactly the same flawless precision as what the more seasoned masters of the studio brought to their films (even if it does feel noticeably more assured than Arrietty), but every small stumble or eyebrow raise is offset, truthfully, by what the film means to me. It’s a wonderful artifact of late-stage Studio Ghibli, preceded by attempts to create Hayao Miyazaki simulacra on the eve of his retirement and followed by an ill-advised experiment in CGI. It hits that perfect sweet spot of being able to move away from expectations a little while not falling into the deep end.
When Marnie Was There was released right on the precipice of change, as not long after its release, Studio Ghibli went on hiatus in the wake of Hayao Miyazaki’s retirement, and many of its employees subsequently left to form another studio (including Yonebayashi). It’s a miracle, then, that the film feels so detached from worries about its studio’s future, instead existing in the moment, relatively unobstructed by notions of legacy.
8. My Neighbor Totoro
At some point I had Totoro, Ponyo, and Kiki’s all stuck together in this list, but with the inclusion of The Boy and the Heron and the gradually creeping of Marnie’s rank, Totoro has become separated from the pack. The only thing that could give this a slight edge over the other two in this spiritual trilogy is that if I had a child and were truly forced to choose between the three films to show them, I would have to go with this one. This is pure childhood imagination and innocence crafted into a film, and I don’t know if there’s a film out there that is more in tune with the way a child interprets the world, the way they emote and react to things around them. The kids at the center of the film are very realistic, and it feels like we’re getting a slice of real lives as we watch them. It’s one of the most kindhearted films to ever exist, and a reminder that Miyazaki thrives in simplicity and humanism.
7. Grave of the Fireflies
This is a pretty hard left turn from the last entry, though the two were released the same year. In sharp contrast, this one is a terribly bleak movie. The inherent innocence of children is set against the misery of war, and Takahata crafts such a compelling portrait of these two kids, turning them not into just cardboard reflections of the themes and time period but allowing them to be believable people whose mistakes we can empathize with, no matter how dire the consequences. A movie being one of the saddest ever made doesn’t automatically make it great, and I grapple with the effect that this film’s inherent importance has on me, but it’s hard not to see this as a great film.
6. Spirited Away
Is it a testament to the consistently high quality of this studio’s output that Spirited Away could somehow fall outside the top 5? Probably. These are the difficult decisions we have to make sometimes. It’s likely Miyazaki’s most imaginative film (though his latest may give it a run for its money in that regard), and there’s a reason it’s as iconic as it is. Chihiro is simply one of the great protagonists of cinema, acting as our eyes as she leads us into a confusing, chaotic fantasy world. The film is as dense thematically as it is visually, but as much as every element can be examined for specific meaning and commentary, it’s just as effective as something you can just let wash over you. It strikes that perfect balance for a Miyazaki film where it speaks to children and adults equally. When I was a kid, I was terrified by the concept of one’s name being physically stolen from them, and it’s still just as unsettling now. The famous train scene is one of the greatest scenes ever put to film, and contains so much beauty and meaning on its own that I could have just watched that for 2 hours and still loved the movie.
5. Whisper of the Heart
Among the films that Hayao Miyazaki wrote but did not direct, this is undoubtedly my favorite. This was the only feature directed by Yoshifumi Kondo before his untimely death, and he did a beautiful job with it. It’s a shame that he wasn’t able to make several more movies. Unlike with Arrietty, you wouldn’t be able to tell that Whisper of the Heart wasn’t directed by a seasoned master of a director, it’s just so confident and assured in its direction, telling a rare grounded story but merging it with fantasy in clever, playful ways. Much like Anna in When Marnie Was There, Shizuku serves as a deeply relatable representation of adolescence, and her sense of aimlessness and frustration with creativity are aspects that really speak to me. The film is just so specific and detailed, and its tone is unlike any other movie. The fantasy world within it, backdropped by Naohisa Inoue’s beautiful, surreal artwork, is unlike what any other movie offers, even within Ghibli’s filmography. Without a doubt, this is one of Studio Ghibli’s finest films.
4. Only Yesterday
Once again, Isao Takahata brings a distinct voice to his work and is unafraid to experiment stylistically and narratively to create something great. There’s something so achingly beautiful and empathetic about this film. It’s a tapestry of details and moments embedded in memories that amount to a wonderful meditation on the disconnect between childhood and adulthood, how one fades too quickly and the other sneaks up just as fast. As it’s a film about a young woman reflecting on her childhood, it’s perfectly crafted to be devastatingly relatable to me for the longest possible period of time, as the perspectives of both the child and adult versions of the character are so realistically observed and conveyed. I can relate to the daily tribulations and anxieties of the kid, and then be hit by the aimlessness and uncertainty in life of her adult self.
3. The Tale of the Princess Kaguya
Would you look at that, two Takahata films, one after the other. This was his final film before his death, which offers a particular sort of weight to it. Much like The Boy and the Heron, this film was produced with a massive budget (the most expensive Japanese film ever at the time, likely now only surpassed by Miyazaki’s latest) and with a very long timeline (this and Heron are the studio’s only films to be developed without deadlines), and every penny and moment of work went into creating absolutely ethereal beauty in every frame. There are points where the character is animated to be so alive that it’s as if the animation itself is a breathing, living thing, a culmination of every element of the frame: The water, the wind, the grass, the people. Its story of celestial tragedy is deeply compelling, and there are themes running through the film that also run through Takahata’s other films and Studio Ghibli’s filmography as a whole. It’s amazing, once you start paying attention, how many of the studio’s films ask the question of what it means to truly live. I don’t know if it’s so easy to choose between this and Only Yesterday as his best film, but The Tale of the Princess Kaguya is undoubtedly one of the most beautifully animated films of all time, possibly the most.
2. Princess Mononoke
This could honestly just as easily be number one. As I said, razor thin margins. Here, there may as well be no margin at all, as I believe Princess Mononoke to be among the greatest films ever made. Miyazaki constructs a brilliant fable here, twisting his usual themes into a timeless tale of warring ideologies and moral ambiguity. It’s hard to watch this film and not immediately feel connected to the natural world and the magic that emanates from it, hidden in the beautifully lush greens and blues of every frame. It’s deeply imaginative and precise, and contains many of Miyazaki’s greatest-ever scenes. It’s brutal, it’s beautiful, it doesn’t hold back, and I could watch it every day until I die. After repeatedly missing this during its theatrical re-releases, I finally caught it this year, and seeing it on the big screen was everything I could have hoped for.
1. The Wind Rises
If you’ve been keeping track, this should come as no surprise. Although this is no longer Miyazaki’s swan song, as he came out of retirement to direct The Boy and the Heron, it still feels like the natural collision of all of his artistry that preceded it. This film is nothing if not the culmination of a career, a film where Miyazaki turns a mirror on himself and explores some of his own greatest flaws and fears, a departure from his general desire to project optimism through his films. The animation here is stealthily some of the most detailed, rich, and beautiful of his career, which I feel like people don’t give quite enough credit to just because it’s a relatively grounded and realistic tale rather than his usual fantasy fare. Even so, it seems like every scene in the film has some absolutely jawdropping frame or some animation detail that seems so precise that it’s hard to imagine how the animators achieved it.
This is a controversial film, and I understand why, but I find it all the more fascinating the way Miyazaki, a famed pacifist, handles the subject of war here: We see the destruction of war throughout the film in some way or another, often through Jiro’s dreams becoming corrupted by visions of destruction, but the full extent of the tragedies are somewhat obfuscated in subtext. Miyazaki takes a real-life figure and turns him into a symbol of something greater based on a single quote, in which the real Jiro Horikoshi said, “All I wanted to do was to make something beautiful.” Because Miyazaki combines the real biography of Horikoshi with elements from an unrelated fictional book as well as his own ideas, this isn’t a particularly historically accurate film, but that wasn’t the intention. Miyazaki sees the beauty of airplanes and has to reconcile the destruction those planes cause with his own pacifist beliefs, and he also sees the beauty of animation but wonders how much it was worth it, whether he actually brought good into the world or if it’s truly hopeless to try.
I can’t possibly complain about Miyazaki coming out of retirement to make The Boy and the Heron, or any other film that he may make next, because that film is wonderful and feels as worthy a puzzle piece to Miyazaki’s oeuvre as anything. However, The Wind Rises is, to me, the definitive apex of Miyazaki’s filmography, the fallout of which has created at least one more fantastic, fascinating film and will likely (hopefully) lead to others in this waning late stage of Miyazaki’s life. However many he still has in him, The Wind Rises is unlikely to be matched as a swan song and send-off to both the man’s life and his career.
