No animation studio has a catalog quite like Studio Ghibli. For four decades, the Tokyo studio has made hand-drawn films about witches, wolves, forest spirits, flying machines and bathhouses for the gods, and almost every one of them has become a classic. The films are gentle and fierce at once, full of food, weather, work and wonder, and they reward rewatching at any age. If you have only seen one or two, or none at all, this is the place to start.
Here is a short history of the studio and 10 essential Ghibli films, in release order, plus a few deeper cuts and the best ways to watch them.
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A short history of Studio Ghibli
Studio Ghibli was founded on June 15, 1985, by the directors Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata and the producer Toshio Suzuki. Miyazaki is the studio's best-known face, the director behind most of its biggest hits. Takahata, who died in 2018, made quieter, more experimental films that are just as admired by animators. Suzuki is the producer who kept the whole operation running and turned it into a household name.
The studio became famous for refusing shortcuts. Its films are drawn by hand, packed with detail and often score-driven, with music by the composer Joe Hisaishi on nearly all of Miyazaki's features. In North America, the films are now distributed by GKIDS, which handles theatrical runs and home releases.
10 essential Studio Ghibli films
1. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984)
Technically made just before the studio was founded, but always counted as the first Ghibli film, Miyazaki's eco-fable follows a princess trying to make peace between humans and a toxic jungle full of giant insects. Its success is what made Ghibli possible. It is the template for everything that followed: a young heroine, a world in crisis and no simple villains.
2. Castle in the Sky (1986)
The first official Ghibli film, released in August 1986, is a pure adventure about two kids, a floating city and a crew of loud, lovable sky pirates. The airships and giant robots have influenced countless games and films since.
3. My Neighbor Totoro (1988)
Two sisters move to the countryside and meet a huge, furry forest spirit. That is almost the whole plot, and it is perfect. Totoro became the studio's logo and its most beloved character, and this is the film to show anyone who thinks they do not like animation.
4. Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
Released on the very same day as Totoro, April 16, 1988, Takahata's film about two orphaned siblings trying to survive the final months of the Second World War in Japan is one of the most devastating war films ever made, animated or not. Watch it once, and be ready.
5. Kiki's Delivery Service (1989)
A 13-year-old witch moves to a seaside city and starts a flying delivery business. It is a warm, funny film about independence, burnout and finding your own magic again, and it has one of the best cats in cinema.
6. Princess Mononoke (1997)
Miyazaki's epic pits an iron-making town against the gods of the forest, with a cursed prince caught in the middle and a girl raised by wolves on the other side. It is violent, complex and enormous, and it was the moment the wider world started paying attention. Start with the Princess Mononoke Blu-ray if you want to see Ghibli at its most ambitious.
7. Spirited Away (2001)
A sulky 10-year-old wanders into a spirit world and has to work in a bathhouse for the gods to save her parents, who have been turned into pigs. Spirited Away is Ghibli's masterpiece and its most decorated film: it won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, along with the top prize at the Berlin International Film Festival. The Spirited Away Blu-ray is the one Ghibli disc every collection should have.
8. Howl's Moving Castle (2004)
A young hatmaker cursed into old age falls in with a vain wizard whose castle walks on chicken legs. Loosely based on the Diana Wynne Jones novel, it is romantic, strange and gorgeous, and Hisaishi's waltz theme is one of his best.
9. The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (2013)
Takahata's final film retells a 10th-century Japanese folktale in loose charcoal and watercolor lines that look like moving sketches. It is the deep cut on this list and the most quietly radical film Ghibli has made. Animators often name it among the studio's very best.
10. The Boy and the Heron (2023)
Miyazaki came out of retirement for this dreamlike, semi-autobiographical film about a grieving boy led into another world by a talking gray heron. It won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, Ghibli's second, and proved that the studio still has a lot left to say.
Deeper cuts
Once you have seen the big ones, go further. Only Yesterday (1991) is Takahata's grown-up drama about a woman revisiting her childhood. Porco Rosso (1992) follows a pilot cursed with the face of a pig flying seaplanes over the Adriatic. Whisper of the Heart (1995), directed by Yoshifumi Kondō, is a small, lovely story about a girl who wants to write. And The Red Turtle (2016), a wordless co-production directed by the Dutch-British animator Michaël Dudok de Wit, shows how far the studio's influence reaches.
How to watch and what to collect
The Ghibli films stream in many countries, but they are best on disc, with both the original Japanese audio and the English dubs included. Start with the My Neighbor Totoro Blu-ray for younger viewers, and if you love the way these films look, The Art of Spirited Away is packed with the sketches and background paintings behind the film. For more art books, see our list of the best design books every designer should own.
Hisaishi's scores are also worth owning on their own, and Ghibli soundtracks on vinyl make an easy pick from our gift guide for vinyl collectors. If you want to go to the source, the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka, Tokyo, and Ghibli Park in Aichi are the studio's own places to visit.
If Ghibli turns you into a film collector, our explainers on the Criterion Collection and the A24 horror canon are good next stops.
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