My Top 10 Studio Ghibli Films

Since 1985, Studio Ghibli has been warming hearts and stunning our eyeballs with beautiful animation. Though Hayou Miyazaki gets a lot of praise for their work, the studio was set up by him, Toshio Suzuki, Yasuyoshi Takoma, and Isao Takahata. Remember that last name because his creations will appear multiple times in this list. Please note: not every Studio Ghibli film will feature, these are just my top choices. They are also all English dubs, so expect some famous Western actors to crop up.

Here we go...

Honourable mentions:

Grave of the Fireflies (1988)

Isao Takahata's harrowing depiction of the aftermath of WW2 through the lives of a young Japanese man and his little sister. It’s a film you have to see just the once, but it will stay with you for the rest of your life.

My Rating: Devastating (it is neither "bad" nor "good").

Porco Roso (1992)

A pilot voiced by Michael Keaton is cursed to look like a pig. The film surprised me with how “grown-up” it feels and the merging of Japanese and Italian culture. It does, however, go on a bit.

My Rating: 3 STARS OUT OF 5


Image: Is this a spoiler? It seems like a spoiler. A vast cloudy sky is lit by a sunrise. An enormous black dragon looks down at a man on a grassy hilltop. The young man has his arms outstretched in joy.

10) Tales from Earthsea (2006)

Gorō Miyazaki’s directorial debut, Tales from Earthsea, is a 2006 film based on plots and characters from works by Ursula K. Le Guin. A mysterious wizard named Sparrowhawk (voiced by Timothy Dalton) sets out to help a troubled, young prince named Arren. My favourite character (and design) is the evil, androgynous sorcerer, Cob. Played by Willem Dafoe, his voice trickles in your ears.

Image: Dressed in a purple tunic, Cob stands by dark trellised windows, holding a floating blue orb of light in one palm. His nails are long, and his skin is pale with a straight, narrow mouth and wide-set, narrowed eyes with red vertical lines in the corners. Cob’s hair flows straight down his shoulders. At the top of his head, his hair comes to a strange point.

As my first taste of Le Guin’s fantasy universe, Tales from Earthsea has some great ideas, but a lot of crucial information seems missing; it left me frustrated with more questions than answers, though eager to read the books it came from.

My Rating: 3 STARS OUT OF 5

Image: I love how minimalist this poster looks. The film’s title is vast and white, lit by the turquoise glow of Sheeta’s crystal. She has it tied around her neck, and it has her suspended horizontally in the air. With her dark braids flying behind her head, Sheeta wears a pink hair band. She also wears a blue dress and sensible brown shoes. Pazu stands on a raised platform, looking amazed. He wears a flat cap, waistcoat and shirt, carrying a tin bottle.

9) Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986)

As one of Studio Ghibli’s earlier works, Laputa: Castle in the Sky is not as memorable as some later works, but no less ambitious. A young man meets an unconscious, floating girl kept aloft by a large crystal around her neck. The girl, Sheeta (voiced by Anna Paquin), is pursued by various colourful characters looking for fame, glory, and a secret, mythical city. Mark Hamill voices the main villain, and his performance is chilling. The man has voiced The Joker more than once, so it makes sense.

It’s thought-provoking, exciting, and funny (then there’s that exploding shirt scene I mentioned in my Princess Mononoke review). My main issue is how the plot heavily influenced the 2013 Professor Layton Nintendo 3DS game, The Azran Legacy. Call it nitpicky, but the game was not the strongest in the series, so it’s hard to watch Castle in the Sky without comparing the two.

My Rating: 3.5 STARS OUT OF 5

Image: Cuteness overload. The sky is blue and cloudy. Mei and Satsuki are fishing in a lake, sitting in the low boughs of a tree. Their bucket and bag hand from a small branch. Mei bends down to reach her hook, wearing a round straw hat. Totoro sits with them and his other rabbit friends. The smallest one sits on his head, dangling its fish in front of his large eyes.

8) My Neighbour Totoro (1988)

It’s a film with characters so iconic they’re the studio logo. Totoro appeared in Toy Story 3, and now there’s a Broadway musical. Satsuki (Dakota Fanning) and her little sister Mei (Elle Fanning) move to a new home with their dad while their mum recovers from a severe illness. They discover soot sprites, three forest spirits - one of which is a giant rabbit called Totoro - and a cat bus.

It’s a grinning cat, which is also a bus.

Image: The cat bus is a massive, grinning brown tabby with multiple pairs of legs. Above its head is the sign for its destination, written in Japanese. Similar to a tortoise's shell, its back is big with open rectangles like doors and windows on a bus. Its eyes illuminate a grinning Totoro, who holds up a small umbrella and wears a large leaf on his head. Satsuki stands beside him, carrying her sister on her back. Mei is fast asleep, wearing a hooded jacket to keep off the rain.

My Neighbour Totoro is the epitome of whimsical, of growing up and the strange twists and turns of life…with soot sprites and cuddly forest guardians. The only reason it isn’t higher up the list is because I watched it as a teen rather than a kid. My six-year-old self (obsessed with Pokémon) would have LOVED it from the cat bus alone. As of now, the film charms me every time I see it.

My Rating: 4 STARS OUT OF 5

Image: Surrounded by white capitalised accolades for the studio, bright green leaves are wet with dew. In the middle stands Arrietty, holding onto the thick stem of a plant for support. She is small, pale and slim with ginger hair clipped up in a ponytail with a tiny clothes peg. Arrietty wears a high-necked red dress with long sleeves with a satchel on her back. A pin with a yellow ball is sheathed through her skirt.

7) Arrietty (English Dub) (2010)

Inspired by Mary Horton’s The Borrowers, a tiny girl makes friends with a young boy twice her size. It's fairly gentle experience, compared to other films in the list, because the main villain is the creepy housekeeper.

When researching the cast for Arrietty, I found I had seen an alternate version of the theatrical release. In the British version, our heroine is voiced by Saoirse Ronan, the human boy is voiced by a very young-sounding Tom Holland, and Olivia Colman plays Arrietty’s weary mother. The depth of detail in the animation and satisfying sound quality blow me away every time; it all feels surprisingly intimate.

My Rating: 4 STARS OUT OF 5

Image: Kiki's Delivery Service is written in white, curling letters. The final "i" in Kiki is dotted with the silhouette of a witch riding a broom with her cat near the brush. Wearing a bright red ribbon and dark smock, Holding a purse, Kiki looks happy, soaring over a busy town on her broomstick alongside a pack of seagulls. Jiji, Kiki's black cat, clings on for dear life in his orange basket.

6) Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989)

On the surface, Kiki’s Delivery Service is a quaint little film about a young witch coming of age. Along with her talking cat (of course!), Jiji, Kiki leaves home to find work and purpose in her – you guessed it – delivery service. The film is also a moving example of someone losing their spark, failing, and ultimately finding it again.

The seaside town looks gorgeous, and the characters are funny and unique, especially those old ladies glued to the TV screen. The film’s last few minutes are more engrossing than most modern action movies. I’m not kidding. I forgot to breath the first time I saw Kiki save the day…

My Rating: 4.5 STARS OUT OF 5

Image: Beneath a thick tree canopy, San (Claire Danes) rides a giant white wolf. She wears a white, shaggy fur cape with a fang necklace, and her red mask is upon her brown hair. Both she and the beast look off into the distance, grim and cautious.

5) Princess Mononoke (1997)

My review covered why I love Princess Mononoke, but it wouldn’t be my list without it. As one of Miyazaki’s more mature films, it depicts the ravages of human greed from different character angles without sugar-coating anything – all while keeping a PG rating.

I wish there were more animated films like this nowadays!

My Rating: 4 STARS OUT OF 5

Image: Haru lies on her back in the grass with her arms over her head. Her eyes are closed, and she’s smiling peacefully. The sky above her is brilliant blue, and a colossal cloud is shaped like a cat’s pawprint below The Cat Returns and Studio Ghibli’s logo in white. The gap in the “a” is also a pawprint.

4) The Cat Returns (2002)

In something of a one-eighty to Princess Mononoke in tone, we have The Cat Returns. It starts out as a fairly standard slice of life story, until Haru (voiced by Anne Hathaway in the English dub) rescues a cat from getting run over. Unbeknownst to her, that cat was Prince Lune, and now his feline subjects want to thank her properly – by turning Haru into one of them and having her marry him!

The Cat Returns is a spin-off from another Studio Ghibli film, Whisper of the Heart; it features the character Baron Humbert von Gikkingen. This time, in The Cat Returns, he’s a sentient gentleman and not a figurine. Quick note: Whisper of the Heart doesn’t feature in this list because it makes me feel sad in an existential crisis sort of way, as it involves a young writer experiencing a significant slump, which is a little too real for me on a bad day. It doesn't mean I hate the film.

Image: Although Haru has acquired cat ears, whiskers and a tail, she is still human, wearing her blue dress, white shirt and pink bow. She stands beside the Baron, a cat dressed in a grey tophat, matching jacket, and trousers. His waistcoat is red, and he has a blue bowtie. Behind his back, he carries a cane. Looking blank, they stand in front of a low stone wall that reveals a sprawling maze and a rock dam with an elaborate tower disappearing out of the frame.

The animation quality in The Cat Returns is more basic, directed by Hiroyuki Morita, but it’s silly and goofy fun. I will always watch it whenever it’s on TV. Come on, the Cat King is voiced by Tim Curry, and ends nearly every sentence with "babe." Love it.

My Rating: 4 STARS OUT OF 5

Image: This poster is surprisingly subtle for such a bright, colourful film. It’s black with “Walt Disney Studios presents a Studio Ghibli film: Miyazaki’s Spirited Away,” written in broad white and red letters. Surrounded by glowing lanterns and verandas, Chihiro stands alone, her head turned sombrely towards some middle distance. With her dark. hair pulled back in a scrappy ponytail, she wears a pink tunic tied at the waist with a rope and around her arms with a white ribbon. On the right, No-Face waits near a fence.

3) Spirited Away (2001)

Regarding accolades, Spirited Away is Studio Ghibli’s most successful film to date. It even won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2003! Watching this has become a personal Christmas tradition.

Chihiro is miserable about moving house with her mum and dad. En route, they stop off at a strange temple, and her parents eat the equally weird food before being promptly turned into pigs by an evil witch named Yubaba! To save them, Chihiro finds work at her bathhouse for spirits and finds an ally in a mysterious man named Haku. But how does he know Chihiro?

Even if the story lags towards the end, Spirited Away has character designs that are arguably more iconic than Totoro: Yubaba’s bulbous head, her giant baby, and the bizarre No Face - we never do find out who or what it is (just don’t feed it!) and that’s part of the film’s charm. I do not care for the dark conspiracy theory, though. Why can't we just keep things wholesome?

My Rating: 4.5 STARS OUT OF 5

Image: How...do those chicken legs support anything? Howl’s Moving Castle flies through the blue sky with a magical propellor. It is an amalgamation of stone, metal turrets, and brick houses with shrubs and trees and a washing line, and yet it has the bloated metal face of a creature with a dull underbite. Its stick-thin chicken legs curl underneath the whole structure.

2) Howl’s Moving Castle (2004)

This film carries a lot of firsts in my memory: I saw it during a two-day Japanese course at Sixth Form, over cups of green tea (fact: my first time trying tea and not hating it!); as the first Studio Ghibli movie I saw, Howl’s Moving Castle holds a special place in my heart. It’s based on another piece of Western literature, written by Diana Wynne Jones, about a humble young woman named Sophie, cursed by the Witch of the Waste to look old. In a world at war, the monarchy calls witches and wizards to help defend, but the dashing Howl (voiced alluringly by Christian Bale) has no desire to fight. His magic castle can move - funny, that - to escape it all.

The film would have earned this spot on my list for the breakfast alone, but the concept of the castle really captured my imagination. Travel all over the world without leaving the house? Yes, please. Also, Sophie is something of an inspiration. Rather than sulk about being cursed or desperately setting out to find a cure, she adjusts to it with happy, fierce determination. She finds her courage as an old woman with few f**** to give. On top of all that, the fire demon Calcifer almost steals the whole film, thanks to Billy Crystal.

Trying not to dribble on my keyboard... Image: Howl’s hand holds an eggshell over a large frying pan. The entire bottom of the pan is almost overwhelmed by Calcifer, an orange-red flame with cartoony eyes and mouth. It’s full of food, but not as much as the pan, which sizzles with three thick rashes of bacon and four perfect fried eggs. On the counter, a small stone totem with a friendly face has its hands in a praying gesture.

My Rating: 5 STARS OUT OF 5

Are you ready for my number on Studio Ghibli film? Drum roll, please...

Wait for it....

Image: The poster is white, full of the falling petals from a cherry blossom tree, and quotes from film reviewers. Kaguya holds up her hands to catch the petals, her black hair loose and pink kimono bunched and billowing around her shoulders.

1) The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (2015)

The Tale of The Princess Kaguya is one of those exceptional films you watch repeatedly and still find things to enjoy. The late great Isao Takahata’s works were overshadowed by Miyazaki’s more stereotypical child-friendly stories - still, he deserves equal credit for Studio Ghibli’s success with an excellent eye for capturing nature vs. urban living. The tale is based on a Japanese myth where a bamboo cutter finds a tiny princess in a bamboo stalk and adopts her as his daughter with his wife.

The water-colour animation unrolls, chronicling Kaguya’s life as a girl in the country and being ushered into the city. I grew up fascinated by Japanese culture, and this scratched that itch. My favourite moment happens when the princess flees the city in a fit of despair and rage; every panel looks like the artists gouged out their paper to capture the ferocity of that entire scene. Like Guillermo Del Toro, Takahata tended to swerve away from “happy” endings, and The Tale of the Princess Kaguya surprised me with how gentle its bittersweet conclusion was. Words will never wholly explain how much I love this film, so I strongly urge you to see it yourself, because it is simply beautiful.

My Rating: 5 STARS OUT OF 5

To conclude, I honestly, wholeheartedly recommend all of these films, regardless of where they are on this list. It says a LOT about current Western cinema that none of these movies are sequels, prequels, or remakes. Although inspired by other works and the joys of nature, they are all unique and exceptional.

Merry Christmas - and I look forward to writing in 2024!

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My Sources:

Filmography - https://ghiblicollection.com/pages/filmography

Tales from Earthsea:

Poster: https://artofthemovies.co.uk/products/tales-from-earthsea-2006-ds-os-01

Cast: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0495596/

Image - Cob the sorcerer: https://earthsea.fandom.com/wiki/Lord_Cob

Laputa: Castle In the Sky:

Poster: https://ghibli.fandom.com/wiki/Castle_in_the_Sky

Plot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_in_the_Sky

Video - Shirt exploding scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNWHm8sYayU