In every one of Hayao Miyazaki’s films, we are taken into vast and distinct worlds that are both exquisitely animated and emotionally stirring. From the relatable daily struggles in Kiki’s Delivery Service to the acute reflections on grief to be found in My Neighbour Totoro, his visions have the power to shatter the soul just as they can bring it to magical heights. Cinema is better with Miyazaki in it.
The Studio Ghibli animation maestro’s latest (once supposed to be his final) film, The Boy and the Heron, is a worthy addition to his already illustrious canon. Released in Japanese cinemas earlier this year, the film is currently working the festival circuit in the West, where it’s been met with overwhelmingly positive reviews.
Here is a ranking of every feature film Hayao Miyazaki has made to date, from worst to best.
12. Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro (1979)
We begin with Miyazaki’s feature-length directorial debut — not necessarily because this is a bad movie or somehow unsuccessful in what it sets out to do; rather, its position is just a reflection of the strength of everything that succeeded it. A generally fleeting experience, The Castle of Cagliostro follows the adventures of the long-running thieving character Lupin III, and introduces us to Miyazaki’s take on the character just after he appears to have completed a successful heist. But his glee is short-lived when he realises their loot is actually all counterfeit money. An entertaining journey to figure out the source of the ruse ensues.
11. Ponyo (2008)
The fact that Ponyo — one of Miyazaki’s more recent movies — ranks so low is a testament to the embarrassment of riches that is his filmography. Though it draws from familiar fairy tales, it makes room for more meditative moments amidst the magical flourishes. Telling the story of a young boy who meets a goldfish princess who begins to transform into a human herself, it’s lovingly animated, and it’s also one of Miyazaki’s most kid-friendly works. This isn’t a criticism, but it does dance along the surface a bit as compared to some of his later films.
10. Porco Rosso (1992)
Trust Miyazaki to write a tale of a pilot that’s also a pig. In Porco Rosso, said pilot — formerly known as Marco Pagott — has been turned into a pig for reasons that hint at something far more tragic from his past. Now, he fights off pirates as a mercenary. If this all sounds a bit silly, it is very much so, but the absurdist tone doesn’t detract from the more reflective ideas it has: about the immense costs of war and the crisis those left in its aftermath must endure. Just as it is with all Miyazaki’s films, the magical elements complement the emotional landscape he is exploring. Said combination just may not be as resonant as it is in his other works.
9. Castle in the Sky (1986)
Castle in the Sky is where Miyazaki’s oeuvre starts to take us to darker thematic places. Centred around a floating city in the sky, long rumoured to be a place of riches, the film’s story follows two kids who find themselves swept up in something far bigger than themselves. Those rumoured riches catch the attention of a family of clumsy pirates and a ruthless military operation headed up by Muska, maybe the most villainous character Miyazaki has ever written. Cartoonish moments aside, the film draws us deeper into the ideas that the Miyazaki wants us to pay attention to: a scepticism towards violent militarism, a concern for the natural world and an undying sense of value for compassion over cruelty.
8. Howl’s Moving Castle (2004)
Howl’s Moving Castle is relaxed in its pacing at times, frequently stepping away from the explosive action to instead let us settle into the rhythms of the fragile yet peaceful corners of its magic world. It all kicks off when a young woman named Sophie is cursed and made to age rapidly. Unsure of what to do, Sophie then becomes a part of the world of a lonely wizard named Howl who travels around in an enormous castle. While there is plenty of whimsy to the experience, war is on the horizon and will soon upend the already unstable tranquillity of their lives. The film doesn’t shy away from this horror and destruction, explicitly telling us just how meaningless it is in one tragic scene. It is one of Miyazaki’s most profound anti-war films.
7. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984)
It is perhaps strange to call any of Miyazaki’s films underrated, but this one feels like it doesn’t get its due. Feeling almost like his version of Dune, Nausicaä takes us far into the future where the planet as we know it has become forever damaged, and is now overrun with massive insects. One of the sole safe places left is the Valley of the Wind, where the young daredevil pilot Nausicaä lives with her people. All is well until a ship crashes down and brings conflict right to their doorstep. It will then be up to Nausicaä to restore balance back to the world. It is in her journey that Miyazaki reckons with his own principles around pacifism and living in harmony with the environment. It’s sombre and sincere, entertaining and evocative. There are plenty of his films that are more broadly known, but this one is still among his best.
6. The Wind Rises (2013)
The last film Miyazaki made before The Boy and the Heron, 2013’s The Wind Rises is a standalone work; less about an adventure or magic, it’s a biopic of Japanese aviation engineer Jiro Horikoshi. The film uses his life as a way of reflecting on painfully urgent questions. There is a deeply discomforting tension woven throughout the film, tied to the knowledge that the genius of its central engineer will be commodified and used for destruction during World War II. There is a worthwhile conversation to be had about the way it grapples with these questions amidst the stunning animation, regardless of whether it takes too light of a touch for matters of such historical import. What makes it work is how subtly mournful the entire experience is. This is a mourning not for Horikoshi as an individual, but for the beauty he could have created that gained ugly connotations instead.
5. The Boy and the Heron (2023)
Though it seemed to baffle some who initially saw it with its more unabashedly weird creations (a group of fascist parakeets), The Boy and the Heron is also among Miyazaki’s most confident creations to date. Originally titled How Do You Live?, it still manages to ask that existential question through the eyes of its protagonist, the troubled young Mahito. We are first introduced to him through a nightmare where his mother is consumed by a fire, one of the most simultaneously mesmerising and terrifying series of images Miyazaki has ever put to screen. As Mahito’s life is upended once more, forced to the countryside to live with his father’s new partner, he encounters a whole new plane of existence. It feels like the film he’s been building his whole life.
4. My Neighbour Totoro (1990)
Capturing the simple beauties of childhood and the sense of loss that inevitably comes with growing up, My Neighbour Totoro is a story of two sisters, their father, their ailing mother and the adorable creature they find in the woods near their home. Miyazaki wraps you up in this humble yet quietly heartbreaking world, tapping into the innocence and joy that stems from the small things as well as the persistence of pain. Watching it feels like looking through a portal into the past.
3. Kiki’s Delivery Service (1990)
When the young witch Kiki leaves home with only her black cat Jiji as company, the world waiting for her is not what she expected. Yes, there are kind people and plenty of new sights for her to experience, but Kiki finds herself struck by a growing sense of sadness. It doesn’t have any explanation that she can easily understand, making this bright and whimsical tale an affecting allegory for depression. This message takes hold of the film, is never cloying or contrived, and instead plays out with a grace that makes its conclusion triumphant.
2. Spirited Away (2002)
One of the greatest fairy tales ever made, Spirited Away centres the young Chihiro who gets swept away to a supernatural world when moving to a new place with her parents, after they take a wrong turn and stumble upon an abandoned theme park. Feeling almost like a precursor to The Boy and the Heron in many regards, it is all about finding a way back to normality; an inspired riff on Alice in Wonderland. Though there are many layers to it, at its core, it’s about Chihiro growing up by finding a new identity for herself that can be free of the immense greed and corruption that run rampant all around her. Awards might not be everything, but Spirited Away is the first and only time Miyazaki has won an Oscar thus far. It’s also one of the few times the Academy has gotten it right.
1. Princess Mononoke (1997)
An epic in every sense of the word, asking the most profound questions about the perils of life and our fraught relationship with the natural world, each frame of Princess Mononoke overflows with boundless meaning and emotion. Beginning as a journey of its protagonist’s healing from a deadly curse, Prince Ashitaka has absorbed the evil from killing a boar that had been possessed by a demon. When he seeks answers in the distant community of Irontown, he discovers that there is a conflict taking part between them and Princess Mononoke. She, a protector of the land, is trying to drive them away from the area and stop their destructive extraction of resources, alongside a wolf pack led by the goddess Moro. As Ashitaka becomes part of this conflict, he will try to do everything he can to prevent the destruction of what little is left there. The film is a bloody fable, featuring bursts of violence that feel unique to it in Miyazaki’s wider filmography, but it is also one of his most measured. Even the smallest characters feel complicated and alive, bringing into focus the textures of the fight in its premise. The setting itself is as beautiful as it is brutal. The word masterpiece can get thrown around a lot, especially when it comes to Miyazaki, but this one more than deserves it. The most monumental film of Hayao Miyazaki’s monumental career.