Studio Ghibli Films Ranked
With The Boy and the Heron allegedly being Hayao Miyazaki’s last film, I wanted to take a look back at all of his and Studio Ghibli’s films (that I’ve seen) and rank them by how much I liked them. That means these are listed in order of favoritism, not necessarily how objectively good they are. Films I haven’t seen will naturally not be on this list, so if you don’t see them here that’s why.
#14: The Boy and the Heron
This should come as no surprise to anyone who’s seen my thoughts on this film, or who has seen the film themselves. That last part was a joke, people are allowed to like it and think it’s a masterpiece. I simply don’t. Its only redeeming qualities are its visuals and soundtrack. The characters are unengaging, the story is an incohesive mess, the pacing is not good, and viewing it left me confused, disappointed, and lingering with a wariness for birds. It’s one of two Studio Ghibli films I’d classify as being bad. What’s the second?
#13: Ponyo
This film’s vice isn’t having an incohesive mess of a story but rather having a lazy one. In it a fish girl escapes her father and winds up in the presence of a boy living by the seaside and they apparently fall in love. Of course, them being kids means it’s a kiddy kind of love, and this film (like many Ghibli films) is targeted at a younger audience. That said, their relationship being the focal point of the film isn’t engaging or particularly interesting beyond the fantastical shenanigans that occurs as a result of it. Random shenanigans happens with the fish girl’s father and mother and the balance of the world due to the fish girl’s escape, and for one reason or another their proclamation of love to each other is the key to solving everything. The visuals and soundtrack are again redeeming qualities for this film, but the story was definitely lacking. I can say, it at least didn’t leave me feeling worse off after seeing it like The Boy and the Heron did.
#12: The Wind Rises
At this point in the list is where the movies are what I consider actually good. You can interpret that however you like, and if it makes you feel better you can consider it by Studio Ghibli standards. What makes it technically mark the bottom of my “good” Studio Ghibli films list is that it engaged me less than the others—which isn’t to say it didn’t engage me, because it did. I am partial to more whimsical stories, and this one is on the more serious side. Part of my viewing experience was that I watched it without subtitles, so I largely had to depend on what I could interpret from what I saw (so you can and should take my thoughts with a tub of salt). My experience was that it was pretty much a tragic story of a man who wanted to make planes for fun and inadvertently ended up making planes for war while also experiencing a short-lived and neglected intimate relationship. Pretty sad stuff, but I enjoyed watching it.
#11: Princess Mononoke
Princess Monoke has a good story with clear themes and conflicts and characters I care about. The story, following the conflict between humans, nature, and gods, is on the more serious side and with another pretty dim ending. All that said, I have no other real praises or criticisms of it beyond that I enjoyed it.
#10: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
So, this isn’t technically a Ghibli film since it came before Studio Ghibli formed, but I count it as one anyway (and it is Miyazaki’s work). This also also has a more serious tone for its story that follows a girl who has an affinity with animals in the midst of large conflicts between human factions, but it’s one I liked a bit better due to caring a bit more for the characters (particularly the MC). It also has a considerably more happy ending compared to Princess Mononoke.
#9: Spirited Away
Oh look, I’ve ranked a Studio Ghibli favorite not at the top of my list. Here’s the thing, I like Spirited Away, but it’s not my favorite. This film is like The Boy and the Heron in terms of its storytelling approach, except Spirited Away is actually good. It follows a girl in the midst of a road trip with her parents who altogether leave their car to go on a detour to a seemingly abandoned town and are blindsided by a fantastical community of various creatures. The story beats are a bit random and whatnot like The Boy and the Heron, however the throughline remains cohesively with the MC seeking to retrieve her parents and escape. Another big difference between Spirited Away and The Boy and the Heron is that the MC actually has character development. This is also among the Studio Ghibli films that has a memorable soundtrack and one that I listen to casually.
#8: Laputa: Castle in the Sky
Remaining on the topic of soundtracks, Castle in the Sky is a film with a more memorable soundtrack for casual listening as well. Its story follows a girl and a boy being mixed up in some governmental affairs while they seek a castle in the sky. It’s a pretty simple and entertaining premise with plenty of interesting characters and concepts with technology. What’s funny about this, Nausicaä, and Princess Mononoke is that they have somewhat similar conflicts but I’ve ranked them also in order of the complexity of those conflicts (e.g., man-vs-nature, man-vs-man with nature as a guest appearance, and government-vs-citizens with pirates and nature as guest appearances). But yeah, this is “simpler” in the way it’s targeted towards more of a YA audience, but it does contain more nuance in its storytelling compared to the others in my opinion.
#7: Grave of the Fireflies
This one’s an oofer. It’s a film I saw once and knew that I never wanted to see it again. And yet it’s perfectly great for what it is. It tells the story of a boy and his sister struggling to survive on their own in a war-torn country. There’s tragedy in their circumstances and there’s tragedy in the boy’s hubris, and it’s just a never-ending nail of tragedy that drives deeper and deeper into your heart. When I think of depressing movies, this is the depressing movie I think of. And again, it’s great.
#6: Only Yesterday
This film follows a woman visiting her sister’s family in the countryside as she reminisces about her life via flashbacks. In a word, this film is poignant. While it has a slower pace than others, it has characters and themes that I identified with more than others probably due to the time in my life I saw it. Its ending is one of the most beautiful endings I’ve experienced and probably the best ending of all Studio Ghibli’s films. Its accompanying song “Ai wa Hana, Kimi wa Sono Tane” (My Love is a Flower, You are the Seed), a cover of “The Rose” by Amanda McBroom, is just tonally perfect.
#5: The Cat Returns
If we’re talking about best films, I’d probably put Grave of the Fireflies and Only Yesterday at the top. But, they aren’t my favorites. Here we’re creeping into not only good but favorite territory. The Cat Returns is a tale of whimsy, and a spinoff of Whisper of the Heart. In it a high school girl saves a cat who happens to be royalty in a secret cat world and she has to navigate that after being unwillingly taken to the cat world to be married off. It’s good, it’s fun, and I enjoy its playful innocence. “Kaze ni Naru” (Become the Wind), the song that plays with the credits, much like Only Yesterday’s ending song, encapsulates the tone of the film and is quite lovely.
#4: Whisper of the Heart
Here we have a film with a good mix of whimsy and realism. It follows a girl looking ahead at what the future of her life could hold while developing a relationship with a boy who shares some common interests with her. The MC, like in Only Yesterday, is one I identify with more than others and I just overall really liked this film. Also, I didn’t like “Take me Home, Country Roads” by John Denver until after I saw this movie, and if a movie can make me change my mind about something that’s pretty cool.
#3: My Neighbor Totoro
This was the first Studio Ghibli movie I ever saw. In somewhat the same way I’d capture Only Yesterday in a word, I’d describe My Neighbor Totoro simply as nostalgic. The simple wonders of childhood mixed with frightful and unpleasant flashes of reality make it quite an appreciable film. When I was younger I loved the wonders of the magical things that happened, and as I’ve aged I still appreciate those elements while appreciating the other elements more. I reluctantly compare this to the phenomenon of Christmas, where the love of it changes as you grow older. I mean this seriously, just listen to the lyrics of the theme song. What weirdly emphasizes this is that I can’t stop swapping between being paranoid and slightly disappointed when searching for the original version of that song (the one I heard the first time I saw this film) because there are several singers and no matter which one I listen to I’m doubtfully thinking whether this is the one that evokes the most nostalgia. Totoro is like Santa Claus. Okay, setting that comparison aside I also deeply love the soundtrack for this film. Oh right, I didn’t mention the story. Two sisters move with their father to a rural home and they explore the area while their mother recovers from an illness in a hospital. It’s a definite favorite for me.
#2: Kiki’s Delivery Service
This is about a witch girl who ventures out on her own to make her way in the world. Like many others, it has a coming-of-age theme with a more slice-of-life feel. It has various characters that are memorable. The soundtrack is another one I deeply love. At this point in the list it’s difficult to delineate what makes which film more of my favorite than another, and what more can I really say other than I like it a lot. Perhaps it’s the picturesque landscapes being more aesthetically pleasing, as I simply love looking at the grassy fields of Kiki’s garden and home before she flies off, and I love the look of the oceanside town, and also the bakery, the forest house… yeah, all that stuff. I admit I typically feel a kiddish glee when Kiki first goes up on her broom and hovers over the city when she starts her job, a sort of rush like I myself am flying. And the idea of magic, like the potions or whatnot Kiki’s mother makes in addition to flying, it’s fun to think about and alludes to a larger world. This film just has visuals and feels I like a bit more than the other films. And hey, these top three are pretty interchangeable for me anyway and can rearrange in my mind depending on my mood.
#1: Howl’s Moving Castle
It’s my most favorite of my favorites. I love this soundtrack above the others for giving carnivalesque, whimsical, adventurous, melancholic, and mysterious tones among others. I mean, just listen to “Saliman’s Spell” which captures such a range of things from foreboding to frightening to occult (that chanting is so cool and weird). And then there’s the story and world that I just love so much. Howl’s Moving Castle does this thing better than the other movies (in my opinion) where elements of the world are given that provide so much richness and depth and give a sense of wonder without necessitating further exploration (for the purpose of the story). I mean, there’s an entire war between nations going on while the main plot is focused on the self-actualization and romance of a hatter. And just look at the above picture of a bedroom. What is all that stuff? I have no clue, but it’s so interesting! Would I love deep lore about this film’s world? Of course. But the use of such allusions that don’t distract or introduce apparent plot holes or interfere with the plot are wonderful. I say all this because other films have similar elements of world-building that simply don’t work for me because of the way they interfere with the story (e.g., pretty much everything about the giant baby in Spirited Away I could’ve done without, as well as the jumping bodiless heads).
And (I didn’t learn this until much later) what’s crazy is this movie has a time loop which is a notorious plot device for causing plot holes, and it works.
To quickly summarize the story, a woman working at a hat shop meets a magician whose acquaintance causes trouble for her as the magician’s past lover curses her out of spite to grow old. The story follows her character development to be more confident and assertive while dealing with the curse—and I like how this theme and metaphor is told visually in the way she changes between young and old—while also developing relationships with the magician and his curious company. Now, is this story flawless? Of course not. But I love it and am comfortable overlooking those flaws. Returning to the time loop thing, it just makes me appreciate the film more in the way I didn’t need to know or understand it to enjoy the story before I knew about it. So, what it is is that the MC (Sophie) goes through a door holding the last dregs of its magic to see the magician’s (Howl’s) past and she tells him to find her in the future. This is what leads Howl to make the “initial” acquaintance of Sophie and function as the inciting incident of the story which is just cool. It also deepens his character beyond that of a superficial womanizer who happened to meet Sophie, though he still can be pretty apparently superficial (which, as part of his character development, he learns to let go of with Sophie). Anyway, I love this film and it’s my favoritest favorite Studio Ghibli film.
