Start with Spirited Away, which is his most celebrated and the best demonstration of what he does: a world with its own economy and rules that the film never stops to explain. Then Princess Mononoke for the moral complexity, My Neighbor Totoro for the quiet, and Porco Rosso for the strange one.
Miyazaki's films are frequently described as children's cinema, which is accurate about the audience and misleading about the content. They contain war, environmental collapse, moral ambiguity with no villains, and long stretches where nothing happens except weather and food. The pacing alone rules out most of what animation is assumed to be.
The consistent features are flight, work and food. His characters are almost always shown doing a job properly, meals are animated with more care than action sequences, and the best moments are frequently a girl sitting on a train saying nothing. He has retired several times and returned each time.
Where to start
Spirited Away. It is his most acclaimed film, it needs no context, and its refusal to explain its own world is the clearest demonstration of the approach. Watch it subtitled if you can. My Neighbor Totoro is the gentler entry and Princess Mononoke the most substantial.
Top picks
Filmography
- The Castle of Cagliostro (1979)
- Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984)
- Castle in the Sky (1986)
- My Neighbor Totoro (1988)
- Kiki's Delivery Service (1989)
- Porco Rosso (1992)
- Princess Mononoke (1997)
- Spirited Away (2001)
- Howl's Moving Castle (2004)
- Ponyo (2008)
- The Wind Rises (2013)
- The Boy and the Heron (2023)
Sources and further reading
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FAQs about Hayao Miyazaki
Should I watch dubbed or subtitled?
Subtitled for a first viewing. The English dubs are unusually good by animation standards, several were supervised carefully, and they are a legitimate choice for watching with children. But the Japanese performances are quieter and the dubs tend to add dialogue into silences Miyazaki left empty.
Which of his films are actually suitable for young children?
My Neighbor Totoro, Ponyo and Kiki's Delivery Service, comfortably. Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle contain genuinely frightening sequences, and Princess Mononoke is violent enough that many parents wait. Grave of the Fireflies is often mistaken for his and is by Isao Takahata; do not start there.
Is everything at Studio Ghibli his?
No, and the misattribution is common. Isao Takahata directed several of the studio's best films, including Grave of the Fireflies and Only Yesterday, and Hiromasa Yonebayashi and Miyazaki's son Goro directed others. The house style is shared; the authorship is not.