Hayao Miyazaki’s Typical Vibe
Signature vibe

Highest-ranked title
Highest-ranked title
Hayao Miyazaki has 16 titles in the CriticCrunch catalog across a career spanning the 1970s through the 2020s. 6 sit in the Top 1% of all titles we track — including Warriors of the Wind.
Recurring themes

Spirited Away
2001 · Movie · Director · Writer
Top 1%Max · Included

Howl's Moving Castle
2004 · Movie · Director · Writer
Top 1%Max · Included

Princess Mononoke
1997 · Movie · Director · Writer
Top 1%Max · Included

My Neighbor Totoro
1988 · Movie · Director · Writer
Top 1%Max · Included

Castle in the Sky
1986 · Movie · Director · Writer
Top 1%Max · Included

Warriors of the Wind
1984 · Movie · Director · Writer
Top 1%Max · Included

A young girl, Chihiro, becomes trapped in a strange new world of spirits. When her parents undergo a mysterious transformation, she must call upon the courage she never knew she had to free her family.
Dir. Hayao Miyazaki · With Rumi Hiiragi, Miyu Irino, Mari Natsuki

Sophie, a young milliner, is turned into an elderly woman by a witch who enters her shop and curses her. She encounters a wizard named Howl and gets caught up in his resistance to fighting for the king.
Dir. Hayao Miyazaki · With Chieko Baisho, Takuya Kimura, Akihiro Miwa

Ashitaka, a prince of the disappearing Emishi people, is cursed by a demonized boar god and must journey to the west to find a cure. Along the way, he encounters San, a young human woman fighting to protect the forest, and Lady Eboshi, who is trying to destroy it. Ashitaka must find a way to bring balance to this conflict.
Dir. Hayao Miyazaki · With Yoji Matsuda, Yuriko Ishida, Yuko Tanaka

Two sisters move to the country with their father in order to be closer to their hospitalized mother, and discover the surrounding trees are inhabited by Totoros, magical spirits of the forest. When the youngest runs away from home, the older sister seeks help from the spirits to find her.
Dir. Hayao Miyazaki · With Noriko Hidaka, Chika Sakamoto, Hitoshi Takagi

A young boy and a girl with a magic crystal must race against pirates and foreign agents in a search for a legendary floating castle.
Dir. Hayao Miyazaki · With Keiko Yokozawa, Mayumi Tanaka, Minori Terada

After a global war, the seaside kingdom known as the Valley of the Wind remains one of the last strongholds on Earth untouched by a poisonous jungle and the powerful insects that guard it. Led by the courageous Princess Nausicaä, the people of the Valley engage in an epic struggle to restore the bond between humanity and Earth.
Dir. Hayao Miyazaki · With Sumi Shimamoto, Ichiro Nagai, Gorō Naya

14-year-old Arrietty and the rest of the Clock family live in peaceful anonymity as they make their own home from items "borrowed" from the house's human inhabitants. However, life changes for the Clocks when a human boy discovers Arrietty.
Dir. Hiromasa Yonebayashi · With Mirai Shida, Ryunosuke Kamiki, Tomokazu Miura

A young witch, on her mandatory year of independent life, finds fitting into a new community difficult while she supports herself by running an air courier service.
Dir. Hayao Miyazaki · With Minami Takayama, Rei Sakuma, Kappei Yamaguchi

Shizuku lives a simple life, dominated by her love for stories and writing. One day she notices that all the library books she has have been previously checked out by the same person: "Seiji Amasawa."
Dir. Yoshifumi Kondo · With Yoko Honna, Issey Takahashi, Takashi Tachibana

When Sosuke, a young boy who lives on a clifftop overlooking the sea, rescues a stranded goldfish named Ponyo, he discovers more than he bargained for. Ponyo is a curious, energetic young creature who yearns to be human, but even as she causes chaos around the house, her father, a powerful sorcerer, schemes to return Ponyo to the sea.
Dir. Hayao Miyazaki · With Yuria Kozuki, Hiroki Doi, George Tokoro

In Italy in the 1930s, sky pirates in biplanes terrorize wealthy cruise ships as they sail the Adriatic Sea. The only pilot brave enough to stop the scourge is the mysterious Porco Rosso, a former World War I flying ace who was somehow turned into a pig during the war. As he prepares to battle the pirate crew's American ace, Porco Rosso enlists the help of spunky girl mechanic Fio Piccolo and his longtime friend Madame Gina.
Dir. Hayao Miyazaki · With Shūichirō Moriyama, Tokiko Kato, Bunshi Katsura VI

A lifelong love of flight inspires Japanese aviation engineer Jiro Horikoshi, whose storied career includes the creation of the A-6M World War II fighter plane.
Dir. Hayao Miyazaki · With Hideaki Anno, Hidetoshi Nishijima, Miori Takimoto

Follows the behind-the-scenes work of Studio Ghibli, focusing on the notable figures Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, and Toshio Suzuki.
Dir. Mami Sunada · With Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, Toshio Suzuki

Yokohama, 1963. Japan is picking itself up from the devastation of World War II and preparing to host the 1964 Olympics—and the mood is one of both optimism and conflict as the young generation struggles to throw off the shackles of a troubled past. Against this backdrop of hope and change, a friendship begins to blossom between high school students Umi and Shun—but a buried secret from their past emerges to cast a shadow on the future and pull them apart.
Dir. Goro Miyazaki · With Masami Nagasawa, Junichi Okada, Keiko Takeshita

After a successful robbery leaves famed thief Lupin the Third and his partner Jigen with nothing but a large amount of expertly crafted counterfeit bills, he decides to track down the forgers responsible—and steal any other treasures he may find in the Castle of Cagliostro, including the 'damsel in distress' he finds imprisoned there.
Dir. Hayao Miyazaki · With Yasuo Yamada, Kiyoshi Kobayashi, Eiko Masuyama

While the Second World War rages, the teenage Mahito, haunted by his mother's tragic death, is relocated from Tokyo to the serene rural home of his new stepmother Natsuko, a woman who bears a striking resemblance to the boy's mother. As he tries to adjust, this strange new world grows even stranger following the appearance of a persistent gray heron, who perplexes and bedevils Mahito, dubbing him the "long-awaited one."
Dir. Hayao Miyazaki · With Soma Santoki, Masaki Suda, Ko Shibasaki