8. “Ponyo” (2008)
Inescapably and somewhat unfairly described as one of the director’s “minor” efforts (the word means a lot less in a catalogue as strong as Miyazaki’s) “Ponyo” is in fact a deliciously weird take on “The Little Mermaid,” following a young fish-girl-thingy named Ponyo, who dreams of becoming a human girl (or at the very least more human-ish), much to the chagrin of her father, a formerly human scientist who now exists as a kind of Neptune-ish lord of the sea. What makes “Ponyo” so fascinating, besides how utterly bizarre it is (particularly towards the end), is that it’s from a director who has long been obsessed with the transformative power and enduring legacy of flight, dealing with a movie that is largely set underwater. The result is one of the filmmaker’s more deliberately trippy exercises, full of giant underwater fish and spirits that control the wind and waves. (The seaside town where the human characters live is so gorgeous and charming that you want to buy a house there). While the movie looks, outwardly, like one of the director’s more kid-friendly projects, it’s pretty complex, thematically, with the father/daughter dynamics explored to their fullest, most emotional levels and the relationship between man and nature (in this case, the sea) given typical importance. It might not be the filmmaker’s best film, but it’s a visual feast full of some of the most stunning animation Studio Ghibli has ever produced, and is laden with deceptively nuanced storytelling. If there’s a little one in your life obsessed with Ariel and Sebastian, show them this. It’s a lot weirder, but it might end up being just as beloved.
7. “Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind” (1984)
Miyazaki channeled Jim Henson for the 1984 adaptation of his own manga series “Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind,” and not the Henson who created the Muppets but the one who was interested in the surreal, blackly tinged science fiction fantasy worlds of “The Dark Crystal” (released just two years earlier and a perfect companion piece). This is Miyazaki at his most sprawling and imaginative, set in a post-apocalyptic landscape where a toxic gas and creeping jungle (not to mention giant, carnivorous bugs that make the worms of “Dune” seem like a minor inconvenience) threaten to wipe out what little of humanity is left behind. Nausicaa is a young girl who is able to quell the angry insects and lives in a land protected by a natural wind barrier (she also, like a number of Miyazaki characters, is obsessed with flight), who finds herself caught in between warring factions as they struggle for survival. Although only his second feature as a director, “Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind” represents a number of the themes and ideas that would grow to define his later work—an emphasis on pacifism as opposed to combat, an environmental message, a strong young female protagonist, and prolonged flight sequences. It’s a remarkably assured and complicated work that only occasionally gets bogged down in its own abundant mythology and occasionally knotty plot mechanics. The film deserves to stand alongside other ’80s science fiction landmarks and in many ways feels even more ahead of its time than the ones that are regularly heralded. While certainly not the best of the director’s lavish fantasy films, it’s still mind-boggling, made even more so by the fact that the director made it so (relatively) early in his career.
6. “The Wind Rises” (2013)
Miyazaki’s last film is also one of his most quietly affecting. While peppered with fantasy sequences, “The Wind Rises” eschews the magical inclinations of many of Miyazaki’s most iconic films, instead presenting a relatively straightforward biography of Jiro Horikoshi, a real-life Japanese airplane designer who was responsible for the Japanese Zero Fighter in World War II. This subject matter has lent the film an undue amount of controversy, with many claiming that the movie sweetens and makes sympathetic a deadly warmonger who knowingly built killing machines. But this discussion misses the point entirely, since the movie is mostly about the limitless power of imagination and the way that designs can transcend their purpose, which, frankly, has been a recurring theme of Miyazaki’s for decades with less than a murmur of protest. The director has spent his entire career communicating his feeling for flight as a tantalizing, romanticized experience full of wonder and awe, and that impulse does perhaps reach its culmination here: the flight sequences in “The Wind Rises” might be his best ever. Jiro is so obsessed with flight and his designs that he imagines himself in the planes, or talking to famous figures in aviation, while there’s a love story too, at the heart of “The Wind Rises” that is equally as compelling as the story of the aviator’s quest for design perfection. If this truly is Miyazaki’s final film, he’s ended his filmography on a high note—one of sweeping beauty and historical importance that works just as well as a tiny, human story. “The Wind Rises” soars not because of its incredible flying sequences but because it lets you understand, so completely, how one man’s boundless imagination can be co-opted for outside purposes, and because we can’t help but see Miyazaki reflecting on his own creative life in the story.
5. “Laputa: Castle In The Sky” (1985)
Miyazaki’s third film, and the first to be produced by the company he founded, Studio Ghibli, “Laputa: Castle In The Sky” (or just “Castle In The Sky” in some territories) is, in our opinion, the director’s first solid-gold classic, and certainly his most rollicking action-adventure, one that competes with any present-day tentpole for spectacle and stunning set-pieces. The opening brings together a young girl, Sheeta, who possesses a magical amulet that lets her float in mid-air, and Pazu, a boy in small mining tower who’s determined to take to the skies and find the legendary lost flying city of Laputa that his father once found. They set out together, pursued both by sinister government agents and by sky-pirates, and find the truth behind the city to be more magical, and terrifying, than they imagine. More than any other of his movies, this is Miyazaki at his pulpiest and most blockbuster-y, feeling almost Western in its mix of comedy, romance and non-stop spectacular action sequences—and they are, without question, spectacular (just ask Disney, who shamelessly cribbed from the film for flop “Atlantis: The Lost Empire,” or James Cameron, whose “Avatar” feels equally indebted). It’s remarkably effective, but there’s also much more going on than simply an adventure, from the earliest scenes, which were inspired by the miners’ strikes in 1980s Britain, lending the film a surprising political edge, to the stunning third act as they arrive in Laputa (a name and a concept inspired by Jonathan Swift‘s “Gulliver’s Travels“), which is haunted by a peculiar, elegiac sadness that you’d be hard-pressed to find in a similar Western sci-fi actioner. Miyazaki would go on to make films that were perhaps more idiosyncratic, and more artful, but few that are as all-around entertaining as this. It’s still as popular as it ever was, too: according to Time, an airing of the film on Japanese TV last August caused the single most-tweeted-about moment of all time, as over 143,000 people simultaneously sent the word “Balse,” to coincide with the casting of a spell in the film.