Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Cinema

June 8–August 31, 2024

All of Hayao Miyazaki’s feature films—environmental allegories, fantasy epics, and intimate family adventures—populated by a bestiary of snarling, grotesque demons and cute, cuddly sprites (appearances can be deceiving) are presented here in their original Japanese versions.

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Spirited Away © 2001 Hayao Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli, NDDTM
Princess Mononoke © 1997 Hayao Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli, ND
The Wind Rises © 2013 Hayao Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli, NDHDMTK
Kiki’s Delivery Service © 1989 Eiko Kadono/Hayao Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli, N
My Neighbor Totoro © 1988 Hayao Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli

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Past Films

Princess Mononoke
Hayao Miyazaki
Japan, 1997
Original Japanese version
MPA Rating: PG-13
Saturday, June 8 4:00 PM
In a long-ago Japan, a war is raging for the future of Earth, one that sets the animal kingdom against humanity, nature against pollution, and harmony against chaos. An epic cinematic experience.
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Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro
Hayao Miyazaki
Japan, 1979
Original Japanese version
Sunday, June 9 4:30 PM
Hayao Miyazaki’s first feature film, based on a popular adventure serial, finds Lupin, a gentleman thief, trying to expose a counterfeiting plot, avoid Interpol, and rescue a damsel in distress.
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Spirited Away
Hayao Miyazaki
Japan, 2001
Original Japanese version
Saturday, June 15 4:00 PM
In this celebrated Hayao Miyazaki fantasy, ten-year-old Chihiro and her parents stumble upon an abandoned theme park that turns out to be a true magic kingdom. Joe Hisaishi’s exquisite score enhances a cinematic feast. Winner of the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
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Castle in the Sky
Hayao Miyazaki
Japan, 1986
Original Japanese version
Sunday, June 23 3:00 PM
Two children become caught up in a race against both good-natured aerial pirates and ruthless government agents to claim the secrets of the castle in the sky in this tale inspired by Jules Verne and Gulliver’s Travels.
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Ponyo
Hayao Miyazaki
Japan, 2008
Original Japanese version
Saturday, June 29 4:30 PM
In this ecstatic fairy tale inspired by The Little Mermaid, a five-year-old boy finds a goldfish that transforms into a little girl, the irrepressible Ponyo.
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Porco Rosso
Hayao Miyazaki
Japan, 1992
Original Japanese version
Saturday, July 6 5:00 PM
A (literally) pig-headed pilot hunts air pirates over the late 1920s Adriatic Sea in this wartime adventure. “As beautifully drawn and colored as anything [Hayao Miyazaki]’s done” (Mike Hale, New York Times).
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My Neighbor Totoro
Hayao Miyazaki
Japan, 1988
Original Japanese version
My Neighbor Totoro also screens Sunday, August 25.
Saturday, July 13 5:00 PM
Two sisters encounter wood sprites, magical trees, and flying “catbuses” in this enchanting tale that has become one of the most beloved family films of all time.
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Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
Hayao Miyazaki
Japan, 1984
BAMPFA Collection
Original Japanese version
Sunday, July 14 4:30 PM
In Hayao Miyazaki’s stirring animated epic, a girl who is both soldier and scientist seeks to reconcile the last remnants of her still-warring species with the monstrous biological order overtaking Earth.
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Kiki’s Delivery Service
Hayao Miyazaki
Japan, 1989
Original Japanese version
Sunday, July 21 4:30 PM
Thirteen-year-old witch Kiki leaves home and discovers a soaring independence as she masters her mother’s broom, even as she grapples with the same insecurities that trouble all adolescents.
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Howl’s Moving Castle
Hayao Miyazaki
Japan, 2004
Original Japanese version
Sunday, July 28 4:00 PM
In an intricately rendered European storybook land, Sophie must help the mysterious magician Howl end both his own curse and an all-too-real war.
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The Wind Rises
Hayao Miyazaki
Japan, 2013
Original Japanese version
MPA Rating: PG-13

Audio Description
Closed Captioned
Saturday, August 3 4:00 PM
Young Jiro dreams of flying but ends up designing warplanes instead in Hayao Miyazaki’s “devastatingly honest lament for the corruption of beauty” (David Ehrlich, IndieWire).
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The Boy and the Heron
Hayao Miyazaki
Japan, 2023
Original Japanese version
MPA Rating: PG-13
Audio Description
Closed Captioned
The Boy and the Heron also screens Sunday, August 25.
Saturday, August 10 4:00 PM
Hayao Miyazaki’s self-proclaimed final film takes a maximalist approach to storytelling, as a pestering gray heron leads the sullen twelve-year-old Mahito deep into a realm of hallucinatory, time-bending fantasy.

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Spirited Away
Hayao Miyazaki
Japan, 2001
Original Japanese version
Saturday, August 17 4:00 PM
In this celebrated Hayao Miyazaki fantasy, ten-year-old Chihiro and her parents stumble upon an abandoned theme park that turns out to be a true magic kingdom. Joe Hisaishi’s exquisite score enhances a cinematic feast. Winner of the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
View Details
My Neighbor Totoro
Hayao Miyazaki
Japan, 1988
Original Japanese version
Sunday, August 25 1:00 PM
Two sisters encounter wood sprites, magical trees, and flying “catbuses” in this enchanting tale that has become one of the most beloved family films of all time.
View Details
The Boy and the Heron
Hayao Miyazaki
Japan, 2023
Original Japanese version
MPA Rating: PG-13
Audio Description
Closed Captioned
The Boy and the Heron also screens Saturday, August 10.
Sunday, August 25 5:30 PM
Hayao Miyazaki’s self-proclaimed final film takes a maximalist approach to storytelling, as a pestering gray heron leads the sullen twelve-year-old Mahito deep into a realm of hallucinatory, time-bending fantasy.

View Details
Princess Mononoke
Hayao Miyazaki
Japan, 1997
Original Japanese version
MPA Rating: PG-13
Thursday, August 29 7:00 PM
In a long-ago Japan, a war is raging for the future of Earth, one that sets the animal kingdom against humanity, nature against pollution, and harmony against chaos. An epic cinematic experience.
View Details
The Wind Rises
Hayao Miyazaki
Japan, 2013
Original Japanese version
MPA Rating: PG-13

Audio Description
Closed Captioned
Saturday, August 31 3:00 PM
Young Jiro dreams of flying but ends up designing warplanes instead in Hayao Miyazaki’s “devastatingly honest lament for the corruption of beauty” (David Ehrlich, IndieWire).
View Details

Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Cinema

June 8–August 31, 2024

Preternaturally attuned to the internal landscape of children and adults alike, Hayao Miyazaki built his career on the philosophy that the fictional worlds of animation “soothe the spirit of those who are . . . suffering from a nearsighted distortion of their emotions.” To achieve such lofty aims, he works from a palette of “whatever I want to create,” which often includes a bestiary of snarling, grotesque demons and cute, cuddly sprites (appearances can be deceiving). His films are rich with kinetic action set pieces, impressionistic pastoral beauty, and staggering sweeps above the clouds. The wind through the reeds, and sunlight reflected on a babbling brook: these moments, always in motion and punctuated by Joe Hisaishi’s indispensable music, only amplify the human element. The giddiness of sisters exploring their new home in My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki’s lonely pancake dinners in Kiki’s Delivery Service, and Chihiro...

Miyazaki was born in Tokyo in 1941. He wrote, “My first memories are of bombed-out cities.” This searing imagery and a wartime childhood marked by rationing and occupation inform his outspoken pacifist convictions. The catastrophe of war, industrialization, and environmental neglect is present very early in his work with Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and throughout his late work, like The Boy and the Heron. One of his great strengths as an animator is the sense of scale in his frames. The visuals translate emotionally, and Miyazaki’s films are joyous and melancholy, intimate and immense.

—Jeff Griffith-Perham, Film Exhibition Curatorial Associate

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Thanks to Ngozi Nwadiogbu, GKIDS.