Hayao Miyazaki is widely seen as one of the greatest directors, not just of anime, but of any kind of film. From his early work on some Lupin The Third movies to his more recent classics like Spirited Away or Ponyo, Hayao Miyazaki has captured the imaginations of people everywhere, of all ages. This is likely due to the way he treats his characters. He knows that children can be smart, so he writes them that way. He knows that sometimes villains have just a little bit of good in their hearts, so he writes them that way. He creates beautiful fantasy landscapes that are living and breathing and full of wonder.
While he was much more active throughout the 90s and early 2000s than he is now, Miyazaki has been working on some films here and there with his animation studio, Studio Ghibli, and he's put out some great films even though he's been continuously announcing his retirement, coming out of retirement, announcing it again... Obviously, after so many years of work on such great films, it's understandable that he's a little tired. But it seems that the animation bug has a hold on Miyazaki, even if he thinks he's done. He's directed some of the films below and done the screenplay for others which will be noted when covering that specific film.
7 Giant God Warrior Appears in Tokyo - 6.7/10
Giant God Warrior Appears in Tokyo is a ten-minute short film directed by Shinji Higuchi. Hayao Miyazaki does the voice of said Giant God Warrior. It actually tells the story of the giant god warrior from Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind who didn't actually get to do much in the film, despite the animation on the creature being superb. In this film, we see him attacking Tokyo as if he was a giant monster from the Kaiju films of old. What's so interesting about the film is that you get to see the monster acting in 3D space, being much more detailed than he, she, or it was in Nausicaa.
6 Owaranai Hito: Miyazaki Hayao - 6.8/10
Owaranai Hito: Miyazaki Hayao is a documentary film that Miyazaki appeared in during 2016. The film tells the story of his life, of the animation process, and his ability to create entire worlds that feel fully-formed and real, quickly and efficiently. It also takes a look at what the man has been doing since announcing his retirement in 2013, what with so much of the time having been devoted to animation and helping run Studio Ghibli beforehand.
5 From Up On Poppy Hill - 7.4/10
Some teenagers in From Up On Poppy Hill are faced with the potential destruction of the clubhouse they hang out in when it becomes slated for demolition to make way for the Tokyo Olympics in 1964. This is yet another Ghibli movie that saw its release in 2011. Hayao Miyazaki adapted the original story written by an associate and wrote the screenplay for the final film.
The small group who had cleaned up the clubhouse has to do their best to make sure they can keep it intact by persuading the chairman of the high school that they need it since it's become so important to them. It received good reviews from critics and grossed around 61 million worldwide. The film was released in the United States in 2013. In the end, they're successful and able to convince the chairman that their clubhouse shouldn't be destroyed. If anything took away from this film's success, it's that it's very grounded and historical, which generally isn't what people have come to expect from Ghibli.
4 Mr. Dough And The Egg Princess - 7.6/10
Pandane to Tamago Hime or Mr. Dough And The Egg Princess is a film released in 2010, making it just recent enough to make the list. It's a fantasy short film released by Studio Ghibli and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. It's the story of a tiny egg-girl who's forced to serve a boar-like witch named Baba Yaga. Eventually, a small glob of dough comes to life, and the two of them escape to see the world together.
Lasting only 12 minutes, there's really not too much to say about it but it was indeed fairly well-received by critics. The animation is very pretty and is done with the usual Studio Ghibli style, looking simultaneously like an anime and a fantasy story that was dug up from some ancient place deep within the ground.
3 The Secret World Of Arrietty - 7.6/10
The Secret World Of Arrietty is another Studio Ghibli film that was released in 2010, coming in just at the beginning of this list. It's about a small family that lives in the walls of another, sneaking around and grabbing things they need. Since they're so small, the larger family won't miss the things they take. Things get a little more complicated for the smaller family when their teenage daughter is discovered by the larger family in whose house they live. The small girl, Arrietty, and her family think it's best to leave the house after being discovered since the mother of the normal-sized family wants to capture them.
2 The Wind Rises - 7.8/10
The Wind Rises is a semi-biographical film, although it's of course slightly mythologized, being a Studio Ghibli film and all since they usually specialize in fantasy. The film centers around the engineer who was the principal designer of most WWII era Japanese planes. He attended the University of Tokyo and got a job with Mitsibushi, who was mostly involved with the production of military planes at the time. While Mitsibushi had a firmly pro-war stance back then, Jiro Horikoshi, the subject of the film, was staunchly opposed to fighting in a war he saw as futile after witnessing what he termed "The awesome industrial strength of the United States".
The film walks us through Jiro's early life and explains to us that he was near-sighted from an early age, and as such unable to be a pilot. He was inspired by the Italian aeronautical designer Caproni. The film follows his life pretty closely, showing us his rise in Japanese society and how he quickly became one of the most respected in his field. It also highlights key historical moments in Jiro's life, like an earthquake, the Great Depression, his love life and his close friends. I also brings up a tuberculosis epidemic that affected Japan for a while.
1 Boro The Caterpillar - 8.2/10
Boro The Caterpillar is another short film that Studio Ghibli put out in 2018, which tells the story of a little bell spider that falls in love with a water strider. The animation is again, very pretty, with the color palette used for the film mostly being a series of blues, bright lime greens, and yellows. It shows us the birth of Boro, as a young hatchling, taking in the air and seeing the sun for the first time, after emerging from the first stages of life. As with most short films, it appears very much like an animation exercise more than a fully-fledged narrative that could be turned into a feature-length film, but this is likely the intention. We're seeing a snapshot from another world and experiencing waking up in it just like Boro is. This is part of the beauty that makes the 14-minute long short film worth watching.