Short answer
- Studio Ghibli was founded in Tokyo on June 15, 1985, by directors Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata and producer Toshio Suzuki, with backing from the publisher Tokuma Shoten. Its founding followed the success of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind in 1984, a Topcraft film directed by Miyazaki and adapted from his own manga. The first official Ghibli feature was Castle in the Sky in 1986. Grave of the Fireflies and My Neighbor Totoro followed as a double bill in 1988, Kiki's Delivery Service followed in 1989, Princess Mononoke in 1997, and Spirited Away in 2001. Spirited Away won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature at the 2003 ceremony. After a production pause in the mid 2010s, the studio returned with Earwig and the Witch in 2020 and The Boy and the Heron in 2023, which won the same Academy Award at the 2024 ceremony and gave Miyazaki his second win in that category.
Introduction
Few animation studios inspire the kind of devotion that Studio Ghibli does. Mention Totoro, Spirited Away, or Howl’s Moving Castle to film lovers, and you will usually get favorite scenes and strong opinions about which film is best. That devotion grew over four decades, from a small Japanese studio founded in 1985 into one of the most respected names in world animation, known for hand drawn craft and stories that treat young audiences seriously and adult audiences tenderly.
This article traces that history, from the film that made the studio possible, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, through its classic era, its international breakthrough, its period of change, and its recent work. It is a history and viewing guide, not gossip and not news. No interviews are invented, no box office claims are made without the caution they deserve, and where sources disagree on a detail, the article favors the widely agreed outline.
One correction matters at the very start, because it is the most common mistake in short Ghibli histories. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind was released in 1984. Studio Ghibli was founded on June 15, 1985. Nausicaa therefore predates the studio by a year and is not, strictly, a Studio Ghibli film. It was produced by Topcraft. It belongs at the start of this history because its director, its themes, and its production team became the foundation on which Ghibli was built, and because it is now grouped and distributed alongside the Ghibli catalog. Stating that distinction accurately makes the rest of the chronology clearer, not less interesting.
Before Ghibli: Nausicaa and the Founders
The name Ghibli refers to a hot desert wind. In the commonly told account, it was chosen in the hope that the studio would blow fresh air through Japanese animation. That ambition makes sense only in light of what came just before it.
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, released in 1984 and directed by Miyazaki, was produced by Topcraft, with Takahata producing and Suzuki involved in its production. Adapted by Miyazaki from his own manga, it tells the story of a young princess in a post apocalyptic world who seeks understanding between humans and a vast, toxic forest, rather than conquest of it. The film’s ecological themes, its capable young heroine, and its lovingly detailed world of wind, insects, and ruined technology became hallmarks of Miyazaki’s later work. Its success gave Miyazaki, Takahata, and Suzuki the standing to form a new studio dedicated to feature animation.
That prehistory matters for viewers, because Nausicaa is often shelved and streamed alongside Ghibli films, and for good reason. It feels like a Ghibli film in spirit, and it introduces themes the studio would return to again and again. Notice the heroine’s curiosity, the refusal to divide the world into simple heroes and villains, and the attention to wind, machines, and a breathing forest. Those details are the studio’s signature, present from the start.
Miyazaki and Takahata had worked together long before Ghibli, including on television animation in the 1970s, and both brought distinct sensibilities. Miyazaki leaned toward fantasy, flight, and adventure, with strong young protagonists and richly imagined worlds. Takahata leaned toward realism, everyday life, and emotional restraint, often finding drama in ordinary moments. That twin inheritance, fantasy and realism side by side, is what makes the Ghibli catalog feel broader than a single director’s work, even though Miyazaki directed most of its best known films.
The First Ghibli Films: Castle in the Sky, Totoro, and Fireflies
The first official Studio Ghibli feature was Castle in the Sky, released in 1986, known in Japanese as Tenku no Shiro Rapyuta and sometimes as Laputa: Castle in the Sky. It follows two children, Sheeta and Pazu, caught up in a search for a legendary floating castle, pursued by pirates and soldiers. The film’s airships, mining town, robots, and sky bound ruins established Miyazaki’s love of flight and of technology that feels both wondrous and worn. It is an adventure film, but it is also a film about greed, power, and the choice to let a beautiful thing go rather than weaponize it.
Then came 1988, one of the most remarkable years in animation history. Ghibli released two films as a double bill that could hardly be more different: Grave of the Fireflies, directed by Takahata, and My Neighbor Totoro, directed by Miyazaki. Grave of the Fireflies, based on a semi autobiographical story by Akiyuki Nosaka, follows two children struggling to survive in Japan near the end of World War II. It is restrained, unsentimental, and devastating, and it remains one of the most respected animated films ever made about war’s effect on civilians. My Neighbor Totoro, by contrast, is gentle, sunlit, and almost plotless in the conventional sense: two sisters move to a country house, explore the forest, and encounter a large, quiet forest spirit. Together, the two films showed the studio’s range in a single year, and they remain the clearest proof that Ghibli was never a one style studio.
Totoro became the studio’s emblem. The character appears in the studio’s logo, and images such as the Catbus and the rain at a bus stop have entered global visual culture. Its reputation grew slowly, through home video, television, and word of mouth, until it became a beloved classic and a gateway film for new viewers.
Kiki, Porco Rosso, and the Early 1990s
Kiki’s Delivery Service, released in 1989 and directed by Miyazaki, became the studio’s first major commercial success in Japan, described in widely reported accounts as the highest grossing Japanese film of that year. It follows a thirteen year old witch who leaves home, as witches in her world traditionally do, to spend a year living independently in a seaside town, where she starts a delivery service on her broomstick. The film is often described as a coming of age story, but its deeper subject is creative confidence: Kiki loses her ability to fly when she loses belief in herself, and regains it not through a dramatic rescue but through rest, friendship, and accepting help. For many viewers, that honest portrayal of burnout and recovery is what makes Kiki endure.
The early 1990s brought further variety. Only Yesterday, released in 1991 and directed by Takahata, follows a young office worker who travels to the countryside and reflects on her childhood, with flashbacks rendered in a soft, memory like style. It is a quiet, adult film about memory and choice, and it showed that Ghibli’s realism could carry a feature on its own. Porco Rosso, released in 1992 and directed by Miyazaki, is a stranger, more playful work: a World War I pilot, transformed into a pig, flies seaplanes over the Adriatic and spars with air pirates. Beneath the comedy lies a film about disillusionment, honor, and refusing to join a rising tide of militarism.
Ocean Waves, released in 1993 as a television film, was a deliberate experiment made largely by younger staff, telling a low key story of high school friendship and first love. It matters historically because it showed Ghibli investing in a new generation and in smaller, contemporary stories. Pom Poko, released in 1994 and directed by Takahata, returned to folklore and environmental themes with mischievous shape shifting tanuki fighting to save their forest from development, mixing comedy, satire, and sadness in a way only Takahata could. Whisper of the Heart, released in 1995 and directed by Yoshifumi Kondo, follows a schoolgirl who discovers her voice as a writer, and it remains a favorite for viewers who love stories about creative ambition and first love. Kondo died in 1998, and Whisper of the Heart was his only feature as director.
Princess Mononoke and the Late 1990s
Princess Mononoke, released in 1997 and directed by Miyazaki, marked a turning point. It is an epic set in a mythic, forested Japan, where a young prince, Ashitaka, cursed by a demon, becomes caught between forest gods, led by the wolf raised San, and an iron making town led by Lady Eboshi, who is both a destroyer of the forest and a protector of outcasts. The film refuses to make either side simply good or evil, and its action sequences, forest spirits, and moral complexity were more intense than anything Ghibli had made before. It was a major success in Japan and helped prepare international audiences for what came next. Britannica likewise marks 1997 as the year of Miyazaki’s blockbuster hit Princess Mononoke, following the studio’s 1996 distribution deal for wider release outside Japan.
The late 1990s also saw Ghibli broaden its approach. My Neighbors the Yamadas, released in 1999 and directed by Takahata, used a sketch like, comic strip style to follow an ordinary family through small domestic episodes, a deliberate departure from the studio’s lush, detailed look. That willingness to change visual style for the story, rather than forcing every film into one house look, is a hallmark of Ghibli’s maturity.
For new viewers, Princess Mononoke is often best saved until after Totoro and Kiki. Its violence and moral ambiguity land better once you know the studio’s gentler side, and watching it later shows how Miyazaki’s environmental themes deepened from Nausicaa onward.
Spirited Away and International Breakthrough
Spirited Away, released in 2001 and directed by Miyazaki, is the studio’s most celebrated film internationally. It follows Chihiro, a sullen ten year old who stumbles into a bathhouse for spirits and must work there to free her parents, who have been transformed into pigs. The film is dense with invention, yet its emotional core is simple: a child learning courage, work, and kindness. Spirited Away won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2002 and the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature at the 2003 ceremony, a landmark for Japanese animation, and it introduced millions of viewers outside Japan to Ghibli.
The films that followed showed the studio at its most prolific and varied. The Cat Returns, released in 2002 and directed by Hiroyuki Morita, is a light fantasy in which a schoolgirl who saves a cat is drawn into a feline kingdom. Howl’s Moving Castle, released in 2004 and directed by Miyazaki, adapts a novel by Diana Wynne Jones into a story of a young woman cursed into old age, a flamboyant wizard, a walking castle, and a war that drifts ominously in the background. Tales from Earthsea, released in 2006 and directed by Goro Miyazaki, Hayao Miyazaki’s son, was an early sign of features passing to a new generation. Ponyo, released in 2008 and directed by Miyazaki, returns to a simpler, childlike register, with a goldfish princess who wants to become human and a small boy who befriends her, rendered in loose, hand drawn waves and bright color.
Arrietty, released in 2010 and directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi, and released in the United States as The Secret World of Arrietty, is based on Mary Norton’s Borrowers stories. It is a jewel of small scale animation, following tiny people who borrow household objects from a human house, and it remains a superb entry point for younger viewers. From Up on Poppy Hill, released in 2011 and directed by Goro Miyazaki, is a gentle, nostalgic story of schoolchildren in 1960s Yokohama working to save their clubhouse, and it captures Takahata’s realist inheritance in a new director’s hands.
The Wind Rises, Kaguya, and a Pause
The year 2013 brought two major, and very different, statements from the founders. The Wind Rises, directed by Miyazaki, is a fictionalized biography of Jiro Horikoshi, the designer of the Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter plane, and it follows his dreams of flight, his love, and the moral shadow of designing machines that would be used in war. It is beautiful, melancholy, and controversial, precisely because it refuses to simplify its subject’s life into praise or condemnation. The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, directed by Takahata, adapts a Japanese folktale about a tiny princess found inside a bamboo stalk, in a watercolor style that looks like sketches brought to life. It is widely regarded as one of Takahata’s masterpieces, and it was his final feature. Takahata died in 2018.
After Miyazaki announced his retirement from feature directing in 2013, the studio announced in 2014 that it would temporarily halt production and restructure. That pause, widely reported at the time, led to years of uncertainty about Ghibli’s future. When Marnie Was There, released in 2014 and directed by Yonebayashi, arrived in that period. The correct English title is When Marnie Was There, not When the Memory of Marnie. It tells the story of a lonely girl, a mysterious friend, and a seaside house full of secrets, handled with the studio’s characteristic care for emotion over spectacle, and to many viewers at the time it felt like a farewell.
Return: Earwig, The Boy and the Heron, and Today
Ghibli’s return to features was gradual. Earwig and the Witch, released in 2020 and directed by Goro Miyazaki, was the studio’s first fully computer animated feature, based on a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, and it divided audiences, partly because its digital look differed so sharply from the hand drawn style viewers associated with Ghibli. It is best approached as an experiment, a studio testing new tools while its founder prepared one more hand drawn film.
That film, The Boy and the Heron, released in Japan in 2023 and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, who had come out of retirement, follows a boy grieving his mother during wartime who enters a dreamlike tower world guided by a grey heron. Its Japanese title is How Do You Live? It is dense, personal, and deliberately mysterious, drawing on Miyazaki’s own life and on the studio’s long history of towers, birds, and journeys between worlds. It won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature at the 2024 ceremony, making it Miyazaki’s second win in that category after Spirited Away. For longtime viewers, it feels like a summation: flight, grief, creation, and the passing of a world from one generation to the next.
Today, Studio Ghibli exists as both a working studio and a cultural institution. The Ghibli Museum in Mitaka, Tokyo, opened in 2001, and Ghibli Park in Aichi Prefecture, whose first phase opened on November 1, 2022, let visitors step into the studio’s worlds in physical form, though both require advance planning and tickets that sell out well ahead. The films themselves remain widely available through streaming and home video, though availability varies by country and changes over time, so check your local services rather than relying on an older guide’s list. Its influence is visible across animation in its hand drawn backgrounds and its insistence that children’s films can carry complex emotions.
Studio Ghibli Films in Release Order
For readers who want the chronology in one place, the main feature films discussed in this article, with Nausicaa shown separately because it predates the studio, are as follows.
Pre Ghibli foundation film: Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984), directed by Hayao Miyazaki, produced by Topcraft.
Studio Ghibli features: Castle in the Sky (1986), directed by Hayao Miyazaki; Grave of the Fireflies (1988), directed by Isao Takahata; My Neighbor Totoro (1988), directed by Hayao Miyazaki; Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989), directed by Hayao Miyazaki; Only Yesterday (1991), directed by Isao Takahata; Porco Rosso (1992), directed by Hayao Miyazaki; Ocean Waves (1993), a television film made largely by younger studio staff; Pom Poko (1994), directed by Isao Takahata; Whisper of the Heart (1995), directed by Yoshifumi Kondo; Princess Mononoke (1997), directed by Hayao Miyazaki; My Neighbors the Yamadas (1999), directed by Isao Takahata; Spirited Away (2001), directed by Hayao Miyazaki; The Cat Returns (2002), directed by Hiroyuki Morita; Howl’s Moving Castle (2004), directed by Hayao Miyazaki; Tales from Earthsea (2006), directed by Goro Miyazaki; Ponyo (2008), directed by Hayao Miyazaki; Arrietty (2010), directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi; From Up on Poppy Hill (2011), directed by Goro Miyazaki; The Wind Rises (2013), directed by Hayao Miyazaki; The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (2013), directed by Isao Takahata; When Marnie Was There (2014), directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi; Earwig and the Witch (2020), directed by Goro Miyazaki; and The Boy and the Heron (2023), directed by Hayao Miyazaki.
That list is a viewing map, not a ranking. Release order is the clearest way to see the studio change over time.
How to Watch: Suggested Paths
New viewers often ask where to start, and the honest answer is that there is no single correct order. Release order gives you the history, but a thematic path may be more enjoyable. A gentle first path might be My Neighbor Totoro, then Kiki’s Delivery Service, then Spirited Away, then Ponyo. That sequence moves from quiet wonder to growing independence to a rich fantasy world to a child’s eye adventure, and it introduces Miyazaki’s core themes without the intensity of his later epics.
A second path, for the studio’s full range, might add Grave of the Fireflies, Only Yesterday, and The Tale of the Princess Kaguya for Takahata’s realism, then Princess Mononoke and The Wind Rises for the more demanding adult side. A third path, for families with younger children, might favor Totoro, Ponyo, Arrietty, and The Cat Returns. Grave of the Fireflies is not a children’s film despite being animated, and parents should preview it first.
Whichever path you choose, watch for the details that make Ghibli distinctive: food cooked and eaten, wind and rain, a character simply looking out a window, and respect for work. Those small moments are where the studio’s philosophy lives, and why its films reward rewatching.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Nausicaa a Studio Ghibli film?
Strictly, no. It was released in 1984, a year before Ghibli was founded on June 15, 1985, and it was produced by Topcraft. In practice, it is almost always grouped with Ghibli films, because its director, themes, and team became the studio’s foundation, and it is distributed alongside the Ghibli catalog.
Which Ghibli film should I watch first?
My Neighbor Totoro is the most common recommendation for first time viewers, because it is gentle, beautiful, and representative of the studio’s spirit. Kiki’s Delivery Service and Spirited Away are also excellent starting points, depending on whether you prefer a grounded coming of age story or a rich fantasy adventure.
Are Ghibli films only for children?
No. Many are suitable for children, but the studio has always made films for adults as well, including Only Yesterday, The Wind Rises, and Grave of the Fireflies, which deal with memory, war, and moral complexity in ways that assume an adult audience.
Why does Ghibli animation look different from most modern animation?
The studio built its reputation on hand drawn animation, detailed painted backgrounds, and a patient visual rhythm, even as the wider industry moved toward computer animation. Later films use digital tools, and Earwig and the Witch in 2020 was fully computer animated, but the hand drawn sensibility remains central to the studio’s identity.
Is Studio Ghibli still making films?
The studio returned to features after a mid 2010s production pause with Earwig and the Witch in 2020 and The Boy and the Heron in 2023, and it continues to operate alongside its museum and park. Its pace is slower than in its peak years, and readers should check current studio announcements rather than relying on an older guide for future release plans.
Who founded Studio Ghibli, and when?
Studio Ghibli was founded on June 15, 1985, by directors Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata and producer Toshio Suzuki, with backing from the publisher Tokuma Shoten. Britannica records the founding in 1985 by Miyazaki, Takahata, and Suzuki, and records Nausicaa in 1984 and Castle in the Sky in 1986 as the films on either side of that founding.
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Sources & references
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, Studio Ghibli. Used for the founding in 1985 by Miyazaki Hayao, Takahata Isao, and producer Suzuki Toshio, for Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind in 1984 based on Miyazaki's own manga, for Castle in the Sky in 1986 as the first official Studio Ghibli release, for My Neighbor Totoro in 1988, Kiki's Delivery Service in 1989, and Porco Rosso in 1992, for Princess Mononoke in 1997 following the 1996 distribution deal, for Spirited Away in 2001 winning the Golden Bear in 2002 and the Academy Award for best animated feature in 2003, for Howl's Moving Castle in 2004, Ponyo in 2008, The Wind Rises in 2013, and The Tale of the Princess Kaguya in 2013, and for the Ghibli Museum opening in Mitaka in 2001.
- GKIDS, announcement of The Boy and the Heron winning the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, March 10, 2024, read via its syndicated release. Used for The Boy and the Heron winning Best Animated Feature at the 2024 ceremony, for that win being Miyazaki's second Academy Award in the category after Spirited Away in 2003, for producer Toshio Suzuki as producer, for Takahata's passing in 2018, and for the correct titles and directors of Howl's Moving Castle in 2004, The Wind Rises in 2013, The Tale of the Princess Kaguya in 2013, and When Marnie Was There in 2014, directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi.
- Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Tokyo Updates, Immerse Yourself in the Works of Studio Ghibli at the Ghibli Museum, Mitaka. Used for the Ghibli Museum, Mitaka opening in 2001 in Inokashira Park, Mitaka, Tokyo, for the first phase opening of Ghibli Park on November 1, 2022, in Expo 2005 Aichi Commemorative Park in Nagakute City, Aichi Prefecture, and for Castle in the Sky in 1986, Kiki's Delivery Service in 1989, and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind in 1984 as dated in its captions.
- Standard Studio Ghibli filmographies consulted through public listings during verification. Used only as a cross check for the release year and director sequence in the release order list, including Whisper of the Heart in 1995 directed by Yoshifumi Kondo, My Neighbors the Yamadas in 1999, The Cat Returns in 2002 directed by Hiroyuki Morita, Tales from Earthsea in 2006 and From Up on Poppy Hill in 2011 directed by Goro Miyazaki, Arrietty in 2010 directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi, and Earwig and the Witch in 2020 directed by Goro Miyazaki. Where a listing and Britannica differed in emphasis, Britannica and the GKIDS release governed for founding and award claims.
