All The Hayao Miyazaki Films Ranked By How Much I Will Scream At You For Criticising Them

11. Howl’s Moving Castle

Considered by many to be a weaker link in Miyazaki’s oeuvre, Howl’s Moving Castle is beautiful and touching, but harder to follow than most of the great director’s work, and can leave many viewers cold. If you don’t like it, though, you are a villain and a scold.

10. Princess Mononoke

Opinions vary on this one–its length can be draining, and it’s difficult to settle into the movie’s rhythms at times–but the fact remains that it’s art, and if you disagree, you don’t deserve to be loved.

9. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

A perfect movie above reproach, even if it has aged less gracefully (at least from an animation standpoint) than many of the other films. Nausicaä is my friend, and a slight against her is a slight against me. I will show up at your place of business and start something with you if you dare to challenge the film’s beauty.

8. Kiki’s Delivery Service

Kiki is doing her best, and if this movie doesn’t quite grab you, it’s because something is deeply, fundamentally wrong with you.

7. The Castle of Cagliostro

Miyazaki-sama was criticized by Japanese viewers for his take on the iconic Lupin character upon the film’s Japanese release in 1979. Thankfully, many of those critics are now rightfully dead, their empty souls lost. If you don’t enjoy the film’s ending, I will scream at you until I have to be physically restrained.

6. Spirited Away

Spirited Away is the highest grossing film in Japan of all-time, and the only non-English animated film to ever win an Academy Award. I will defend it to the death, and if your disgusting children try to tell me yet again that their favourite movie is Cars, I will push them to the ground and spit on their faces.

5. Castle in the Sky

An unparalleled work of genius, and perhaps the only true art ever produced. If you say a single word against it I will personally campaign for your death. I will seek a legal warrant to have you killed, and I will watch, unblinking, as the life leaves your worthless body.

4. Ponyo

Are you fucking kidding me here?! Are you serious? You found fault with Ponyo?! I will carve the mark of the Devil into your forehead. I will scream your sins so loud your ancestors will be dragged to Hell. I will shatter the bounds of your reality with my screaming until the ground collapses beneath you and you are reclaimed by an Earth you had no business living on.

3. My Neighbor Totoro

This one’s really cute. I like the Catbus.

2. The Wind Rises

Miyazaki’s ode to obsession, a career-defining examination of an aircraft designer that doubles as a metaphor for the creator’s own life, has an important message at its heart: that great art, and extraordinary works, comes at a tremendous cost. It is, in part, Miyazaki’s way of pushing back against his own career, a blisteringly honest and personal look at what was lost as he crafted eleven incredible movies. If it’s not your cup of tea, I will burn down the very foundations of your happiness. I will salt the earth of your life and watch as every victory you desperately reach for withers and dies on the vine. I will scream and scream and scream, and by the time I’m done you will scream so, so much louder.

1. Porco Rosso

You absolute fucking dickhead.