Few animation studios can claim to be as influential and well-loved as the Japan-based Studio Ghibli. Under the stewardship of legendary animator, writer, and filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki, the studio has released several worldwide hits that have received both critical and commercial acclaim, and rightly so.
If you’ve heard of the famous wondrous worlds, beautiful animation, and beloved characters created by the studio over its 40-year history and are ready to dive in, or else are already a fan and are desperate to find out where you can stream their content, then read ahead for our guide on how to stream (nearly) all of the Studio Ghibli films.
Where can I stream all Studio Ghibli movies?
Here’s the deal. If you’re an international Ghibli fan who lives basically anywhere other than the U.S. and Japan (where the movies are bizarrely absent from streaming), then Netflix is the platform for you. If you’re in the U.S., however, the Ghibli back catalog isn’t on Netflix but on Max instead, so that’s the streaming subscription you should be picking up if you want to view virtually every Studio Ghibli movie ever made.
I say virtually, as there are unfortunately a couple of missing titles, whether you are streaming on Netflix or Max. Neither The Red Turtle, Grave of the Fireflies nor the recently released The Boy and the Heron are available to stream. We’ll get to The Red Turtle in a moment, but the lack of Grave of the Fireflies is simply due to the publishing rights not resting with Ghibli’s regular distributor, Tokuma Shoten.
OK, so let’s say you’ve binged all those on either Netflix or Max and want to complete the collection. In that case, you can rent or buy both The Red Turtle and Grave of the Fireflies on such services as Prime Video or Apple TV. The Red Turtle, meanwhile, can also be streamed on Starz in the U.S. at the time of writing.
How many Studio Ghibli movies are there?
Well, this answer is a tricky one, depending on how you classify The Red Turtle. You see, the 2017 film was an international collaboration with French studios Wild Bunch and Belvision, with no actual animation done by Ghibli.
If we are including it in the list, however, then that makes 25 Studio Ghibli films released in total, from 1984’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind to 2023’s The Boy and the Heron.
What are the names of the Studio Ghibli movies?
So now you know how to stream the Studio Ghibli films and how many to look out for, but which order should you watch them in? Here’s every single official Studio Ghibli movie in order of release:
- Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984)
- Castle in the Sky (1986)
- Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
- My Neighbor Totoro (1988)
- Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989)
- Only Yesterday (1991)
- Porco Rosso (1992)
- Ocean Waves (1993)
- Pom Poko (1994)
- Whisper of the Heart (1995)
- Princess Mononoke (1997)
- My Neighbors the Yamadas (1999)
- Spirited Away (2001)
- The Cat Returns (2002)
- Howl’s Moving Castle (2004)
- Tales from Earthsea (2006)
- Ponyo (2008)
- The Secret World of Arrietty/Arrietty (2010)
- From Up on Poppy Hill (2011)
- The Wind Rises (2013)
- The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (2013)
- When Marnie Was There (2014)
- Earwig and the Witch (2020)
- The Boy and the Heron (2023)
Do we know where and when The Boy and the Heron hits streaming?
Following its release in Japan in July 2023, where it goes by the title How Do You Live?, The Boy and the Heron received its English-dubbed debut — starring the voices of Robert Pattinson, Karen Fukuhara, Gemma Chan, and Howl’s Moving Castle‘s own Christian Bale — in theaters on Dec. 8, 2023.
A transition onto streaming has yet to be announced, but we can probably expect it to arrive on digital in the first quarter of 2024. Following another few months it will then likely join the rest of the Studio Ghibli collection on either Netflix or Max, depending on where you are in the world.
