Japanese film watchlist

Kaguya is a beautiful young woman coveted by five nobles. To try to avoid marrying a stranger she doesn't love, she sends her suitors on seemingly impossible tasks. But she will have to face her fate and punishment for her choices.

During her family's move to the suburbs, a sullen 10-year-old girl wanders into a world ruled by gods, witches and spirits, and where humans are changed into beasts.

Anna, a shy 12-year-old girl, is sent to spend time with her aunt and uncle who live in the countryside, where she meets Marnie. The two become best friends. But Anna gradually discovers that Marnie is not quite who she appears to be.

A young boy and his little sister struggle to survive in Japan during World War II.

On a journey to find the cure for a Tatarigami's curse, Ashitaka finds himself in the middle of a war between the forest gods and Tatara, a mining colony. In this quest he also meets San, the Mononoke Hime.

The Clock family are four-inch-tall people who live anonymously in another family's residence, borrowing simple items to make their home. Life changes for the Clocks when their teenage daughter Arrietty is discovered.

A community of magical shape-shifting raccoon dogs struggle to prevent their forest home from being destroyed by urban development.

A twenty-seven-year-old office worker travels to the countryside while reminiscing about her childhood in Tokyo.

When two girls move to the country to be near their ailing mother, they have adventures with the wondrous forest spirits who live nearby.

Jiro Horikoshi studies assiduously to fulfill his aim of becoming an aeronautical engineer. As WWII begins, fighter aircraft designed by him end up getting used by the Japanese Empire against its foes.

Warrior and pacifist Princess Nausicaä desperately struggles to prevent two warring nations from destroying themselves and their dying planet.

A five-year-old boy develops a relationship with Ponyo, a young goldfish princess who longs to become a human after falling in love with him.

Along with her black cat Jiji, Kiki settles in a seaside town and starts a high-flying delivery service. Here begins her magical encounter with independence and responsibility, making lifelong friends and finding her place in the world.

The life and misadventures of a family in contemporary Japan.

In 1930s Italy, a veteran World War I pilot is cursed to look like an anthropomorphic pig.

When an unconfident young woman is cursed with an old body by a spiteful witch, her only chance of breaking the spell lies with a self-indulgent yet insecure young wizard and his companions in his legged, walking castle.

Pazu's life changes when he meets Sheeta, a girl whom pirates are chasing for her crystal amulet, which has the potential to locate Laputa, a legendary castle floating in the sky.

A love story between a girl who loves reading books, and a boy who has previously checked out all of the library books she chooses.

A group of Yokohama teens look to save their school's clubhouse from the wrecking ball in preparations for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

In a mythical land, a man and a young boy investigate a series of unusual occurrences.

After helping a cat, a seventeen-year-old girl finds herself involuntarily engaged to a cat Prince in a magical world where her only hope of freedom lies with a dapper cat statuette come to life.

As a young man returns home after his first year away at college he recalls his senior year of high school and the iron-willed, big city girl that turned his world upside down.

An old couple visit their children and grandchildren in the city, but receive little attention.

Farmers from a village exploited by bandits hire a veteran samurai for protection, and he gathers six other samurai to join him.

A tragic social drama set in post war Japan about a lonely woman trying to find purpose and stability in a devastated Tokyo.