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Preview data: all rankings, scores, votes, refresh labels, methodology, testing and editorial-process statements in Top 49 are illustrative demo content, not live measurements or documented reviews.
Rank 014Up 4Editor’s pick
#1 in Anime Films
of 14 ranked entries
Spirited Away
Hayao Miyazaki · Studio Ghibli · 2001
Miyazaki built a bathhouse for spirits as a coming-of-age crucible for a sullen ten-year-old, and Chihiro’s quiet, unglamorous work ethic — scrubbing a literal river god clean — is the emotional engine, not the magic around it. Recorded specifics: released 2001, director Hayao Miyazaki, studio Studio Ghibli. Panel highlighted the only anime film to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, world-building rooted in Shinto folklore rather than generic fantasy tropes and a child protagonist who grows through labor and patience, not chosen-one power. The reservation on record is some Western viewers find the middle act’s episodic structure meandering.
FantasyComing-of-age
Score breakdown
How Spirited Away earned 96.4
Each criterion is scored independently, then combined using the weights published on Anime Films.
- Direction & animation craftweight 30%
- 95.8
- Emotional & narrative impactweight 30%
- 97.2
- Cultural influenceweight 20%
- 98.6
- Visual innovationweight 20%
- 93.7
“Held the Japanese box-office record for nineteen years until Demon Slayer: Mugen Train overtook it in 2020.”
— Top 49, on Anime Films
On the record
Recorded detail
| Released | 2001 |
|---|---|
| Director | Hayao Miyazaki |
| Studio | Studio Ghibli |
| Runtime | 2h 5m |
| Rating | 9.5 |
Panel verdict
Strengths and reservations
What it gets right
- The only anime film to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature
- World-building rooted in Shinto folklore rather than generic fantasy tropes
- A child protagonist who grows through labor and patience, not chosen-one power
Where it gives ground
- Some Western viewers find the middle act’s episodic structure meandering
1 appearance
Where this entry ranks
From the same list
Ranked alongside it
Rank 02Editor’s pickGrave of the Fireflies
Isao Takahata · Studio Ghibli · 1988
Takahata opens by telling you both children die, then spends the rest of the film making that outcome unbearable anyway — a war film with almost no interest in battle scenes, only their aftermath on two siblings nobody is coming to save.
93.5/100 Top 49 score1Down 1
Rank 03Editor’s pickAkira
Katsuhiro Otomo · 1988
Hand-drawn on a scale nobody has attempted since, with lip-sync recorded before animation — almost unheard of in the medium at the time.
92.1/100 Top 49 score4Up 4
Rank 04Perfect Blue
Satoshi Kon · Madhouse · 1997
Kon built a psychological thriller about a pop idol losing her grip on reality that deliberately blurs film, fantasy and memory until the audience is as disoriented as its protagonist — Darren Aronofsky has openly credited it as an influence.
90.6/100 Top 49 score—No change
Rank 05Princess Mononoke
Hayao Miyazaki · Studio Ghibli · 1997
Miyazaki refused to write a clean villain into an environmental fable, instead giving the industrial antagonist real, sympathetic reasons for wanting the forest gone, which is exactly what keeps the film’s conflict honest.
88.6/100 Top 49 score1Down 1
Rank 06Your Name
Makoto Shinkai · CoMix Wave Films · 2016
Shinkai built a body-swap romance around painstakingly rendered real Japanese locations, and the film’s late structural swerve into disaster-prevention urgency turned a charming premise into a genuinely moving one.
87.0/100 Top 49 score1Up 1
Rank 07Ghost in the Shell
Mamoru Oshii · 1995
Asks what remains of a person once every part is replaceable, and refuses to land on a comfortable answer. The dialogue-free city sequence is the best four minutes in the genre.
84.5/100 Top 49 score3Up 3
Rank 08My Neighbor Totoro
Hayao Miyazaki · Studio Ghibli · 1988
Miyazaki built a film almost entirely without conflict — two sisters, a sick mother, and a forest spirit who mostly just naps — and the absence of stakes turns out to be exactly the point, and exactly why it has endured as comfort viewing for decades.
82.2/100 Top 49 score2Down 2
Rank 09Paprika
Satoshi Kon · Madhouse · 2006
Kon built a film about a device that lets therapists enter patients’ dreams and then, characteristically, let the dream logic infect the film’s own editing — sequences bleed into each other so fluidly that Inception borrowed several of its images directly.
80.8/100 Top 49 score2Up 2
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Top 49 rankings are editorial. Scores are produced from the published criteria on each list and are refreshed on the cadence stated there. Figures shown across this section are curated demonstration data.