(and don't forget about The Red Turtle produced by Ghibli - also that heartfelt Dutch director's "Father and Daughter" short movie which can be found on YouTube - and Ocean Waves the gorgeous coming of age movie made for TV in the 90s so frequently gets left off Ghibli lists on a technicality, AND also Miyazaki's first directed movie, Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro)

So this is all Ghibli movies, many of which Miyazaki has been involved with as a writer, even when he didn't direct:

1) Whisper of the Heart, which includes my all-time favorite rendition of Country Roads, Take Me Home: pure coming of age magic

2) From Up on Poppy Hill, hard to put into words but just heartwarming beyond belief, and once more coming of age uplift for the soul

3) The Boy and the Heron, a fairy tale through memory and space and time and 3/3 in no particular order other than chronological order of release with the coming of age theme, and again my meager retriever ramblings can't begin to do it justice!

4) Laputa: Castle in the Sky, in which a mysterious princess descends from the sky, from a lost civilization above...

5) Howl's Moving Castle ("The Merry Go Round of Life")

6) Tales from EarthSea (we're all looking for our true name, as Saint cuttingtable tp once said...)

7) Ocean Waves (nostalgia for the carefree days of youth when a rich spoiled BPD girlfriend didn't have any life-ruining potential, so I might be might be biased ranking it so high 😹😹😹, also Im gay and perhaps slightly retarded so I may have completely missed the point of the movie, just a great cozy and mildly wistful atmosphere in general)

8) Only Yesterday ("I am secretly in love with everyone that I grew up with...")

9) When Marnie Was There, those friendly ghost stories to grow up by...

10) The Secret World of Arriety, a kind hearted boy being called to stewardship when and how he least expects it

11) Princess Mononoke, how both human civilization and wild nature have a right to exist, and only when we prioritize harmony, defending what is rightfully ours and respecting what is rightfully theirs, can the true good flourish among neighbors!

12) My Neighbor Totoro, somehow the pinnacle of cozy rainy day movies

13) Spirited Away, whose One Summer's Day made me fall in love with piano again, many years ago

14) Kiki's Delivery Service (a European fairy tale aesthetic for the ages)

15) The Wind Rises (you can tell that Miyazaki had to be extra critical of wartime Germany in order to make this one, yet strangely balanced out in tone by a wonderful Werner Herzog cameo in the English dub:

a nostalgic fairy tale about the Japanese dreamer who didn't want to play the game of Empires, but just wanted to design airplanes, following his dream world Italian airplane engineering muse - Miyazaki openly loves Saint-Exupery as you could probably guess - and with one of the greatest bittersweet endings in movie history, which I think Miyazaki relates to all too well, being someone out of time in the modern age yet who has to keep soldiering on anyway)

16) Porco Rosso, another wistful dream of taking flight both literally and figuratively beyond Earthly intrigues, and this one is playfully self-deprecating about Miyazaki himself and his curmudgeonly nature)

17) Pom Poko, in which Japanese raccoon dogs reflect on the unbelievable endurance of humans in the dehumanizing modern world - this one includes my favorite scene in all of Ghibli which has haunted my dreams ever since, and I think you'll know it when you see it: the joyful return home to harmony, however brief the glimpses when we least expect them

18) Ponyo, my wife's favorite because of how much she says Ponyo's obsessive love of Sosuke reminds her of herself and me 😹😹😹

19) The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, living in a medieval Japanese watercolor, and being unexpectedly sad to depart, the bittersweetness of this Earthly prologue...

20) Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, which is basically old school Final Fantasy: the Anime (I mean that as a compliment because I loved Spirits Within as a kid before I knew what Final Fantasy was, and both are somehow very depressing and very life-affirming at the same time, so I don't rewatch them much yet still cherish them deep down)

21) The Cat Returns: a whimsical sequel to Whisper of the Heart, which you'll love if you love cats (I do), and will be highly bizarre if you don't 😹😹😹

22) Grave of the Fireflies: the most depressing movie ever made so I've only watched it once, yet I can understand why it was made (it's not made to demoralize like most "Western" "realism", but rather to force you to confront what Jim Caviezel has frequently called the greatest unobserved peril of our time for the individual soul: the temptation to indifference)

23) The Red Turtle: a bittersweet Robinson Crusoe fairy tale with all music and no dialogue, which somehow works beautifully and not pretentious in the slightest - where words fail, music speaks! - but one that I don't like to rewatch because ironically it's such a beautiful escape that it's hard to relate with soldiering on in the here and now in the ultra-lysergic Modern Times machine (and yet the movie’s simplicity of heart helps in appreciating the timeless gifts we’ve been given, and not taking any of them for granted!)

24) My Neighbors the Yamadas: "Que Sera Sera, whatever will be, will be..." The least essential viewing by far, and yet still in the 99.9% percentile of human art = expressions of the soul designed to sincerely entertain, educate, and elevate in some way (all credit to Mel Gibson for that insight of course!)

And don't forget The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness! Unironically nothing like any documentary you've ever seen.

I also like the European-inspired TV series of old like Heidi: Girl of the Alps and Anne of Green Gables, Sherlock Hound, Rascal the Raccoon et al. but I haven't watched them since I was young so I have no idea if they're available anywhere in English nowadays

Hope this stream of consciousness workday procrastination is helpful and/or mildly entertaining in some way 😹😹😹

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5778116&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310074#49299073)

Will break your heart in ways you didn’t think was possible, yet you’ll emerge a much more kind hearted person on the other side

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5778116&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310074#49299113)

180^180

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5778116&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310074#49383658)

The one I'd specially recommend if you haven't seen it is The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness, which is somehow as a documentary on the same spirit-nourishing level as a Ghibli movie IMO.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5778116&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310074#49287780)

(I've only seen Mononoke, Spirited, Ponyo, Totoro bc I'm a basic bitch)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5778116&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310074#49287794)

Wow, just wow - you're in for many many treats my gorgeous Gondorian guy

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5778116&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310074#49287801)

(A strangely comforting experience which you introduced me to this last... Eastertime? IIRC.)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5778116&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310074#49287835)

Burmese food is on me next time Im in your neck of the woods my man <3

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5778116&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310074#49288062)

The Boy and the Heron will blow your mind IMO.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5778116&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310074#49287864)

Described as a "big, fantastical film",[2] it follows a boy named Mahito Maki who moves to the countryside after his mother's death, discovers an abandoned tower near his new home, and enters a fantastical world with a talking grey heron.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5778116&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310074#49287888)

(Ponyo is frequently recommended I've noticed because it's the aesthetic of a baby goldfish princess trying to find her way in the world, but like The Little Mermaid which it's inspired by, it's actually quite intense, so not suitable for very young children)

And it's funny that Only Yesterday is very idyllic and gentle, but it's about being amazed by how time flies from childhood to adulthood, so probably a strange place to start as a first childhood Japanese fairy tale movie 😹😹😹; and When Marnie Was There is pure serenity but it's also at the same time a ghost story about one's friendly but lonely distant ancestor seeking closure, so heartwarming but a bit spooky at times

P.S. I keep hearing Ed Sheeran's Azizam on the radio or while out and about, and it makes me think of you (don't know much about Persian culture admittedly, but I'm guessing that humanizing a group of people "our" ruling class is trying to dehumanize for certain (((reasons))) can only be a good thing?)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5778116&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310074#49299061)

*blasts azizam on spotify*

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5778116&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310074#49299549)

Tyty my gorgeous (unironically) warrior-poet guy 🦋

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5778116&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310074#49299555)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamoru_Hosoda

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5778116&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310074#49299109)