Studio Ghibli: Every Film From the Studio That Has Won or Has Been Nominated for an Oscar (2024)

Studio Ghibli is one of the most famous and beloved animated studios in film history, having produced countless classics, while also having an immense influence on one new generation after another. Although the studio’s first film was technically 1986’s Castle in the Sky, directed by Hayao Miyazaki, Ghibli’s origins date back further than that. Specifically, 1984’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind was a proto-Ghibli film of sorts, as it featured much of the same creative team that would go on to found the famous studio.

In the 40 years since Studio Ghibli was founded by Miyazaki, Isao Takahata and Toshio Suzuki, the Japanese animation house has produced outstanding works such as Spirited Away, Grave of the Fireflies, My Neighbor Totoro, When Marnie Was There, Princess Mononoke and so many more. However, in that time, the studio has not received as much recognition from the major American awards as it deserves. The studio has been the recipient of six Oscar nominations over the years, with the first not coming until the 2003 ceremony, and they have only won one of those awards.

All six of Studio Ghibli’s Oscar nominations have been in the category of Best Animated Feature, which wasn’t introduced until the Oscars in 2001. For further context, since 1988, Pixar Animation has been nominated for a total of 65 Oscars, having won 23 of them in categories ranging from Best Animated Feature to Best Sound Editing, Best Original Score, Best Animated Short and Best Original Song. This year, Studio Ghibli has released one of its strongest awards contenders in years, Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron, which is already beginning to bring the studio nominations from the likes of the Golden Globes and the Critics Choice Awards. With all of this in mind, we’ve decided to take a look back at every Studio Ghibli film that has been nominated for or won an Academy Award.

7 Spirited Away (2001)

Spirited Away

PG

Release Date

July 20, 2001

Director

Hayao Miyazaki

Cast

Rumi Hîragi , Miyu Irino , Mari Natsuki , Takashi Naitô , Yasuko Sawaguchi , Tatsuya Gashûin

Main Genre

Animation

See Also

These Two Underrated Ghibli Films Share a Connection15 Rare VHS Tapes That Are Now Worth a Fortune - Worthly10 U.S. Policies That Were Passed Based on False Information - ListverseThe 15 Best Studio Ghibli Characters, Ranked

Runtime

125

Although it was preceded by films such as Kiki’s Delivery Service, My Neighbor Totoro, Grave of the Fireflies and Princess Mononoke, the very first Studio Ghibli film to be nominated for an Oscar was 2001’s Spirited Away. It was the latest feature to be directed by Miyazaki, and it has since become one of the filmmaker’s most famous works. The story of the film follows a young girl named Chihiro, who enters a mysterious world filled with all sorts of spirits and strange happenings. Spirited Away is one of Studio Ghibli’s most successful films to date, and it is considered by some to not just be one of the best animated films ever produced, but one of the best movies ever made.

Hayao Miyazaki Won His First (and Only) Oscar

Spirited Away was both the first Studio Ghibli film to be nominated for and the first to win an Oscar. It won the award for Best Animated Feature, just a year after the category had been added. Although Spirited Away was released in Japan in 2001, it didn’t win the award until the 2003 Oscars. This is because the movie was not released in the United States until midway through 2002, which pushed its qualification back to the 75th Academy Awards in early 2003, where it was nominated against other films such as Ice Age, Lilo & Stitch, Treasure Planet and Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron. This also marks the first and only time that Miyazaki has won an Oscar, though he has been nominated several other times and would receive an Honorary Oscar later in his career.

Stream on Max

6 Howl’s Moving Castle (2004)

Howl's Moving Castle

8-12 years

Release Date

November 20, 2004

Director

Hayao Miyazaki

Cast

Chieko Baisho , Takuya Kimura , Akihiro Miwa , Tatsuya Gashûin , Ryûnosuke Kamiki , Mitsunori Isaki

Main Genre

Animation

Three years later, the second Studio Ghibli film to receive an Oscar nomination was 2004’s Howl’s Moving Castle. Also directed by Miyazaki, there was a lot of anticipation for the film as the director was coming off the immense success of Spirited Away. The film is even more fantastical than Spirited Away had been, as it is set entirely in a fictional world that incorporates a mix of magical and steampunk aesthetics. As with many of Miyazaki’s films, it features strong themes centered on environmentalism and the horrors of war. When the film was released in the United States in 2005, it featured an all-star voice cast that included the likes of Christian Bale, Jean Simmons, Billy Crystal, Lauren Bacall and Josh Hutcherson.

How Miyazaki’s Follow-Up to Spirited Away Fared

For the same reason as Spirited Away’s delayed nomination, Howl’s Moving Castle was nominated for the 78th Academy Awards in early 2006, despite debuting in Japan in 2004. It was nominated in the category of Best Animated Feature, in which it only competed against two other films – Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride and Aardman’s Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Unfortunately, Howl’s Moving Castle ended up losing the award to Wallace & Gromit, which also remains Aardman’s only Oscar win to this day. However, both films have gone on to become cult classics in the nearly 20 years since their respective releases.

Stream on Max

5 The Wind Rises (2013)

The Wind Rises

PG-13

Release Date

July 20, 2013

Director

Hayao Miyazaki

Cast

Joseph Gordon-Levitt , John Krasinski , Emily Blunt , Martin Short , Stanley Tucci , Mandy Patinkin

Main Genre

Animation

After Howl’s Moving Castle, it would be nearly another decade before another film from Studio Ghibli would be nominated for an Oscar. Films released during that gap included Miyazaki’s Ponyo, as well as The Secret World of Arrietty and From Up on Poppy Hill, which were all unfortunately left without any nominations from the Academy. However, the studio made a return to the Oscars for the 86th ceremony in early 2014 with The Wind Rises. At the time, the movie was thought to be Miyazaki’s final directorial effort, and Ghibli made a big splash as it was one of the studio's most emotionally mature and thought-provoking features to date.

Miyazaki’s Previous “Final” Movie Made Waves

The Wind Rises barely qualified for the 2014 Oscars, as it was released in a very limited manner in Los Angeles in November 2013 in order to make the cut. Despite the immense praise directed at the film, The Wind Rises continued Ghibli’s streak of leaving the Oscars empty-handed. It was nominated for Best Animated Feature against other films such as Ernest & Celestine, Despicable Me 2, The Croods and Disney’s Frozen, the last of which took home the award.

Stream on Max

Related: The Wind Rises: Revisiting Hayao Miyazaki's Dream of Flight

4 The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (2013)

The Tale of Princess Kaguya

PG

Release Date

November 23, 2013

Director

Isao Takahata

Cast

Aki Asakura , Yukiji Asaoka , Takeo Chii , Isao Hashizume , Hikaru Ijûin , Takaya Kamikawa

Main Genre

Animation

The very next year, Studio Ghibli returned to the Oscars. However, for the first time, this was for a film not directed by Miyazaki. While Studio Ghibli is most well-known for the films of Miyazaki, he is far from the only director that has worked with the studio. Co-founder Isao Takahata also produced many great films with Ghibli, including Grave of the Fireflies, Only Yesterday and My Neighbors the Yaamadas. The fourth Ghibli film to be nominated for Best Animated Feature was the latest from Takahata, The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, which was released in Japan in late 2013 but wasn’t released in the United States until late 2014.

Isao Takahata Finally Receives Some Recognition

Despite releasing in the same year as The Wind Rises in Japan, the year’s difference in release in the United States pushed the two films apart from one another so that they would compete in different awards ceremonies, as The Tale of the Princess Kaguya was nominated for the 87th Academy Awards in early 2015. With the release and subsequent Oscar nomination of The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, the director finally received some of the recognition that he deserved. It was nominated alongside films such as Big Hero 6 – which won the award – The Boxtrolls, Song of the Sea and How to Train Your Dragon 2. The 2015 Oscars still marked a big year for Studio Ghibli, though, as, in addition to Takahata’s nomination, Miyazaki was also recognized with an Honorary Oscar to commemorate the impact and influence of his work on the film industry as a whole.

Stream on Max

3 When Marnie Was There (2014)

In the mid-2010s, Studio Ghibli was on a bit of a hot streak when it came to receiving Oscar nominations. The year after The Tale of the Princess Kaguya was nominated, the studio returned to the awards ceremony once again, with When Marnie Was There. The film was the second that director Hiromasa Yonebayashi had helmed for Studio Ghibli, following 2010’s The Secret World of Arrietty. It also would be the final film Yonebayashi would direct for Ghibli before leaving to work with the newly founded Studio Ponoc, with which he has since directed two features.

Studio Ghibli Was Beaten Out Once Again

The Oscar nomination for When Marnie Was There in early 2016 was a bit of a surprise at the time, but a very welcome one. Though the film did not win the award for Best Animated Feature, it was good to see the Academy continue to branch out to recognizing Studio Ghibli films from directors other than Miyazaki. The award, once again, went to a Pixar film that year, as Inside Out took the prize, while the other nominees included films such as Anomalisa, Boy and the World and Shaun the Sheep Movie.

Stream on Max

Related: Every Studio Ghibli Movie, Ranked

2 The Red Turtle (2015)

Finally, the most recent film from Studio Ghibli to be nominated for an Oscar was 2015’s The Red Turtle, which was a co-production between Ghibli and a handful of smaller French animation houses. It was directed by the Dutch filmmaker Michaël Dudok de Wit, and it received a lot of acclaim for its approach to a story with zero dialogue. It was de Wit’s first feature-length film, though he’d worked on several short films prior, including 2000’s Father and Daughter, which won the Oscar for Best Animated Short when it was released near the turn of the century.

The Red Turtle Faced Stiff Competition at the Oscars

While the category of Best Animated Feature is consistently one of the most competitive at the Academy Awards, this was especially true at the 89th ceremony in early 2017. In addition to The Red Turtle, the other nominees included Kubo and the Two Strings, Moana, Zootopia and My Life as a Zucchini. While Zootopia ultimately won the award, this was a year in which essentially any of the nominees could have won, and there would have been little complaining.

Stream on Starz

1 Is The Boy and the Heron Next?

The Boy and the Heron

PG-13

Release Date

December 8, 2023

Director

Hayao Miyazaki

Cast

Christian Bale , Dave Bautista , Gemma Chan , Willem Dafoe , Karen Fukuhara , Mark Hamill , Robert Pattinson , Florence Pugh , Dan Stevens , Tony Revolori

Since the nomination of The Red Turtle in early 2017, there has not been a single nomination for a film from Studio Ghibli. However, it should be noted that the studio has only produced one feature film between then and the release of The Boy and the Heron. That film was 2020’s Earwig and the Witch, from Gorō Miyazaki, which marked the studio’s first fully digital 3D-animated feature. The reception to this film was lackluster, to say the least, which would be why it did not receive any Oscar recognition. It has now been another three years since the release of Earwig and the Witch, and Studio Ghibli has returned once again with Hayao Miyazaki’s latest epic, The Boy and the Heron, which is already making its mark on awards season.

Where Could Miyazaki’s Latest Film Be Nominated?

The Boy and the Heron is as close to a lock for a Best Animated Feature nomination as you can get. At this point, the race to win that award has really come down to just Miyazaki’s film and the new Spider-Verse adventure. However, this year could also be the first to see a Ghibli film be nominated for an award beyond Best Animated Feature. Specifically, composer Joe Hisaishi has some awards momentum for his musical score for The Boy and the Heron, as he recently received a Golden Globe nomination for his work. This marked the first occasion in which Hisaishi has been nominated for a major award like this in North America. Hisaishi has composed the music for nearly all of Miyazaki’s films, as well as a handful of other Ghibli projects, and it’s frankly a crime that he hasn’t been nominated for an Oscar yet.

Beyond that, it’s not outside the realm of possibility to see The Boy and the Heron receive a nomination for Best Picture, though we’re not holding our breath on that one. It’s incredibly rare for an animated film to receive a Best Picture nomination, and it hasn’t happened since Toy Story 3 in 2010. Plus, this year’s awards race has already proven itself to be overly crowded. Regardless, The Boy and the Heron seems to be on track to bring in at least one Oscar nomination for Studio Ghibli, and perhaps the added factor of it being (potentially) Miyazaki’s last film will be enough to push it to a second win for Miyazaki and Ghibli.

✕ Remove Ads