Studio Ghibliis 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’sCastle in the Sky, directed by Hayao Miyazaki, Ghibli’s origins date back further than that. Specifically, 1984’sNausicaä of the Valley of the Windwas 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 asSpirited Away,Grave of the Fireflies,My Neighbor Totoro,When Marnie Was There,Princess Mononokeand 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 sixOscarnominations 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’sThe 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.
7Spirited Away (2001)
Spirited Away
Although it was preceded by films such asKiki’s Delivery Service,My Neighbor Totoro,Grave of the FirefliesandPrincess Mononoke, the very first Studio Ghibli film to be nominated for an Oscar was 2001’sSpirited 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 Awayis one of Studio Ghibli’s most successful films to date, and it is considered by some to not just be one ofthe best animated films ever produced, but one of the best movies ever made.
Hayao Miyazaki Won His First (and Only) Oscar
Spirited Awaywas 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. AlthoughSpirited Away was releasedin 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 asIce Age,Lilo & Stitch,Treasure PlanetandSpirit: 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.
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6Howl’s Moving Castle (2004)
Howl’s Moving Castle
Three years later, the second Studio Ghibli film to receive an Oscar nomination was 2004’sHowl’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 ofSpirited Away. The film is even more fantastical thanSpirited Awayhad 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 asSpirited Away’s delayed nomination,Howl’s Moving Castlewas 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’sCorpse Brideand Aardman’sWallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Unfortunately,Howl’s Moving Castleended up losing the award toWallace & 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.
5The Wind Rises (2013)
The Wind Rises
AfterHowl’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’sPonyo, as well asThe Secret World of ArriettyandFrom 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 withThe 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 Risesbarely 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 Risescontinued Ghibli’s streak of leaving the Oscars empty-handed. It was nominated for Best Animated Feature against other films such asErnest & Celestine,Despicable Me 2,The Croodsand Disney’sFrozen, the last of which took home the award.
Related:The Wind Rises: Revisiting Hayao Miyazaki’s Dream of Flight
4The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (2013)
The Tale of Princess Kaguya
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 isfar from the only directorthat has worked with the studio. Co-founder Isao Takahata also produced many great films with Ghibli, includingGrave of the Fireflies,Only YesterdayandMy 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 asThe Wind Risesin 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, asThe Tale of the Princess Kaguyawas nominated for the 87th Academy Awards in early 2015. With the release and subsequent Oscar nomination ofThe Tale of the Princess Kaguya, the director finally received some of the recognition that he deserved. It was nominated alongside films such asBig Hero 6– which won the award –The Boxtrolls,Song of the SeaandHow 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.
3When 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 afterThe Tale of the Princess Kaguyawas nominated, the studio returned to the awards ceremony once again, withWhenMarnie Was There. The film was the second that director Hiromasa Yonebayashi had helmed for Studio Ghibli, following 2010’sThe 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 forWhen Marnie Was Therein 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, asInside Outtook the prize, while the other nominees included films such asAnomalisa,Boy and the WorldandShaun the Sheep Movie.
Related:Every Studio Ghibli Movie, Ranked
2The Red Turtle (2015)
Finally, the most recent film from Studio Ghibli to be nominated for an Oscar was 2015’sThe 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’sFather 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 toThe Red Turtle, the other nominees includedKubo and the Two Strings,Moana,ZootopiaandMy Life as a Zucchini. WhileZootopiaultimately won the award, this was a year in which essentially any of the nominees could have won, and there would have been little complaining.
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1Is The Boy and the Heron Next?
The Boy and the Heron
Since the nomination ofThe Red Turtlein 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 ofThe Boy and the Heron. That film was 2020’sEarwig 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 ofEarwig and the Witch, and Studio Ghibli has returned once again withHayao 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 Heronis 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 newSpider-Verseadventure. 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 forThe 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 seeThe Boy and the Heronreceive 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 ithasn’t happened sinceToy Story 3in 2010. Plus, this year’s awards race has already proven itself to be overly crowded. Regardless,The Boy and the Heronseems 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.
