The best anime movies of all time, ranked

Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland shot through with revealing economic anxieties, Hayao Miyazaki’s smash hit—the most commercially successful movie (animated or otherwise) in Japanese history—is dense enough to fuel a dozen dissertations. Thankfully, it’s also a blast: warm, witty and wild.

Released in the U.S. in 1993, this instant animation classic about two sisters and their adventures with a goofy-looking forest spirit is the most kid-friendly Studio Ghibli film, as well as one of the most beautiful.

In terms of influence, there may be no more important film in anime history than writer-director Katsuhiro Otomo’s adaptation of his own manga – it might even be the most significant non-Disney animated film of the ’80s. Set three decades after Tokyo was leveled by a nuclear bomb, the story follows the leader of a biker gang on a rescue mission to save his best friend from a government experiment. Coupled with the mind-blowing, post-apocalyptic imagery, it hooked an entire generation of Western audiences to the wonders of Japanese anime, and continues to serve as the genre’s most popular gateway. 

One of the best-known Ghibli films, this somber drama examines the aftermath of WWII, following the plight of two orphaned kids seeking their family and a meal.

Weird, fantastical creatures abound in Hayao Miyazaki’s animated worlds, and whenever this film’s intrepid hero is battling a wild boar or trekking through a whimsical forest, it’s impossible to be anything but agog.

Three homeless people find an abandoned baby wanted by yakuza, and vow to protect her by any means necessary. Satoshi Kon’s tribute to John Ford’s 3 Godfathers was a departure from his usual psychedelic kitchen-sink aesthetic, and is easily his most accessible film.

Years before Harry Potter, Studio Ghibli turned out this immensely lovable tale of a young girl who leaves home to train for a life in witchery, talking black cat in tow, which ended up the biggest Japanese movie of 1989. Existing on the more lighthearted end of the studio’s filmography, it stands with My Neighbor Totoro as the best way to introduce kids to Ghibli’s wonderous world – and anime on the whole. The Eiko Kadono novel on which it’s based is pretty delightful too. 

An office worker traveling to the countryside reflects upon her childhood. What, no giant killer robots or anything?

When a device that allows scientists to root around in their patients’ subconscious falls into the wrong hands, dream detective Atsuko Chiba, AKA ‘Paprika’, must race to get it back. Where Tokyo Godfathers marked a departure from the psychedelic freakouts Satoshi Kon is known for, Paprika found him back in his trippy wheelhouse. It could be his defining work. 

A decorated WWI pilot finds his head transformed into that of a pig in this truly bizarre cartoon. You’ve gotta hand it to the Japanese—they don’t just make the same damn film over and over.

It’s raccoons against humans—actually, raccoons disguised as humans against humans—in this wacky battle for the forests outside Tokyo. Jeez, not another metamorphosing-raccoon flick, for crissakes!

Best leave the young ones at home—Mamoru Oshii’s cyberthriller (one of the few anime features to get a wide theatrical release in the U.S.) features gore aplenty. Adults will find existential questions à la Blade Runner and other sci-fi dystopias.

Flying ships, airborne pirates, damsels in distress and government agents fighting the good fight—no offense, Jude Law, but this is how to do the whole sky captain thing right.

The environmentally conscious plot of this early Hayao Miyazaki favorite involves a young girl trying to bring peace to her post-apocalyptic society and halt the spread of polluted wastelands.

Well, perfect may be stretching it. But anime fans swear by this thriller-cum-philosophical-treatise, in which ruminations about the nature of reality offer an excuse to indulge in a bit of the old animated ultraviolence.

A stunning quick-hit anthology film comprising three shorts from three of Japan’s brightest anime talents of the ’80s - Rintaro, Yoshiaki Kawajiri and Katsuhiro Ôtomo - Neo-Tokyo packs a lot into its 50-minute running time. The best of the three is Ôtomo’s ‘Construction Cancellation Order’, about a white-collar worker attempting to shut down the construction of a factory in a remote part of South America who runs afoul of the robots programmed to complete the job by any means necessary.

A documentarian tries to uncover the reasons why a famed actress disappeared from the spotlight 30 years earlier. Yes, it doesn't quite sound like an animated film, so prepare to have your mind blown.

The title contains multitudes. On an unusually rainy night in Tokyo, a high-school freshman runs away from home and meets a young girl with the ability to control the weather. A brilliant confirmation of the visual and narrative talents of fast rising writer-director Makoto Shinkai. 

It took Katsuhiro Ôtomo 16 years to follow up the genre-defining Akira, but he made the wait worth it. A sweeping steampunk epic, Steamboy was one of the most expensive and laborious anime films ever at the time of its release, requiring more than 180,000 drawings to tell the story of a young inventor in 19th century England on the run from powerful enemies.  

Hayao Miyazaki’s final film before entering ‘retirement’ – he’d come out of it only four years later – is a fantastical biography of the creator of Japan’s World War II-era Zero fighter plane, which Miyazaki presents as a poignant allegory for what happens when reality corrupts one’s dreams.