This movie review package will spotlight a selection of great anime films that deserve a place on your "must-watch" list. This comprehensive list spans a variety of genres, ensuring there's something for everyone. Each film has been chosen for its unique charm, offering everything from breathtaking visuals and masterful animation to thought-provoking themes and emotionally resonant storylines. Whether you're seeking action-packed adventures, heartwarming tales, or imaginative worlds, these movies promise to captivate and leave a lasting impression on audiences.

Chihiro, a ten-year-old girl, sulks in the back seat of her parents' car. The family is on its way to a new home in a new town, and Chihiro doesn't want to move. When her father gets lost taking a short cut, they discover the entrance to an abandoned theme park. The parents investigate and find a deserted stall piled with food. They start eating, and soon, they're both pigging out. They try to make Chihiro eat, but she has a bad feeling about it and refuses the food. Chihiro wanders away by herself. While she explores, a boy appears and warns her to leave before dark.

She runs back to the stall, only to find that her parents have turned into pigs. As night falls, shadowy spirits fill the park, and Chihiro starts becoming transparent. The boy appears again and coaxes her to eat food from the spirit world, which will keep her from disappearing. He then leads her to a busy bathhouse, negotiating her safely through a phalanx of spirits who aren't happy about having a human among them. After getting her to safety, he gives her detailed instructions on how to get a job in the spirit world, which he says is the only way to survive. He says his name is Haku, and that he has known her since she was very small.

Suzume Iwato is an ordinary 17-year-old living on the island of Kyushu in southwestern Japan. She lost her mother over a decade ago and has been raised by a supportive aunt, but questions linger about exactly what happened when she was young. On her bike to school, she runs into a stranger who tells her he's looking for a door. Somehow, she knows what he means, suggesting that he check out a nearby abandoned resort. Fascinated by the encounter, she doesn't go to school and tries to track the man down, stumbling upon the door instead and, well, making a bad choice. When she opens it, she sees a different, star-lit landscape but can't cross over to it. When she tries, she just ends up on the other side of the door in her own world. But she's set something in motion.

She returns to the door and sees the energy coming through the door she found earlier, but this time the stranger is trying to close it. She helps him get it shut, but something is wrong. It turns out, of course, that Suzume's meddling earlier has unleashed something. Before you know it, the man, whose name is Souta, has been transformed into a talking chair, and a mischievous cat is trailing them as they travel the country and try and keep the worms from causing more natural disasters.

Two sisters, Satsuki and Mei, move with their Dad to a house in the countryside. Their new neighbour happens to be a spiritual tree guardian, Totoro. When the family arrive they see their new house for the first time. It looks very rundown and has a neglected feeling around it. But the sisters don't mind at all, they think that it is the best thing in the world. Satsuki and Mei are super excited to explore the house. When they enter the kitchen they become aware that it is full of small fuzzy black things called dustbunnies (for more info see my characters page)

One day while playing outside Mei spots a pair of white ears in the long grass. These ears belong to a small white Totoro. She follows the Totoro under the house and then in to the forest. Mei ends up at a massive tree in the middle of the forest. This tree is called a camphor tree; it is the home of the large Totoro.

Mei tumbles down a hole at the base of the tree and ends up in Totoro's den. She climbs on top of the big Totoro and falls asleep. When Satsuki gets home from school she asks her Dad where Mei is but he doesn't know. Totoro is nowhere to be seen.

In a quiet corner of the city, four-year-old Kun Oota has lived a spoiled life as an only child with his parents and the family dog, Yukko. But when his new baby sister Mirai is brought home, his simple life is thrown upside-down; suddenly, it isn't all about him anymore. To help him adapt to this drastic change, Kun is taken on an extraordinary journey through time, meeting his family's past, present, and future selves, as he learns not only what it means to be a part of a family, but also what it means to be an older brother.

He meets a strange man who claims to be the "prince" of the house. As the man whines about how he lost all the attention when Kun was born, Kun realizes that the man is actually Yukko turned human. Frustrated again with his family, Kun runs back to the garden. This time he meets a 14-year-old girl who claims to be Mirai from the future, whom Kun is able to recognize by the birthmark on her right hand. She has somehow come back in time, concerned because every day the dolls are not put away adds one year before she can marry. Future Mirai is able to put the dolls away with Kun and humanized Yukko's help.