50 Best Anime Movies Of All Time Ranked

With so much to choose from across a myriad of different genres, the wonderful world of anime can sometimes seem a little inaccessible to newcomers. The history of Japan's lucrative animation industry can be traced back to the early 20th century, when a five-minute, chalk-drawn film was created by Shimokawa Oten. The medium grew steadily in the decades that followed (experiencing a boom during World War II, when the Japanese government used anime for propaganda purposes) and would come to be recognized as part of the country's cultural identity, both at home and in the West.

The anime industry is bigger than ever nowadays, and, with the rise of streaming services, fans have never been more stuck for choice. Whether you're a newbie looking for your perfect entry into anime, or an aficionado on a mission to see every unmissable anime film ever made, we've got you covered.

Updated on April 3, 2023: From instant classics to all-time gems, these are the best movies that anime has to offer.

One of the most memorable anime imports of the 1990s, Gothic horror "Vampire Hunter D" rapidly earned a cult status upon its arrival in America. The story begins when the eponymous vampire hunter gets hired by Doris Lang, a farm girl who wandered into the domain of 10,000-year-old vampire Count Magnus Lee and paid the ultimate price for it. The Count bit her, and the only way she won't turn into a vampire is if D manages to kill Lee before her transformation is complete.

• Original Voice Cast: Kaneto Shiozawa, Michie Tomizawa, Seizo Kato
• English Dub Cast: John Gremillion, Luci Christian, David Wald
• Director: Toyoo Ashida
• Year: 1985
• Runtime: 80 minutes
• Rating: NR
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 78%

Studio Ghibli film "The Cat Returns" features an appearance from Baron Humbert von Gikkingen, the living cat statue from "Whisper of the Heart." The Cat Kingdom is thoroughly fleshed out during this delightful spinoff, in which Haru Yoshioka (a sheepish high schooler who hides the fact that she can communicate with felines) gets a marriage proposal from Lune, prince of the aforementioned kitty kingdom. She's whisked away before she can answer, and it seems as though the Baron is her only hope of escape.

• Original Voice Cast: Chizuru Ikewaki, Yoshihiko Hakamada, Tetsu Watanabe
• English Dub Cast: Anne Hathaway, Cary Elwes, Peter Boyle
• Director: Hiroyuki Morita
• Year: 2002
• Runtime: 75 minutes
• Rating: G
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 91%

They're incorrectly referred to as raccoons in the English language dub, but the creatures that make up the cast of little-seen Studio Ghibli gem "Pom Poko" are in fact tanuki, important animals in Japanese folklore. The film begins in the 1960s, when Tokyo's urban sprawl was consuming rural communities and green spaces alike. When a group of tanuki living in a forest south of the city discover that their home is to be flattened to make way for a new suburb, they form a resistance and fight back.

• Original Voice Cast: Makoto Nonomura, Shigeru Izumiya, Nijiko Kiyokawa
• English Dub Cast: Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Clancy Brown,  Tress MacNeille
• Director: Isao Takahata
• Year: 1994
• Runtime: 119 minutes
• Rating: PG
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 85%

From "Ninja Scroll" director Yoshiaki Kawajiri, "Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust" is an adaptation of the third installment in Hideyuki Kikuchi's series of "Vampire Hunter" novels. It pits D against the villainous Baron Meier Link, a high-ranking vampire accused of kidnapping beautiful brunette Charlotte Elbourne from her home. After being hired by her worried family for a tidy sum, the vampire hunter tracks the girl down and discovers that she left willingly — she's fallen in love with the baron and doesn't want to leave.

• Original Voice Cast: Hideyuki Tanaka, Koichi Yamadera, Megumi Hayashibara
• English Dub Cast: Andy Philpot, John Rafter Lee, Pamela Adlon
• Director: Yoshiaki Kawajiri
• Year: 2000
• Runtime: 102 minutes
• Rating: R
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 72%

The directorial debut of Hayao Miyazaki, crime caper "The Castle of Cagliostro" follows gentleman thief Arsène Lupin III as he attempts to trace the source of some counterfeit bills while aiding a runaway bride. After realizing that the money he just stole from a casino is fake, our suave anti-hero heads for the Grand Duchy of Cagliostro, hoping to find a lead. After saving a young woman from some local thugs, Lupin finds himself embroiled in a shady count's plot to marry the princess, his way of gaining access to the fabled treasure of Cagliostro.

• Original Voice Cast: Yasuo Yamada, Kiyoshi Kobayashi, Eiko Masuyama
• English Dub Cast: David Hayter, John Snyder, Dorothy Elias-Fahn
• Director: Hayao Miyazaki
• Year: 1979
• Runtime: 100 minutes
• Rating: PG
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 95%

Released in 2018, "I Want to Eat Your Pancreas" is an exquisitely animated film about a girl with a terminal illness. When high school student Haruki discovers that popular classmate Sakura is hiding her pancreatic condition from everyone at school so she can live out her final days in relative normality, he decides to help her tick off everything on her bucket list before it's too late. One of the saddest anime storylines ever, you'll need a steady supply of tissues for this one.

• Original Voice Cast: Mahiro Takasugi, Lynn, Yukiyo Fujii
• English Dub Cast: Robbie Daymond, Erika Harlacher, Kira Buckland
• Director: Shinichiro Ushijima
• Year: 2018
• Runtime: 109 minutes
• Rating: PG
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 93%

Written by "Akira" creator Katsuhiro Otomo and directed by mononymous anime veteran Rintaro, "Metropolis" is a tale of class, prejudice, and robots. The story begins with private detective Shusaku Ban and his nephew Kenichi, on the hunt for a wanted scientist. They get to him minutes too late: he's been shot, and the killer has set his lab on fire. Kenichi manages to escape the blaze with a young girl named Tima. What neither of them know is that she's actually a robot, created by the scientist at the behest of Metropolis' crooked ruler, Duke Red.

• Original Voice Cast: Kei Kobayashi, Yuka Imoto, Kosei Tomita
• English Dub Cast: Brianne Siddall, Rebecca Forstadt, Tony Pope
• Director: Rintaro
• Year: 2001
• Runtime: 113 minutes
• Rating: PG
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 86%

Mamoru Hosoda's Animation of the Year winner "Summer Wars" is part cyber-thriller, part family dramedy. It follows math genius Kenji Koiso, who works as a mod for the company behind a computer-simulated virtual reality world known as OZ. When his account gets hacked and an AI avatar begins terrorizing OZ, Kenji has to figure out how to stop it before the damage spills over into the real world. Aiding him are his friend (and crush) Natsuki Shinohara and her huge family, proud descendants of a samurai clan. The action takes place between OZ and Natsuki's grandmother's estate in the country.

• Original Voice Cast: Ryunosuke Kamiki, Nanami Sakuraba, Mitsuki Tanimura,
• English Dub Cast: Michael Sinterniklaas, Brina Palencia, Maxey Whitehead
• Director: Mamoru Hosoda
• Year: 2009
• Runtime: 114 minutes
• Rating: PG
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 78%

While it technically predates the company, Hayao Miyazaki's "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" is often viewed as an unofficial Ghibli film, as its success led to the formation of the famous anime studio. Based on Miyazaki's manga of the same name, it takes place a thousand years into the future, in a toxic world largely destroyed by bioweapons. Humans do battle with giant, mutated insects, though Nausicaä (princess of the titular valley) hopes to find a way for them all to live in harmony. The environmental and anti-war themes explored here would go on to become a staple of Studio Ghibli's films.

• Original Voice Cast: Sumi Shimamoto, Goro Naya, Yoji Matsuda
• English Dub Cast: Alison Lohman, Patrick Stewart, Shia LaBeouf
• Director: Hayao Miyazaki
• Year: 1984
• Runtime: 117 minutes
• Rating: PG
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 89%

Mamoru Hosoda burst onto the anime scene with "Digimon: The Movie" at the turn of the millennium, and he followed that up with "Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island," consistently ranked among the best "One Piece" movies. His next film, sci-fi romance "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time," led to him being dubbed the next Hayao Miyazaki. It follows Makoto Konno, a 17-year-old high schooler who discovers that she has the ability to time jump after she's hit by a train and miraculously reappears right before the accident occurs.

• Original Voice Cast: Riisa Naka, Takuya Ishida,  Mitsutaka Itakura
• English Dub Cast: Emily Hirst, Andrew Francis, Alex Zahara
• Director: Mamoru Hosoda
• Year: 2006
• Runtime: 98 minutes
• Rating: PG
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 83%

Anime films set in Tokyo tend to focus on the famous green spaces and neon-lit neighborhoods, but Satoshi Kon's gritty Christmas classic "Tokyo Godfathers" shows us a different side of the city. It's the story of three homeless people who discover an abandoned newborn on Christmas Eve. Transgender woman Hana, aging alcoholic Gin, and teenage runaway Miyuki (who names the newest member of their makeshift family Kiyoko, meaning "pure child") set out on a quest to return the baby girl to her parents.

• Original Voice Cast: Tooru Emori, Yoshiaki Umegami, Aya Okamoto
• English Dub Cast: Jon Avner, Shakina Nayfack, Victoria Grace
• Director: Satoshi Kon
• Year: 2003
• Runtime: 92 minutes
• Rating: PG-13
• Rotten Tomatoes score: 91%

Directed by Goro Miyazaki, son of the great Hayao Miyazaki, "From Up on Poppy Hill" takes place in Yokohama during the post-war period. It's the story of Umi Matsuzaki, a 16-year-old girl who lives in a boarding house overlooking the city's famous port. When a poem about the signal flags she raises every morning gets published in the local high school's newspaper, Umi decides to help staffer Shun Kazama in his quest to save the school's clubhouse from demolition. The teens develop feelings that become extremely complicated when they discover an old photograph that seems to suggest they're long-lost siblings.

• Original Voice Cast: Masami Nagasawa, Junichi Okada, Keiko Takeshita
• English Dub Cast: Sarah Bolger, Anton Yelchin, Edie Mirman
• Director: Goro Miyazaki,
• Year: 2011
• Runtime: 92 minutes
• Rating: PG
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 86%

Surfing is the focus of Masaaki Yuasa's "Ride Your Wave," the director's most polished-looking feature to date. The wild, surreal style of animation he's known for (inspired in part by the Beatles film "Yellow Submarine") is toned down massively, making way for crisp blue skies and crystal clear waters. The film follows college student Hinako Mukaimizu, who falls in love with a firefighter after moving to a surf town on the coast. Sadly, the man of her dreams drowns while rescuing a stricken jet skier, though she soon discovers that he appears to her in water whenever she sings their favorite song.

• Original Voice Cast: Ryota Katayose, Rina Kawaei, Honoka Matsumoto
• English Dub Cast: Joey Richter, Merit Leighton, Sarah Anne Williams
• Director: Masaaki Yuasa
• Year: 2019
• Runtime: 96 minutes
• Rating: PG
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 93%

Mamoru Hosoda's "Wolf Children" is the tale of an unusual family forced to deal with some very normal issues. It follows a young woman named Hana, who falls head over heels for a man who's half wolf. They start a family together, but he's killed on a hunt when their two kids are still infants. Like their dad, Yuki and Ame can transform into anthropomorphic wolves, a fact they strive to keep hidden. Hana, now a single mother, decides to start over in the countryside, hoping her mischievous wolf children will somehow blend in.

• Original Voice Cast: Aoi Miyazaki, Haru Kuroki, Yukito Nishii
• English Dub Cast: Colleen Clinkenbeard, Jad Saxton, Micah Solusod
• Director: Mamoru Hosoda
• Year: 2012
• Runtime: 117 minutes
• Rating: PG
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 95%

One of several anime masterpieces from genius director Satoshi Kon (who died of pancreatic cancer in 2010 at the age of 46), "Millennium Actress" follows two TV journalists tasked with interviewing the former star of a bankrupted film studio for a documentary. The elderly Chiyoko Fujiwara is unwilling to cooperate at first, but when the pair present her with a key she hasn't seen in three decades, the reclusive actor proceeds with her story, a tale of jealousy and lost love that takes them back to her youth.

• Original Voice Cast: Mami Koyama, Shozo Iizuka, Masaya Onosaka
• English Dub Cast: Erin Yvette, Christopher Swindle, Benjamin Diskin
• Director: Satoshi Kon
• Year: 2001
• Runtime: 87 minutes
• Rating: PG
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 93%

"The Tale of Princess Kaguya" was widely hailed as one of the most beautiful films of 2013, more than five decades after Isao Takahata first pushed the idea of a feature film about the 10th-century literary character. The girl that comes to be known as Princess Kaguya is discovered inside a bamboo shoot by a farmer, miniature and glowing. She grows into a normal child and becomes a popular figure in the village, but, eager to further her reputation as a divine being, her adoptive parents force her to abandon the countryside for a life in the big city.

• Original Voice Cast: Aki Asakura, Kengo Kora, Takeo Chii,
• English Dub Cast: Chloe Grace Moretz, Darren Criss, James Caan
• Director: Isao Takahata
• Year: 2013
• Runtime: 137 minutes
• Rating: PG
• Rotten Tomatoes score: 100%

The fourth and final film from the late, great Satoshi Kon, "Paprika" is the story of a visionary scientist whose groundbreaking tech falls into the wrong hands. Doctor Atsuko Chiba and her team have perfected a device that allows the user to enter the dreams of others, and she takes it upon herself to use it for good. By night, the psychiatrist secretly uses the device to treat her patients, going inside their heads using her virtual avatar/alter ego, Paprika. When the dream technology gets stolen, a game of cat and mouse played out across the dream world — and the real one — ensues.

• Original Voice Cast: Megumi Hayashibara, Toru Furuya, Toru Emori
• English Dub Cast: Cindy Robinson, Yuri Lowenthal, Michael Forest
• Director: Satoshi Kon
• Year: 2006
• Runtime: 90 minutes
• Rating: R
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 85%

Naoko Yamada's "A Silent Voice" examines the relationship between bullies and their victims. The film opens with remorseful high school student Shoya Ishida going through a crisis. He became an outcast among his peers after relentlessly bullying deaf classmate Shoko Nishimiya during sixth grade, and things have gotten so bad that he's considering suicide. He decides to seek Shoko out and apologize as his final act, but ends up asking her to be friends instead. She agrees, though there's plenty of ups and downs to come before their relationship gets truly repaired.

• Original Voice Cast: Miyu Irino, Mayu Matsuoka, Saori Hayami
• English Dub Cast: Robbie Daymond, Ryan Shanahan, Lexi Cowden
• Director: Naoko Yamada
• Year: 2016
• Runtime: 130 minutes
• Rating: NR
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94%

If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline​ at​ 1-800-273-TALK (8255)​.

It's long been considered one of the best anime of the 1980s, and Hiroyuki Yamaga's "Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise" still more than holds its own against newer entries in the sci-fi genre. Humans have yet to venture into space in Yamaga's film, set on an alternate version of Earth. Interest in space travel is practically nonexistent when failed fighter jet pilot Shiro Lhadatt joins the Royal Space Force, but that all changes when he volunteers to go into orbit. The flight sequences are stunning, and it's impossible not to root for the world's first astronaut.

• Original Voice Cast: Leo Morimoto, Mitsuki Yayoi, Aya Murata
• English Dub Cast: David A. Thomas, Heidi Lenhart, Wendee Lee
• Director: Hiroyuki Yamaga
• Year: 1987
• Runtime: 119 minutes
• Rating: NR
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100%

Hayao Miyazaki grew up with a love for aviation (his father's company, Miyazaki Airplane, built aircraft for the Japanese military) and the thrill of flight has always been a theme in his work. His passion is at its most unrestrained in "The Wind Rises," the director's most personal film. It tells the (fictionalized) story of Jiro Horikoshi, the real-life engineer of numerous fighter jets used by Japan during WWII. In the film, Jiro turns his attention to engineering after he's told that he's too nearsighted to be a pilot, but his new dream of building beautiful aircraft is complicated by the fact they'll be used for war.

• Original Voice Cast: Hideaki Anno, Miori Takimoto, Hidetoshi Nishijima
• English Dub Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emily Blunt, John Krasinski
• Director: Hayao Miyazaki
• Year: 2013
• Runtime: 126 minutes
• Rating: PG
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 88%

Based on Eiko Kadono's book of the same name, "Kiki's Delivery Service" follows a trainee witch who leaves home to find work at the age of 13, as per witch tradition. In this world, witches are neither feared nor unusual, seen as helpful public servants rather than creepy conjurors. Kiki finds the perfect job in Koriko, using her broom to earn her keep in the big city: she delivers packages for a very friendly (and very pregnant) bakery owner. In the words of director Hayao Miyazaki, it's a film for those "who do not deny the joy of youth, nor are carried away by it."

• Original Voice Cast: Minami Takayama, Rei Sakuma, Keiko Toda
• English Dub Cast: Kirsten Dunst, Phil Hartman, Tress MacNeille
• Director: Hayao Miyazaki
• Year: 1989
• Runtime: 103 minutes
• Rating: G
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 98%

In 1996, Studio Ghibli struck a deal with Disney that made the Mouse House the sole distributor of its films abroad. The first release under that deal was Hayao Miyazaki's fantasy epic "Princess Mononoke," which Disney put out via Harvey Weinstein's Miramax. The now-disgraced producer wanted Miyazaki to make a ton of cuts, but the director insisted that the film be released entirely unedited. Set during Japan's Muromachi period, it follows a wolf-raised woman named San and an earnest prince named Ashitaka, whose cursed arm is slowly killing him. The unlikely pair join forces to stop an impending war between the industrial-minded humans and the angry forest gods.

• Original Voice Cast: Yoji Matsuda, Yuriko Ishida, Yuko Tanaka
• English Dub Cast: Billy Crudup, Claire Danes, Minnie Driver
• Director: Hayao Miyazaki
• Year: 1997
• Runtime: 133 minutes
• Rating: PG-13
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 93%

Loosley based on the Diana Wynne Jones novel of the same name, Hayao Miyazaki's "Howl's Moving Castle" is routinely ranked among the director's top works. This mesmerizing steampunk adventure takes place in a war-torn kingdom where magic and machinery work hand in hand. It follows a hatmaker named Sophie who, after an encounter with the vindictive Witch of the Waste, is transformed into an old woman. The young milliner sets out on a quest to find the witch and lift the curse, which leads her to the titular castle. She becomes Howl's cleaning lady and begins to care for the wanted wizard, who sees her for what she really is.

• Original Voice Cast: Chieko Baisho, Takuya Kimura, Tatsuya Gashuin
• English Dub Cast: Emily Mortimer, Christian Bale, Billy Crystal
• Director: Hayao Miyazaki
• Year: 2004
• Runtime: 119 minutes
• Rating: PG
• Rotten Tomatoes score: 87%

The distinctive silhouette of Studio Ghibli mascot Totoro is known the world over nowadays. Hayao Miyazaki's "My Neighbor Totoro" didn't capture the imagination of audiences right away (largely down to the fact that it was released alongside "Grave of the Fireflies" as a double feature), but the film and its eponymous forest spirit went on to carve out a place in Japanese pop culture. It follows sisters Satsuki and Mei, who just moved to the countryside with their father. Their new house is old and drafty, but it's near the hospital that's treating their sick mother. Totoro becomes a guardian to the girls after they discover him in a nearby forest.

• Original Voice Cast: Noriko Hidaka, Chika Sakamoto, Shigesato Itoi
• English Dub Cast: Dakota Fanning, Elle Fanning, Tim Daly
• Director: Hayao Miyazaki
• Year: 1988
• Runtime: 86 minutes
• Rating: G
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94%

The Oscar-winning jewel in Studio Ghibli's crown, Hayao Miyazaki's "Spirited Away" is the unforgettable tale of a girl named Chihiro, whose parents are transformed into pigs after they wander into what they believe is an abandoned theme park. It turns out to be a bathhouse for spirits, and if Chihiro wants her mom and dad restored to human form, she'll have to work for the witch that runs it. With a host of colorful new friends helping her out, she formulates a plan to save her parents and get back to the human world.

• Original Voice Cast: Rumi Hiiragi, Miyu Irino, Mari Natsuki
• English Dub Cast: Daveigh Chase, Jason Marsden, Suzanne Pleshette
• Director: Hayao Miyazaki
• Year: 2001
• Runtime: 125 minutes
• Rating: PG
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 97%