Top 10 Best Anime Movies Of All Time

By Author: Tejas
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Japanese animation, commonly referred to as anime, is known for its amazing animation style, great storytelling, and coming in a variety of themes. With the accessibility of the internet in the 21st Century, anime has also become easily accessible and is now a worldwide phenomenon. With a plethora of new anime series and movies coming out every month, it gets hard to keep up. However, when it comes to anime movies there are very few that come close to these 10 icons of the anime industry.

This is the list of must-watch movies for every anime fan.
1. MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM: CHAR’S COUNTERATTACK (1988)

[IMDb rating 7.4/10]
To call the Gundam franchise iconic would be an understatement. In 1979 Mobile Suit Gundam was the very definition of game-changer, and the culmination of director Yoshiyuki Tomino’s Gundam saga which included Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam and Mobile suit Gundam ZZ was Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack. The year is UC 0093, Char Aznable leads the Neo Zeon forces and intends to drop the asteroid Axis on Earth to cause a nuclear winter and force humanity’s evolution. The ...
... only ones who can stop him is the Earth’s Londo Bell unit and Char’s eternal rival Amuro Ray.

2. MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO (1988)

[IMDb rating 8.2/10]
Directed by prominent director Hayao Miyazaki, My Neighbor Totoro is widely regarded as one of the greatest movies of all time. The story follows two sisters, Satsuki and Mei, who arrive in their new home in rural Japan. While playing and exploring around their new house they come across Totoro and other forest spirits. The young girls become great friends with the spirits and have adventures with them.

3. AKIRA (1988)

[IMDb rating 8.0/10]
Widely regarded as one of the greatest animated and science fiction movies of all time, Akira was one of the franchises that spearheaded the recognition of anime worldwide. Set in a dystopian 2019, Akira follows biker gang leader Shotaro Kaneda as he fights all kinds of opposing forces to save his friend Tetsuo Shima, who has developed psychic powers, from a secret government project.

4. PRINCESS MONONOKE (1997)

[IMDb rating 8.4/10]
Directed by Hayao Miyazaki, Princess Mononoke is one of the top 10 highest-grossing anime movies of all time. The film is set in the late Muromachi period of Japan where Ashitaka, a young Emishi prince who is infected with a deadly curse gets involved in a war between humans and forest animal gods led by Princess Mononoke.

5. YOUR NAME (2016)

[IMDb rating 8.4/10]
Your Name is the highest-grossing anime movie of all time and a must-watch for all anime fans across the globe. Directed by Makoto Shinkai, Your Name took the world by storm. The story follows teenagers Mitsuha Miyamizu, who lives in the rural town of Itomori and Taki Tachibana, who lives in Tokyo as they inexplicably start swapping bodies. They start to share a great connection with each other until they suddenly stop swapping bodies and Taki learns of what actually happened to Mitsuha and the entire town of Itomori.

6. A SILENT VOICE (2016)

[IMDb rating 8.1/10]
Also known as The Shape of Voice, this is an incredibly heartwarming and emotional movie about disabilities and bullying. The film follows Shoya Ishida, who back in elementary school bullied the new transfer student Shoko Nishimiya because she was deaf. The tables soon turn on Shoya as he is the one who starts getting bullied by everyone else. Few years later, Shoya is an outcast suffering from social anxiety and unable to look at people’s faces when he decides to make amends with Shoko.

7. HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE (2004)

[IMDb rating 8.2/10]
Loosely based on the novel of the same name by author Diana Wynne Jones, the film tells us the tale of Sophie, a 18-year-old girl who gets cursed by a witch and is turned into an old woman. The only way she can break the curse is with the help of the wizard Howl and his companions aboard his walking castle. As they go on the mission to restore Sophie to her old self, Howl and Sophie start to fall in love with each other.

8. GHOST IN THE SHELL (1995)

[IMDb rating 8.0/10]
This is the movie that kicked off an iconic anime franchise which is loved by many across the globe. Set in the year 2029 in the fictional city of Niihama in Japan, the film follows cyborg Major Motoko Kusanagi of Public Security Section 9 as she pursues The Puppet Master who illegally hacks into the minds of cyborg-human hybrids. While on the mission, Major Kusanagi starts to question her own identity. Ghost in the Shell is one of the best and most loved sci-fi action anime movies of all time.

9. GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES (1988)

[IMDb rating 8.5/10]
One of the best and most tear-jerking anime movies ever made and, Grave of the Fireflies is set towards the end of World War II and tells us the emotional tale of 14-year-old Seita and 4-year-old Setsuko when American firebombing left them separated from their parents and practically orphaned. The siblings have to rely on each other when food gets scarce and life becomes a constant battle for survival.

10. SPIRITED AWAY (2001)

[IMDb rating 8.6/10]
Winning the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, this Hayao Miyazaki masterpiece will be on the top of every anime movie list. It was the highest-grossing anime movie till Your Name broke it’s record in 2016. Spirited Away follows 10-year-old Chihiro who along with her parents wanders into a seemingly abandoned carnival. When her parents get turned into pigs for eating there, Chihiro must work for the witch Yubaba who renames her Sen if she has any hope of turning her parents back to normal.