I watched the most regarded works of each studio as a teenager, and thought they were "fine." I regretted that I was a little too old when I first saw them. It's only now watching them with fresh eyes as a parent nearly two decades later have I realized that I had it all wrong: I was too young to truly understand or appreciate them.
Unfortunately, that re-evaluation applies wholly to Ghibli, but only for Pixar's Golden Age. The worst Ghibli films still feel like an artist following their muse. The worst Pixar films barely feel like films at all; they're craven products. There's only one reason to make a sequel to Finding Nemo that also revolves around a character finding another character, and it's the same reason sequels to I Know What You Did Last Summer need to involve knowledge of summer misdeeds. When a studio's decisions about what stories they tell have more to do with branding and title contingency, what hope is there?
Bill VanZandt - 3 months ago
My DVD library and my heart say Pixar. Ghibli has some real gems (even if Grave of the Fireflies might be a one-timer for me) but give me Toy Story, Ratatouille, WALL-E, Up, Coco, Inside Out, Monsters Inc... I could go on. And nobody's talked about the brilliant short films! Maybe I can trade Lightyear and Cars 2/3 and keep Totoro though? Pretty please...
Daniel - 3 months ago
Wait . . . I voted for Ghibli, but I didn't realize we were talking incinerator here. Much like the climax of Toy Story 3, I'm going to have to change my mind at the last second and switch my vote from Ghibli to Pixar. Ghibli has probably been more consistent, especially over the last few years where Pixar has been releasing some pretty mediocre movies. But Pixar movies were literally made for me. I'm gen z. My first movie I saw in the theater as A Bugs Life and we had those early Pixar movies on constant replay. When a Pixar movie hit the theater my family was sure to see it. Not that we didn't also enjoy Ghibli, Castle in the Sky is one of my earliest movie memories as well, Pixar is just a little closer to the heart for me though.
Matt Mulder - 3 months ago
Pixar may more consistently punch me in the gut and they may have given us one of the best superhero movies in all cinema, but I remember so much more viscerally my first time watching Kiki's Delivery Service and Spirited Away as a kid and being absolutely blown away.
I think I am more excited to introduce my 11 month old son to the work of Studio Ghibli than I am to introduce him to Pixar (not that I'm not excited to show him Toy Story, etc, but I'm more enthusiastic about showing him Totoro)
My earliest movie memories are of watching My Neighbor Totoro at my grandmother's house. She picked it up, basically by accident, at a garage sale because she "thought it looked cute." The music! The soot spirits! The dream where they pull the seeds out of the ground! Pure imagination fuel. And vegetables have never looked so delicious as when that old neighbor woman plunges them into the cool creek on Mei and Satsuki's land. And that's just one of Ghibli's masterpieces!
On behalf of all of her grandkids who grew up loving Studio Ghibli, I'm proud to cast my vote on the side of Nana and Totoro.
Joseph - 3 months ago
Ponyo ponyo little fishy in the sea
Laura Riordan - 3 months ago
Coughing baby versus hydrogen bomb
Greg - 3 months ago
This isn't even difficult for me. It's Ghibli. I'm not going to minimize Pixar's contributions to animation, or to cinema in general, as there are several Pixar films I love. But I would throw their entire oeuvre into the incinerator just to save Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.
Josh Newby - 3 months ago
Holy cow, guys! This is impossible. I want to say Pixar has higher highs and lower lows, but I'm not sure Ghibli really has any lows. That said, Pixar is certainly a better entryway to more emotionally mature content for kids, whereas many Ghibli films (Ponyo and Totoro excepted) really only hit when you're an adult. Using the incinerator rule, my inner child would never forgive me for giving up Toy Story, Monsters Inc, Ratatouille, Wall-E, Up, Finding Nemo, Inside Out, etc. That 15-year run really was legendary and changed animation in much the same way the 70s changed Hollywood.
You asked a complicated question. Here comes a complicated answer.
Pixar's Golden Age was a remarkable run of all-ages storytelling with groundbreaking animation. Those films are to cinema what books like Charlotte's Web and The Secret of NIMH and The Phantom Tollbooth are to children's literature — works that reward the parents reading to their children as much as they reward the children themselves.
Having said that, Pixar films came to seem somewhat formulaic and predictable to me fairly quickly; I was always bracing for what would become a frenzied, action-hysterical finale, probably involving a crazed pursuit. Don't get me wrong—I love them. Almost all of them have moved to tears even as I stand apart from myself, shaking my head, and saying, "I can't believe they did this to me again. I can't believe how masterfully they calibrate those gut punches."
Miyazaki, however, isn't even playing the same sport. Miyazaki is in Tolkien territory, world-building such rich mythologies that I believe all kinds of other stories are unfolding just offscreen, while showing remarkable restraint so that the stories *and* their finales emerge from characters and environments, and less from an obvious drive to provoke emotional responses and stir things into a frantic finale. Pixar movies are illustrated children's stories I pick up and read for the joy of them. Ghibli's films are worlds I enter and find treasure in even if I'm only contemplating landscapes, or pondering isolated moments of closely observed human behavior. (Has any animator ever understood and represented the essence of children at play better than Miyazaki following Satsuki and Mei in My Neighbor Totoro?)
Miyzaki has a clear disinterest in making sequels, and thus avoids the diminishing returns we've sometimes seen in Pixar's work (Toy Story films excepted!) This underlines the difference between the two studios' commercial sensibilities.
I encourage everyone to read the essay "Towards a True Children's Cinema: on My Neighbor Totoro," by Lauren Wilford, published at Bright Wall Dark Room and then (because it is so great) re-published in a booklet that comes with the 30th anniversary Disney blu-ray edition. Wilford writes more insightfully than anyone else I've read about what makes Miyazaki's storytelling for children so distinctive.
I go to Finding Nemo, Toy Story 2, WALL-E, Ratatouille, Inside Out, and Coco to see the peaks of a kind of entertainment that Walt Disney all but invented. If I had kids, we'd revisit these all the time and I wouldn't have any regrets. However, I would prioritize the Ghibli films to see those children cultivate a desire for a more substantially *literary* form of artmaking. And while I'm all about WALL-E's cultural and environmental concerns, I find them much more effectively and meaningfully explored in work like Nausicaa, Princess Mononoke, and Ponyo. Watching The Boy and the Heron, I found myself wondering how many master artists have made such extravagantly personal late-career epics, films that find them pondering their legacy with some skepticism and humility rather than insisting on their own importance.
Anyway, this question clearly opens up a deep reservoir of ideas in me. Perhaps that's why the first draft of the chapter on My Neighbor Totoro that you'll find in my upcoming moviegoer's memoir ran over 10,000 words, and in the final edit is still around 8,000. There's just so much to celebrate in that film alone. Almost any of Ghibli's films, and all of those by Miyazaki himself, are gifts that keep on giving, inviting us into new questions, mysteries, and revelations every single time.
And I'm so grateful to the geniuses at Pixar who appreciated Studio Ghibli enough to invest in bringing that work to big screens in America. My life is so much richer for the work of both great studios.
Matt Rombach - 3 months ago
I can’t take Totoro away from my niece. Simple as that. Okay, I love Totoro too.
Anthony Miglieri - 3 months ago
If RATATOUILLE goes in the incinerator, so too does my soul.
Alex Garcia ( from Madrid, Spain) - 3 months ago
Tough question, cause I feel a happy nostalgia with many Pixar films. They are and will always be associated on my mind to memories of me and my kids watching them in theaters in the early 00´s. I was a real fan of Pixar movies at that time and saw all of them (that did not happen with the Ghibli films ,except Spirited Away) . However , after hearing many of your episodes and as one of my sons is an enthusiast of the Japanese culture , I´ve recently watched on my own most of the Ghibli films and shared with him my feelings . Most of the Ghibli movies I found to be outstanding, profound and exciting at the same time . So for the voting I´ve had to change perspective, forget how much I liked Pixar, and look not for the great films of both studios but for those that I did not like of feel anything . And Pixar is the loser for me , especially in the last 10 years!! . Too many sequels in my opinion ( except Toy Story 2 and 3 , the rest were just to make money imo ) and some uninteresting titles . I cannot find any Ghibli movie that I really dislike, and that says a lot about their care for keeping a consistent good quality in their movies. So finally Ghibli gets my vote .
Nick Potter - 3 months ago
Both studios have undeniable masterpieces amongst their ranks but I've decided to take the Filmspotting Incinerator approach to this poll. Yes, of course I love Princess Mononoke and find myself often thinking back to The Wind Rises, but a world without Coco is a world I refuse to take part in, let alone The Incredibles, Toy Story, or Wall-E. Pixar gets my vote and I'll cry into a Totoro shaped popcorn bowl.
Mark Friedman - 3 months ago
A testament to the passionate subjectivity of our individual connections with art and entertainment -- my slap-on-forehead response to this poll is PIXAR, NO CONTEST. Now I read these comments of my Filmspotting Family siblings and find the exact opposite sentiment in favor of Ghibli.
I'm too old for any of these films to have nostalgic resonance with my childhood. I can only judge that more than a handful of Pixar films are undeniable works of entertainment/story/craft genius -- but I just can't muster the same enthusiasm for any of Ghibli films. (Perhaps a main difference is having seen all the great Pixar films in theater vs. Ghibli on a home screen.)
Amber Noel - 3 months ago
Studio Ghibli for the emotional maturity win.
Ron - 3 months ago
This wasn't a contest for me. Having discovered Studio Ghibli and then being able to watch the films with my kids won me over, easily. I like Pixar, but there's no Pixar film that my kids loved as much as My Neighbor Totoro.
This isn't really a contest. Studio Ghibli in a landslide.
Pixar has made some great films, but is mostly the model of corporate efficiency and story branding that has become the template for modern Hollywood (the MCU could not have existed if they didn't copy Pixar's creative approach and leadership structure).
Studio Ghibli has made some of the greatest films ever made. It is the epitome of what happens when a studio is artist-driven, and interested in the integrity of the work above all else.
(And to people saying that the studio is only Miyazaki: Miyazaki is arguably the greatest living filmmaker, so that should be more than enough. As well, you clearly haven't spent enough time with Only Yesterday, Grave of the Fireflies, and Whisper of the Heart, which are all tremendously moving films.)
Jeff - 3 months ago
Studio Ghibli but I doubt they'll keep their title. Studio Ghibli IS Hayao Miyazaki. Except for Grave of the Fireflies, it doesn't have any films I'd call a masterpiece that don't have his involvement. Pixar can be hit or miss but they have a framework in place to continue to be relevant.
Andy Bukaty (Byoo-kay’-tee) from Kansas City - 3 months ago
Pixar has had an amazing 30-year run. But when they started, Lasseter instructed the creators to emulate Studio Ghibli. It’s difficult not to go with the model in such instances. But Pixar has given Ghibli more of a run for their money than anyone could have rightly anticipated. Sounds like we need an Animation March Madness to rightfully settle this! Not just to determine a champion (because I suspect I know who would win, and it’s not an American film), but to see who’s better represented in the Sweet 16, Elite Eight, etc. There could be some amazing and heart-wrenching match-ups (plus some bonus Linklater, Burton, and Wes Anderson!). Who wouldn’t enjoy that?
Steve - 3 months ago
Pixar perfected story but Ghibli has amazing mood so I will go with Ghibli.
Ben - 3 months ago
It’s too bad Laika doesn’t have enough output to merit consideration.
Maria (from Kent) - 3 months ago
There is no denying that Pixar has made some amazing features like Wall-e, Ratatouille, Inside out, Toy Story etc etc...But Studio Ghibli makes masterpieces! It is not only the breathtaking animation that has been incredible from the 70s, but all the stories are magical and emotional and educational. They are a journey that takes you through a whole host of feelings. They stay with you, they grow with you and give you hope and joy and sometimes vast sadness.
I grew up in Italy and we got all the Japanese animated series Two of the first cartoons I saw when I was 4 or 5 were Future Boy Conan and Lupin (which was probably a little inappropriate!) by Miyazaki.
So Ghibli for me!
Tucker - 3 months ago
I grew up with Pixar; I was obsessed with Toy Story as a kid, and The Incredibles, and Wall-E, and so many others. That said, as I’ve gotten older and discovered Studio Ghibli, I’ve found myself appreciating and revisiting the Ghibli films more often than the Pixar ones. Hayao Miyazaki’s films, in particular, have resonated with me more and more in recent years. For those reasons, I have to go with Studio Ghibli.
Cody - 3 months ago
As much as I appreciate Studio Ghibli, I didn't find them until much later in life. I have to vote with my heart, and the nostalgia says Pixar.
I watched the most regarded works of each studio as a teenager, and thought they were "fine." I regretted that I was a little too old when I first saw them. It's only now watching them with fresh eyes as a parent nearly two decades later have I realized that I had it all wrong: I was too young to truly understand or appreciate them.
Unfortunately, that re-evaluation applies wholly to Ghibli, but only for Pixar's Golden Age. The worst Ghibli films still feel like an artist following their muse. The worst Pixar films barely feel like films at all; they're craven products. There's only one reason to make a sequel to Finding Nemo that also revolves around a character finding another character, and it's the same reason sequels to I Know What You Did Last Summer need to involve knowledge of summer misdeeds. When a studio's decisions about what stories they tell have more to do with branding and title contingency, what hope is there?
My DVD library and my heart say Pixar. Ghibli has some real gems (even if Grave of the Fireflies might be a one-timer for me) but give me Toy Story, Ratatouille, WALL-E, Up, Coco, Inside Out, Monsters Inc... I could go on. And nobody's talked about the brilliant short films! Maybe I can trade Lightyear and Cars 2/3 and keep Totoro though? Pretty please...
Wait . . . I voted for Ghibli, but I didn't realize we were talking incinerator here. Much like the climax of Toy Story 3, I'm going to have to change my mind at the last second and switch my vote from Ghibli to Pixar. Ghibli has probably been more consistent, especially over the last few years where Pixar has been releasing some pretty mediocre movies. But Pixar movies were literally made for me. I'm gen z. My first movie I saw in the theater as A Bugs Life and we had those early Pixar movies on constant replay. When a Pixar movie hit the theater my family was sure to see it. Not that we didn't also enjoy Ghibli, Castle in the Sky is one of my earliest movie memories as well, Pixar is just a little closer to the heart for me though.
Pixar may more consistently punch me in the gut and they may have given us one of the best superhero movies in all cinema, but I remember so much more viscerally my first time watching Kiki's Delivery Service and Spirited Away as a kid and being absolutely blown away.
I think I am more excited to introduce my 11 month old son to the work of Studio Ghibli than I am to introduce him to Pixar (not that I'm not excited to show him Toy Story, etc, but I'm more enthusiastic about showing him Totoro)
My earliest movie memories are of watching My Neighbor Totoro at my grandmother's house. She picked it up, basically by accident, at a garage sale because she "thought it looked cute." The music! The soot spirits! The dream where they pull the seeds out of the ground! Pure imagination fuel. And vegetables have never looked so delicious as when that old neighbor woman plunges them into the cool creek on Mei and Satsuki's land. And that's just one of Ghibli's masterpieces!
On behalf of all of her grandkids who grew up loving Studio Ghibli, I'm proud to cast my vote on the side of Nana and Totoro.
Ponyo ponyo little fishy in the sea
Coughing baby versus hydrogen bomb
This isn't even difficult for me. It's Ghibli. I'm not going to minimize Pixar's contributions to animation, or to cinema in general, as there are several Pixar films I love. But I would throw their entire oeuvre into the incinerator just to save Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.
Holy cow, guys! This is impossible. I want to say Pixar has higher highs and lower lows, but I'm not sure Ghibli really has any lows. That said, Pixar is certainly a better entryway to more emotionally mature content for kids, whereas many Ghibli films (Ponyo and Totoro excepted) really only hit when you're an adult. Using the incinerator rule, my inner child would never forgive me for giving up Toy Story, Monsters Inc, Ratatouille, Wall-E, Up, Finding Nemo, Inside Out, etc. That 15-year run really was legendary and changed animation in much the same way the 70s changed Hollywood.
You asked a complicated question. Here comes a complicated answer.
Pixar's Golden Age was a remarkable run of all-ages storytelling with groundbreaking animation. Those films are to cinema what books like Charlotte's Web and The Secret of NIMH and The Phantom Tollbooth are to children's literature — works that reward the parents reading to their children as much as they reward the children themselves.
Having said that, Pixar films came to seem somewhat formulaic and predictable to me fairly quickly; I was always bracing for what would become a frenzied, action-hysterical finale, probably involving a crazed pursuit. Don't get me wrong—I love them. Almost all of them have moved to tears even as I stand apart from myself, shaking my head, and saying, "I can't believe they did this to me again. I can't believe how masterfully they calibrate those gut punches."
Miyazaki, however, isn't even playing the same sport. Miyazaki is in Tolkien territory, world-building such rich mythologies that I believe all kinds of other stories are unfolding just offscreen, while showing remarkable restraint so that the stories *and* their finales emerge from characters and environments, and less from an obvious drive to provoke emotional responses and stir things into a frantic finale. Pixar movies are illustrated children's stories I pick up and read for the joy of them. Ghibli's films are worlds I enter and find treasure in even if I'm only contemplating landscapes, or pondering isolated moments of closely observed human behavior. (Has any animator ever understood and represented the essence of children at play better than Miyazaki following Satsuki and Mei in My Neighbor Totoro?)
Miyzaki has a clear disinterest in making sequels, and thus avoids the diminishing returns we've sometimes seen in Pixar's work (Toy Story films excepted!) This underlines the difference between the two studios' commercial sensibilities.
I encourage everyone to read the essay "Towards a True Children's Cinema: on My Neighbor Totoro," by Lauren Wilford, published at Bright Wall Dark Room and then (because it is so great) re-published in a booklet that comes with the 30th anniversary Disney blu-ray edition. Wilford writes more insightfully than anyone else I've read about what makes Miyazaki's storytelling for children so distinctive.
I go to Finding Nemo, Toy Story 2, WALL-E, Ratatouille, Inside Out, and Coco to see the peaks of a kind of entertainment that Walt Disney all but invented. If I had kids, we'd revisit these all the time and I wouldn't have any regrets. However, I would prioritize the Ghibli films to see those children cultivate a desire for a more substantially *literary* form of artmaking. And while I'm all about WALL-E's cultural and environmental concerns, I find them much more effectively and meaningfully explored in work like Nausicaa, Princess Mononoke, and Ponyo. Watching The Boy and the Heron, I found myself wondering how many master artists have made such extravagantly personal late-career epics, films that find them pondering their legacy with some skepticism and humility rather than insisting on their own importance.
Anyway, this question clearly opens up a deep reservoir of ideas in me. Perhaps that's why the first draft of the chapter on My Neighbor Totoro that you'll find in my upcoming moviegoer's memoir ran over 10,000 words, and in the final edit is still around 8,000. There's just so much to celebrate in that film alone. Almost any of Ghibli's films, and all of those by Miyazaki himself, are gifts that keep on giving, inviting us into new questions, mysteries, and revelations every single time.
And I'm so grateful to the geniuses at Pixar who appreciated Studio Ghibli enough to invest in bringing that work to big screens in America. My life is so much richer for the work of both great studios.
I can’t take Totoro away from my niece. Simple as that. Okay, I love Totoro too.
If RATATOUILLE goes in the incinerator, so too does my soul.
Tough question, cause I feel a happy nostalgia with many Pixar films. They are and will always be associated on my mind to memories of me and my kids watching them in theaters in the early 00´s. I was a real fan of Pixar movies at that time and saw all of them (that did not happen with the Ghibli films ,except Spirited Away) . However , after hearing many of your episodes and as one of my sons is an enthusiast of the Japanese culture , I´ve recently watched on my own most of the Ghibli films and shared with him my feelings . Most of the Ghibli movies I found to be outstanding, profound and exciting at the same time . So for the voting I´ve had to change perspective, forget how much I liked Pixar, and look not for the great films of both studios but for those that I did not like of feel anything . And Pixar is the loser for me , especially in the last 10 years!! . Too many sequels in my opinion ( except Toy Story 2 and 3 , the rest were just to make money imo ) and some uninteresting titles . I cannot find any Ghibli movie that I really dislike, and that says a lot about their care for keeping a consistent good quality in their movies. So finally Ghibli gets my vote .
Both studios have undeniable masterpieces amongst their ranks but I've decided to take the Filmspotting Incinerator approach to this poll. Yes, of course I love Princess Mononoke and find myself often thinking back to The Wind Rises, but a world without Coco is a world I refuse to take part in, let alone The Incredibles, Toy Story, or Wall-E. Pixar gets my vote and I'll cry into a Totoro shaped popcorn bowl.
A testament to the passionate subjectivity of our individual connections with art and entertainment -- my slap-on-forehead response to this poll is PIXAR, NO CONTEST. Now I read these comments of my Filmspotting Family siblings and find the exact opposite sentiment in favor of Ghibli.
I'm too old for any of these films to have nostalgic resonance with my childhood. I can only judge that more than a handful of Pixar films are undeniable works of entertainment/story/craft genius -- but I just can't muster the same enthusiasm for any of Ghibli films. (Perhaps a main difference is having seen all the great Pixar films in theater vs. Ghibli on a home screen.)
Studio Ghibli for the emotional maturity win.
This wasn't a contest for me. Having discovered Studio Ghibli and then being able to watch the films with my kids won me over, easily. I like Pixar, but there's no Pixar film that my kids loved as much as My Neighbor Totoro.
This isn't really a contest. Studio Ghibli in a landslide.
Pixar has made some great films, but is mostly the model of corporate efficiency and story branding that has become the template for modern Hollywood (the MCU could not have existed if they didn't copy Pixar's creative approach and leadership structure).
Studio Ghibli has made some of the greatest films ever made. It is the epitome of what happens when a studio is artist-driven, and interested in the integrity of the work above all else.
(And to people saying that the studio is only Miyazaki: Miyazaki is arguably the greatest living filmmaker, so that should be more than enough. As well, you clearly haven't spent enough time with Only Yesterday, Grave of the Fireflies, and Whisper of the Heart, which are all tremendously moving films.)
Studio Ghibli but I doubt they'll keep their title. Studio Ghibli IS Hayao Miyazaki. Except for Grave of the Fireflies, it doesn't have any films I'd call a masterpiece that don't have his involvement. Pixar can be hit or miss but they have a framework in place to continue to be relevant.
Pixar has had an amazing 30-year run. But when they started, Lasseter instructed the creators to emulate Studio Ghibli. It’s difficult not to go with the model in such instances. But Pixar has given Ghibli more of a run for their money than anyone could have rightly anticipated. Sounds like we need an Animation March Madness to rightfully settle this! Not just to determine a champion (because I suspect I know who would win, and it’s not an American film), but to see who’s better represented in the Sweet 16, Elite Eight, etc. There could be some amazing and heart-wrenching match-ups (plus some bonus Linklater, Burton, and Wes Anderson!). Who wouldn’t enjoy that?
Pixar perfected story but Ghibli has amazing mood so I will go with Ghibli.
It’s too bad Laika doesn’t have enough output to merit consideration.
There is no denying that Pixar has made some amazing features like Wall-e, Ratatouille, Inside out, Toy Story etc etc...But Studio Ghibli makes masterpieces! It is not only the breathtaking animation that has been incredible from the 70s, but all the stories are magical and emotional and educational. They are a journey that takes you through a whole host of feelings. They stay with you, they grow with you and give you hope and joy and sometimes vast sadness.
I grew up in Italy and we got all the Japanese animated series Two of the first cartoons I saw when I was 4 or 5 were Future Boy Conan and Lupin (which was probably a little inappropriate!) by Miyazaki.
So Ghibli for me!
I grew up with Pixar; I was obsessed with Toy Story as a kid, and The Incredibles, and Wall-E, and so many others. That said, as I’ve gotten older and discovered Studio Ghibli, I’ve found myself appreciating and revisiting the Ghibli films more often than the Pixar ones. Hayao Miyazaki’s films, in particular, have resonated with me more and more in recent years. For those reasons, I have to go with Studio Ghibli.
As much as I appreciate Studio Ghibli, I didn't find them until much later in life. I have to vote with my heart, and the nostalgia says Pixar.