# The 18 Greatest Anime Films of All Time

> Feature-length anime covers a lot of ground: bathhouse spirits, wartime siblings, biker gangs, a pop idol coming apart. Pick the one that holds up best.

*By YPB Team · Published September 13, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/the-18-greatest-anime-films-of-all-time*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Spirited Away** — score 1000/1000
   Hayao Miyazaki's 2001 film about a girl working in a bathhouse for spirits to free her parents.
2. **Akira** — score 562/1000
   Katsuhiro Otomo's 1988 cyberpunk landmark about biker gangs and a psychic weapon in Neo-Tokyo.
3. **Perfect Blue** — score 507/1000
   Satoshi Kon's 1997 thriller about a pop idol whose reality comes apart on a film set.
4. **A Silent Voice** — score 507/1000
   Naoko Yamada's 2016 film about a boy trying to make amends with the deaf classmate he bullied.
5. **Your Name.** — score 464/1000
   Makoto Shinkai's 2016 body-swap romance that became one of the highest-grossing anime films ever.
6. **The Tale of the Princess Kaguya** — score 415/1000
   Takahata's 2013 film drawn in charcoal and watercolour from a tenth-century folk tale.
7. **Demon Slayer: Mugen Train** — score 360/1000
   The 2020 film that became the highest-grossing release in Japanese box-office history.
8. **Princess Mononoke** — score 360/1000
   Miyazaki's 1997 epic pitting forest gods against an iron town, with no villain on either side.
9. **Ghost in the Shell** — score 360/1000
   Mamoru Oshii's 1995 cyberpunk thriller about identity inside a networked body.
10. **Howl's Moving Castle** — score 360/1000
   Miyazaki's 2004 adaptation of Diana Wynne Jones, about a cursed hatter and a walking house.
11. **Ninja Scroll** — score 297/1000
   Yoshiaki Kawajiri's 1993 action film that sold a generation of Western viewers on adult anime.
12. **The End of Evangelion** — score 297/1000
   Hideaki Anno's 1997 film that replayed the series finale as an apocalypse instead of an inner monologue.
13. **Grave of the Fireflies** — score 296/1000
   Isao Takahata's 1988 story of two siblings surviving the last months of the war.
14. **Millennium Actress** — score 223/1000
   Satoshi Kon's 2001 film that walks a retired star back through her own films and century.
15. **Paprika** — score 223/1000
   Satoshi Kon's 2006 film about a device that lets therapists walk into their patients' dreams.
16. **My Neighbor Totoro** — score 223/1000
   Miyazaki's 1988 film about two sisters, a country house and a forest spirit.
17. **Wolf Children** — score 138/1000
   Mamoru Hosoda's 2012 film about a mother raising two children who are half wolf.
18. **Redline** — score 138/1000
   A 2009 racing film drawn frame by frame over seven years.

Tags: movies, animation, japan