The Boy

It reviews better than it plays — admired more than it is enjoyed.

• “While this dream-like warble of a swan song may be too pitchy and scattered to hit with the gale-force power that made “The Wind Rises” feel like such a definitive farewell, The Boy and the Heron finds Miyazaki so nakedly bidding adieu — to us, and to the crumbling kingdom of dreams and madness that he’ll soon leave behind — that it somehow resolves into an even more fitting goodbye, one graced with the divine awe and heart-stopping wistfulness of watching a true immortal make peace with their own death.”

  David Ehrlich, IndieWire · 100

• “The Boy and the Heron is Miyazaki’s strong-willed encouragement for us to persevere. If this is, in fact, a swan song, then it’s a ravishing one because no one has the ability to distill elemental truths into vividly rendered moving paintings like Miyazaki.”

  Carlos Aguilar, The Playlist · 100

• “The Boy and the Heron is irresistible in its dream logic, straddling the adorable (white blob creatures called Warawara that inflate like balloons) and the dark (parakeet soldiers that are on the search for fresh meat). But what makes it most compelling are the ways in which the real and the magical are equal presences.”

  Alison Willmore, New York Magazine (Vulture) · 100

• “This may be Miyazaki's most expansive and magisterial film. If it is not the most instantly stunning, that might be because he takes the time to deliver worlds within worlds, layers under layers, to create an overwhelming experience by the end.”

  Caryn James, BBC · 100

• “No one needed further proof that he’s a master. This meditation on grief and growing up does solidify the position, however, that Miyazaki remains the greatest living animator today, period.”

  David Fear, Rolling Stone · 100