The Boy and the Heron
20232h 4mUA · CBFCPG-13 · MPAA
Directed by Hayao Miyazaki · Starring Soma Santoki & Masaki Suda
96%Rotten Tomatoes7.3IMDb91Metacritic
While the Second World War rages, the teenage Mahito, haunted by his mother's tragic death, is relocated from Tokyo to the serene rural home of his new stepmother Natsuko, a woman who bears a striking resemblance to the boy's mother. As he tries to adjust, this strange new world grows even stranger following the appearance of a persistent gray heron, who perplexes and bedevils Mahito, dubbing him the "long-awaited one."
AnimationFantasyDrama
— Critical consensus, summarised
Miyazaki's late-career return — critics widely embraced it as a dense, autobiographical fever dream. Won Best Animated Feature; the parakeet-king sequence and the seven-tower world-building are vintage Ghibli.
— available on
added 9 May 2026 · TMDB 508883 · suggested manually