Studio Ghibli, Inc. is a Japanese animation studio based in Koganei, Tokyo. It has a strong presence in the animation industry and has expanded its portfolio to include various media formats, such as short subjects, television commercials, and two television films. Their work has been well received by audiences and recognized with numerous awards. Their mascot and most recognizable symbol, the character Totoro from the 1988 film My Neighbor Totoro, is a giant spirit inspired by raccoon dogs (tanuki) and cats (neko). Among the studio's highest-grossing films are Princess Mononoke (1997), Spirited Away (2001), Howl's Moving Castle (2004), Ponyo (2008), and The Boy and the Heron (2023). Studio Ghibli was founded on June 15, 1985, by the directors Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata and producer Toshio Suzuki, after acquiring Topcraft's assets.
Christopher Joseph Columbus is an American filmmaker. Born in Spangler, Pennsylvania, Columbus studied film at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts where he developed an interest in filmmaking. After writing screenplays for several teen comedies in the mid-1980s, including Gremlins, The Goonies, and Young Sherlock Holmes, he made his directorial debut with a teen adventure, Adventures in Babysitting (1987). Columbus gained recognition soon after with the highly successful Christmas comedy Home Alone (1990) and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992).
Richard Stuart Linklater is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is known for making films that deal thematically with suburban culture and the effects of the passage of time. His films include the comedies Slacker (1990) and Dazed and Confused (1993); the Before trilogy of romance films: Before Sunrise (1995), Before Sunset (2004), and Before Midnight (2013); the music-themed comedy School of Rock (2003); the adult animated films Waking Life (2001), A Scanner Darkly (2006), and Apollo 10 1⁄2: A Space Age Childhood (2022); the coming-of-age drama Boyhood (2014); the comedy film Everybody Wants Some!! (2016); and the romantic comedy Hit Man (2023).
Robots is a 2005 American animated science fiction adventure comedy film produced by 20th Century Fox Animation and Blue Sky Studios, and distributed by 20th Century Fox. The film was directed by Chris Wedge and co-directed by Carlos Saldanha from a screenplay by David Lindsay-Abaire and the writing team of Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, based on a story conceived by Lindsay-Abaire, Ron Mita and Jim McClain. It stars the voices of Ewan McGregor, Halle Berry, Greg Kinnear, Mel Brooks, Amanda Bynes, Drew Carey and Robin Williams. The story follows an ambitious inventor robot named Rodney Copperbottom, who seeks his idol Bigweld to work for his company in Robot City, but discovers a plot by its new leader Ratchet and his mother to forcibly upgrade its populace and eradicate struggling robots, known as "outmodes".
Michael Haneke is an Austrian film director and screenwriter. His work often examines social issues and depicts the feelings of estrangement experienced by individuals in modern society. Haneke has made films in French, German, and English and has worked in television and theatre. He also teaches film direction at the Film Academy Vienna.
John Christian Wedge is an American filmmaker, animator, voice actor, film director and a co-founder of defunct computer animation studio Blue Sky Studios, which was active from 1987 to 2021, and whose mascot, Scrat, a fictional rodent character in the Ice Age franchise, he has voiced since its debut in 2002..
Carlos Saldanha is a Brazilian animator, director, producer, and voice actor of animated films who worked with Blue Sky Studios until its closure in 2021. He was the director of Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006), Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009), Rio (2011), Rio 2 (2014), Ferdinand (2017), and Harold and the Purple Crayon (2024), and the co-director of Ice Age (2002) and Robots (2005). Saldanha was nominated in 2003 for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for Gone Nutty and in 2018 for Best Animated Feature for Ferdinand.
Chicago 10: Speak Your Peace is a 2007 American animated documentary written and directed by Brett Morgen that tells the story of the Chicago Eight. The Chicago Eight were charged by the United States federal government with conspiracy, crossing state lines with intent to incite a riot, and other charges related to anti-Vietnam War and countercultural protests in Chicago, Illinois during the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
Three Colours: Red is a 1994 drama film co-written, produced and directed by Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieślowski. It is the final installment of the Three Colours trilogy, which examines the French Revolutionary ideals; it is preceded by Blue and then by White. Kieślowski had announced that this would be his final film, planning to retire claiming to be through with filmmaking; he would die suddenly less than two years later. Red is about fraternity, which it examines by showing characters whose lives gradually become closely interconnected, with bonds forming between two characters who appear to have little in common.
A Cat in Paris is a 2010 animated adventure crime comedy film by the French 2D animation studio Folimage, directed by Jean-Loup Felicioli and Alain Gagnol. An international co-production of France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland, the film follows a young Parisian girl whose cat leads her to unravel a thrilling mystery over the course of a single evening.
Epic is a 2013 American animated fantasy action-adventure film loosely based on William Joyce's 1996 children's book The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs. Produced by Blue Sky Studios in association with 20th Century Fox Animation, it was directed by Chris Wedge from a screenplay written by Joyce, James V. Hart, Daniel Shere, and the writing team of Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember, based on a story conceived by Joyce, Hart, and Wedge. It stars the voices of Colin Farrell, Josh Hutcherson, Amanda Seyfried, Christoph Waltz, Aziz Ansari, Chris O'Dowd, Pitbull, Jason Sudeikis, Steven Tyler, and Beyoncé Knowles. In the film, after teenager Mary Katherine gets shrunk and teleported to a tiny woodland kingdom inhabited by talking slugs, flower people and tiny soldiers called Leafmen, she is swept up in a wild adventure between good and evil and, alongside her new friends, must fight to protect the world she never knew existed.
Before Midnight is a 2013 American romantic drama film directed by Richard Linklater, who co-wrote the screenplay with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. The sequel to Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset (2004), it is the third installment in the Before trilogy. The film follows Jesse (Hawke) and Céline (Delpy), now a couple, as they spend a summer vacation in Greece with their children.
Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God is a 2012 documentary film directed by Alex Gibney. The film details the first known protest against clerical sex abuse in the United States by four deaf men. It features the voices of actors Jamey Sheridan, Chris Cooper, Ethan Hawke and John Slattery, who provide the voices of the deaf interviewees.
The Smurfs have appeared in five feature-length films and two short films loosely based on The Smurfs comic book series created by the Belgian comics artist Peyo and the 1980s animated TV series it spawned. They theatrically debuted in a 1965 animated feature film that was followed by a 1976 animated film titled The Smurfs and the Magic Flute. Twenty-eight to thirty years after The Magic Flute was released in the United States, a 2011 feature film and a 2013 sequel were produced by Sony Pictures Animation and released by Columbia Pictures. Live-action roles include Hank Azaria, Neil Patrick Harris, and Jayma Mays, while the voice-over roles include Anton Yelchin, Jonathan Winters, Katy Perry, and George Lopez. A fully animated reboot titled Smurfs: The Lost Village was released through Sony in April 2017. An animated musical film titled The Smurfs Movie produced by Paramount Animation and Nickelodeon Movies will release in July 2025.
28 Hotel Rooms is a 2012 American drama film written and directed by Matt Ross and starring Chris Messina and Marin Ireland. It is Ross' first feature film. The film centers on the affair conducted between a novelist and a corporate accountant over a period of several years. The story takes a minimalist approach, consisting only of scenes between the couple in hotel rooms.
20 Feet from Stardom is a 2013 American documentary film directed by Morgan Neville and produced by Gil Friesen, a music industry executive whose curiosity to know more about the lives of background singers inspired the making of the film. Using archival footage and new interviews, it details the behind-the-scenes experiences of such backup singers as Darlene Love, Merry Clayton, Lisa Fischer, Judith Hill, Jo Lawry, Claudia Lennear, and Tata Vega. The film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 86th Academy Awards, 23 years after In the Shadow of the Stars (1991), a similar documentary that focused on the members of an opera chorus, won the same award.
Stephen Michael Martino is an American designer and film director. He is best known for directing the Blue Sky Studios films Horton Hears a Who! (2008), Ice Age: Continental Drift (2012), and The Peanuts Movie (2015).
The Motel Life is a 2012 American drama film starring Emile Hirsch, Stephen Dorff, Dakota Fanning, and Kris Kristofferson. Directed and produced by brothers Alan and Gabriel Polsky, the screenplay was adapted by Noah Harpster and Micah Fitzerman-Blue from Willy Vlautin's novel of the same name. The film was shot in Gardnerville, Minden, Reno, and Virginia City, Nevada, and also features animated sequences drawn by Mike Smith.
