Spirited Away is a 2001 Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. Spirited Away tells the story of Chihiro "Sen" Ogino, a ten-year-old girl who, while moving to a new neighborhood, inadvertently enters the world of kami. After her parents are turned into pigs by the witch Yubaba, Chihiro takes a job working in Yubaba's bathhouse to find a way to free herself and her parents and return to the human world. The film was animated by Studio Ghibli for Tokuma Shoten, Nippon Television Network, Dentsu, Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Tohokushinsha Film, and Mitsubishi and distributed by Toho.
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is a 1984 Japanese animated post-apocalyptic fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, based on his 1982–94 manga series of the same name. It was produced by Topcraft and distributed by Toei Company. Joe Hisaishi, in his first collaboration with Miyazaki, composed the score. The film stars the voices of Sumi Shimamoto, Gorō Naya, Yōji Matsuda, Yoshiko Sakakibara and Iemasa Kayumi. Set in a post-nuclear futuristic world, it tells the story of Nausicaä (Shimamoto), the pacifist teenage princess of the Valley of the Wind who becomes embroiled in a struggle with Tolmekia, an empire that attempts to use an ancient weapon to eradicate a jungle populated by oversized, mutant insects.
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.
StudioCanal S.A.S., from 2001 until 2011 known as STUDIOCANAL, today from 2011 to present stylized as STUDIOCANAL and also known as StudioCanal International, is a French audiovisual international film & television production and distribution company. The company is a subsidiary of the Canal+. StudioCanal actives for the three main European countries like French, the United Kingdom and Germany as well as their Australian countries Australia and New Zealand. They distributed around fifty films each year in Europe and Oceania as well as they own. As of May 2024, the company has 14 production companies in Europe and the US, and holds around 9,000 titles in its extensive film library which they ensures the preservation and restoration for home video releases and airing them on channels worldwide.
The Criterion Collection, Inc. is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films". A de facto subsidiary of arthouse film distributor Janus Films, Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinephiles and public and academic libraries. Criterion has helped to standardize certain aspects of home-video releases such as film restoration, the letterboxing format for widescreen films and the inclusion of bonus features such as scholarly essays and documentary content about the films and filmmakers. Criterion most notably pioneered the use of commentary tracks. Criterion has produced and distributed more than one thousand special editions of its films in VHS, Betamax, LaserDisc, DVD, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray formats and box sets. These films and their special features are also available via The Criterion Channel, an online streaming service that the company operates.
Ocean Waves, known in Japan as I Can Hear the Sea, is a 1993 Japanese anime coming-of-age romantic drama television film directed by Tomomi Mochizuki and written by Keiko Niwa based on the 1990–1992 novel of the same name by Saeko Himuro. Animated by Studio Ghibli for Tokuma Shoten and the Nippon Television Network, Ocean Waves first aired on May 5, 1993, on Nippon TV. The film is set in the city of Kōchi, and follows a love triangle that develops between two good friends and a new girl who transfers to their high school from Tokyo.
Shout! Factory, LLC, doing business as Shout! Studios is an American home video and music distributor founded in 2002 as Retropolis Entertainment. Its video releases, issued in DVD or Blu-ray format, include previously released feature films, classic and contemporary television series, animation, live music, and comedy specials. Considered a boutique Blu-ray label, Shout! Studios, in addition to its mainline home video releases, also releases films under the sublabels Scream, Shout! Select, and Shout! Kids. Shout! Studios owns and operates Westchester Films, Timeless Media Group, Biograph Records, Majordomo Records, and Video Time Machine. Their releases are currently distributed by Studio Distribution Services, a joint venture between Universal Pictures Home Entertainment and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, via a distribution deal formed by the two companies.
Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Inc. is the home entertainment distribution arm of the Walt Disney Company. The division handles the distribution of Disney's films, television series, and other audiovisual content across digital formats and platforms.
Tales from Earthsea is a 2006 Japanese anime epic fantasy film co-written and directed by Gorō Miyazaki in his directorial debut, animated by Studio Ghibli for the Nippon Television Network, Dentsu, Hakuhodo DY Media Partners, Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Mitsubishi and Toho, and distributed by the latter company. The film is based on a combination of plot and character elements from the first four books of Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea series, as well as Hayao Miyazaki's graphic novel Shuna's Journey. The film's English title is taken from the collection of short stories published in 2001.
Universal Pictures Home Entertainment LLC is the home video distribution division of Universal Pictures, an American film studio, owned by NBCUniversal, which is owned by Comcast.
Shinchosha Publishing Co, Ltd. is a publisher founded in 1896 in Japan and headquartered in Yaraichō, Shinjuku, Tokyo. Shinchosha is one of the sponsors of the Japan Fantasy Novel Award.
The revived Anchor Bay Entertainment is an American independent film production and distribution company owned by Umbrelic Entertainment co-founders Thomas Zambeck and Brian Katz. Anchor Bay Entertainment markets and releases "new release genre films, undiscovered treasures, cult classics, and remastered catalog releases".
The Ghibli Museum Library is the collection of animated films which have been dubbed or subtitled and released in Japan by Studio Ghibli under the Ghibli ga Ippai label, in collaboration with Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment and Cinema ANGELIKA. Three of the current titles were previously released as part of the now mostly defunct Ghibli Cinema Library. The collection is named after the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka.
Dutch FilmWorks B.V. is the film distributor and producer of the Netherlands founded in 1998, based in Utrecht, the Netherlands, focusing on Benelux rights mainly to release films theatrically, on DVD, Blu-ray and VOD. They are also a publisher and distributor of books and magazines.
Wild Bunch AG is a German film distribution company, originally created in 1979 as Senator Film Verleih GmbH, which later became Senator Entertainment AG. The name Wild Bunch comes from the French company Wild Bunch S.A., created in 2002, which became a subsidiary of Senator Entertainment in February 2015. Senator Entertainment AG renamed itself Wild Bunch AG in July 2015. Wild Bunch has distributed and sold films such as Land of the Dead (2005), Southland Tales (2006), Cassandra's Dream (2007), Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), Che (2008), Whatever Works (2009), The King's Speech (2010), The Artist (2011), Titane and Where Is Anne Frank (2021).
Rialto Pictures is a film distributor founded in 1997 by Bruce Goldstein and based in New York City. A year later, Adrienne Halpern joined him as partner. In 2002, Eric Di Bernardo became the company's National Sales Director. It was described as "the gold standard of reissue distributors" by film critic Kenneth Turan. In 1999, Rialto received a special Heritage Award from the National Society of Film Critics, and in 2000 received a special award from the New York Film Critic's Circle, presented to Goldstein and Halpern by Jeanne Moreau. The two co-presidents have each received the French Order of Chevalier of Arts and Letters.
Arrietty, titled Arrietty the Borrower in Japan and The Secret World of Arrietty in North America, is a 2010 Japanese animated fantasy film directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi as his feature film debut as a director, animated by Studio Ghibli for the Nippon Television Network, Dentsu, Hakuhodo DY Media Partners, Walt Disney Japan, Mitsubishi, Toho and Wild Bunch. The screenplay by Hayao Miyazaki and Keiko Niwa, was based on the 1952 novel The Borrowers by Mary Norton, an English author of children's books, about a family of tiny people who live secretly in the walls and floors of a typical household, borrowing items from humans to survive. The film stars the voices of Mirai Shida, Ryunosuke Kamiki, Shinobu Otake, Keiko Takeshita, Tatsuya Fujiwara, Tomokazu Miura, and Kirin Kiki, and tells the story of a young Borrower (Shida) befriending a human boy (Kamiki), while trying to avoid being detected by the other humans.
The Red Turtle is a 2016 animated fantasy drama film directed by Dutch animator Michaël Dudok de Wit who co-wrote the film with French screenwriter Pascale Ferran. The film is an international co-production between Japanese anime company Studio Ghibli and several French companies, including Wild Bunch and Belvision. The film, which has no dialogue, tells the story of a man who becomes shipwrecked on an uninhabited island and meets a giant red female turtle.
Arthaus is a major German producer of art films and classical music DVDs founded in 1994. Arthaus is a brand of Kinowelt Home Entertainment Gmbh, which is now owned by Studiocanal. Arthaus acquired the video back-catalogue of Filmverlag der Autoren in 1999, and then EuroArts giving it hundreds of art-films, opera, ballet, and concert titles to draw upon.
Earwig and the Witch is a 2020 Japanese animated fantasy film directed by Gorō Miyazaki and with a screenplay by Keiko Niwa and Emi Gunji. It is based on the novel of the same name by Diana Wynne Jones. The original voice cast includes Shinobu Terajima, Etsushi Toyokawa, Gaku Hamada, and Kokoro Hirasawa.
