The plot is never the point... it's a series of nostalgic childhood images... with the interplay between nature and humanity, and nature and the modern world.

| Aug 15, 2024

My Neighbour Totoro is an ode to childlike innocence and the ways life can seem all the more wonderful through that lens. We aren’t young forever, but movies like this capture the spirit of youth for all eternity.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 6, 2024

This inspirationally lovely and gentle film has a real claim to be Miyazaki’s masterpiece, or first among equals in his collection.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 1, 2024

An astonishing achievement of handcrafted animation, Miyazaki’s third Ghibli film solidified the studio’s presence, and has become an enduring symbol of its excellence.

| Aug 1, 2023

There’s still nothing quite like Hayao Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro...

| Apr 21, 2023

The creepy or eerie whimsy of the troll’s world is wonderful, but unlike in Spirited Away, the stakes feel really low–it felt like the movie kept making choices to reassure the imagined child-audience that the world is soft, not scary.

| Jan 31, 2023

Miyazaki's film is about imagination and family in their purest, most innocent forms.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Mar 20, 2022

Miyazaki makes movies the way other people hallucinate during fever dreams. No sight is too outlandish, no concept too radical, no idea too extreme.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 22, 2021

An emotionally true animated film full of whimsy and delight

| Original Score: 10/10 | Mar 16, 2020

On paper it may sound saccharine and lethally sentimental, but My Neighbour Totoro is nothing but wonderful and honest.

| Jan 14, 2020

Miyazaki creates a universe where childhood and its perspective of the world is the rule, with the Japanese master highlighting, once more, his knowledge of children's psyche

| Original Score: 7/10 | Dec 1, 2019

A magic that, from the beginning of the action to the end, with Totoro or without him, delivers sublime 86 minutes of footage whose charm is impossible to resist. [Full Review in Spanish]

| Aug 28, 2019

The original Japanese-language voice work of Noriko Hidaka and Chika Sakamoto is charming, beguiling and sincere, although you may also want to check out the English dub.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Dec 21, 2018

The theme of innocent love is so prevalent and it feels good to watch unconditional displays of it, even within an animated fictional film.

| Aug 20, 2018

Even the most amazing of the great Pixar films could be tagged with the label of "antiseptic." No one would use that for Totoro, which, especially if seen under optimum conditions, astounds with its vibrancy.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 29, 2018

As simply as we can put it, My Neighbor Totoro is a masterpiece of children's animation. There's no one we wouldn't recommend it to.

| Oct 19, 2017

A beautifully observed study of childhood that's unmissable, whatever your age.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Sep 5, 2017

It is as much a portrait of a time and place as it is the story of two sisters. Mei and Satsuki, like real kids, are sometimes infuriating, stubborn, and then in the next moment lovable.

| Aug 24, 2017

A typically erratic effort from Hayao Miyazaki...

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 16, 2015

Despite these limits, My Neighbor Totoro is a gentle and affirming film.

| Dec 8, 2014