I don't doubt the sincerity of Miyazaki's pacifism but I'm appalled by his abstract vision. Like, how many tens or hundreds of thousands of real people in Asia and the Pacific were de-animated thanks to [Jiro] Horikoshi's dreams?

| Feb 22, 2019

A beautiful--and now Oscar-nominated--swan song from Miyazaki, The Wind Rises is a breathtaking ode to what is and what could be.

| Original Score: A- | Sep 5, 2017

It's Miyazaki's most atypical cartoon, yet it might be his most personal self-representation, a portrait of the artist as a myopic dreamer.

| May 13, 2014

Jiro thankfully finds time to create an achingly romantic subplot with his love (Emily Blunt), who is gently waning away from TB.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 13, 2014

A rich treat for the eye and soul alike.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 11, 2014

If The Wind Rises is Miyazaki's final feature, it marks a suitably rich and strange exit for one of the giants of Japanese cinema.

| May 9, 2014

It's being billed as Hayao Miyazaki's last film. He can't leave us this way.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 9, 2014

The story has much in common with that of The First of the Few, Leslie Howard's 1942 stiff-upper-lip biopic of RK Mitchell, designer of the Supermarine Spitfire. But there is magic here.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 9, 2014

There is a wonderful gentleness and intelligent idealism to this animation by 73-year-old Hayao Miyazaki ...

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 8, 2014

While Miyazaki's two-hour-long, historical-melodrama swansong is destined to be his most divisive film yet, it is also his most adult and interesting, and never less than visually breathtaking throughout.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 4, 2014

The film is one of the most rapturously beautiful that Miyazaki has made, and all the more unsettling because of it.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Mar 13, 2014

The pastel palette bespeaks a determined, almost demented lightness.

| Mar 13, 2014

At 73, Miyazaki's farewell is many things -- gorgeous, beckoning, compassionate. For better and worse, it soars above child's play.

Full Review | Feb 28, 2014

When Jiro dreams, "Wind" soars; when he comes down to earth, the film can feel a bit stiff and murky. But then, that may be the point.

| Original Score: B- | Feb 28, 2014

The Wind Rises has the sweep and majesty of a Technicolor Hollywood classic.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Feb 28, 2014

A work of immense mystery and strangeness, loaded with unforgettable images, spectacular sweeps of color and nested, hidden meanings.

| Feb 27, 2014

It speaks to both the head and the heart, and it is, in myriad ways, some of the best work the legendary animator has ever created.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 27, 2014

Gorgeous, wondrous and troubling.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Feb 27, 2014

On balance, THE WIND RISES is worth seeing especially for animation buffs and especially since it seems as though this will be the talented director's final film.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Feb 27, 2014

The view is beautiful, but the loftier aims of "The Wind Rises" fall short.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Feb 27, 2014