... a gentle, touching story of confronting turbulent emotions that acknowledges that, however unfair, such feelings are real and cause real damage.

| Apr 26, 2025

Does what Ghibli has always done, and done so well: Address the cruel twists and turns life can take.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 15, 2021

It's amazing how [Studio Ghibli] can so easily tap into the wonder and awe of young people.

| Original Score: B | Jul 15, 2020

There is a pervading sense of melancholy in this film, but you cannot help but be swept up in its stunning beauty. It is a totally immersive experience, like dipping your head into a watercolour painting and swimming about in it for two hours.

| Original Score: 8.5/10 | Jul 1, 2020

Overall, When Marnie Was There is lovely to watch but it fails to provide the celebratory ending that Studio Ghibli deserves after 30 years of animation.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 18, 2019

The most Ghibli-esque touch here is the way that the natural and spirit worlds easily commingle, like overlapping cels in the same frame.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 19, 2019

The mystery surprised me at times and kept a brisk pace.

| Original Score: B+ | Apr 15, 2019

The allegory of the fantastic of Studio Ghibli's older productions, and particularly those of Miyazaki's, seems to be largely lost, and unfortunately, the film's technical prowess is not enough to surpass this issue.

| Nov 3, 2018

What other animated film would take the time to focus on a shot of fresh watermelon being cut, or of laundry waving in the breeze?

| Aug 29, 2018

Unlike American animated films, which only gesture at moral seriousness, Marnie and other films like it are centrally, sincerely concerned with the complex trials of adolescence.

| Apr 13, 2018

Directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi and adapted from Joan G Robinson's book, the film remains hauntingly beautiful to look at, but we're on pretty familiar ground by now.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 23, 2017

Marnie may be a quiet end to the pantheon of animated masterpieces that have streamed out of Hayao Miyazaki's studio, but the film is satisfying in its own way.

| Aug 16, 2017

Hiromasa Yonebayashi's film maintains the Ghibli traditions of elegant pastoral animation and nuanced emotional themes.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 18, 2016

Enigma takes second place to a sensitive exploration of adolescent turmoil and self-discovery, made even more beautiful and bittersweet by the film's delicate hand-drawn animation.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 16, 2016

It may not have the magic of Miyazaki's classic work, but if it is the last Ghibli film, it is an elegant and elegiac way to end of an era.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 12, 2016

The quasi-Sapphic intensity of Anna and Marnie's relationship - recalling Ghost World or a benign Heavenly Creatures - is poetically and sensitively handled.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 9, 2016

Japan's Studio Gibli has been responsible for some of the finest animated movies in recent decades, from 2003's Oscar-winning Spirited Away to last year's beautiful The Tale of the Princess Kaguya.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jun 17, 2016

Although more sombre than some of the studio's biggest hits, it has in spades the gorgeous, painstaking animation that has become Ghibli's trademark.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jun 13, 2016

What makes this a standout of the studio's already glittering catalogue is the strong root psychological motive of the central character, which could just have you reaching for the hankies by the end.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jun 13, 2016

Although the film doesn't quite wrap up the central mystery with the same degree of elegance, it does end with a hopeful message about learning to be comfortable in your own skin ...

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 12, 2016