Studio Ghibli Fest has been running for a decade, and its theatrical revivals of beloved anime films continue to draw families and new audiences to cinemas across the United States — a rare success story at a time when streaming dominates and theaters struggle. Amanda Mendoza VanCleave, 34, circles the festival dates every year because screenings have become a ritual for her, her 3-year-old daughter, and her mother, Araceli. Earlier this month, when the Austin, Texas, family went to see Hayao Miyazaki's 1988 classic My Neighbor Totoro, they wore matching Totoro pajamas. "It's been our thing," VanCleave said. "Us three girls together."
The festival's appeal stretches across ages and backgrounds. VanCleave's daughter screams "Totoro!" when the opening logo appears, prompting laughter from the crowd. "Everyone in the theater started laughing, and I was like, 'Oh, gosh, sorry,'" VanCleave said. But that shared joy is precisely what keeps families coming back. The festival has featured My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, Ponyo, and others — films that blend environmental themes, intergenerational care, and quiet wonder in ways that resonate with progressive audiences.
A Cultural Phenomenon, Not a Nostalgia Trip
GKids and Fathom Entertainment launched Studio Ghibli Fest in 2017 with five titles that accounted for $5 million in ticket sales. Dave Jesteadt, GKids president, said he never expected the program to last this long. "I'd be lying if I thought the program when we conceived it would be going as long as it has," he said. "It does defy conventional wisdom. We keep waiting for the year that people tire of going to the films, but that's not what's happening. Every single year, we see records being set. The grosses are going up, not down." The biggest box-office year was 2024, when 14 movies accounted for $16.4 million in sales. Last year, eight movies grossed $10.6 million. This year, both Ponyo and My Neighbor Totoro have already played for popular five-day stints.
Shannah Miller, vice president of marketing for Fathom, said the theatrical footprint has expanded from about 640 locations when the festival started to more than 1,100 locations this year. She said the festival began with two or three playdates for a title, but fan demand has led to five-day runs for some films. When GKids first got the Ghibli library 15 years ago, the Japanese studio stressed how important theatrical releases were to it. GKids first hosted retrospectives, mostly in major markets and arthouses, before moving the films into multiplexes where a new generation of children might encounter them.
Streaming Didn't Kill the Theater — It Built the Audience
Jesteadt said the key was treating the films not as museum pieces but as living culture. "One of the worst things that can happen to classics is that they're perceived as classics and kept in amber," he said. "We wanted to move to a nationwide celebration that really treated these as equivalent to any new Hollywood film." When GKids introduced the catalog to streaming 6 years ago for the first time, "we thought, 'OK, surely, this is maybe the moment,'" Jesteadt said. "If anything, that just brought in a new audience that wanted to see these films in theaters for the first time."
This year's festival continues with Tales of Earthsea on Aug. 8 and 10, Only Yesterday on Aug. 9 and 11, the 40th anniversary of the first Ghibli release, 1986's Castle in the Sky, on Aug. 22-26, a 4K remastered Princess Mononoke on Sept. 26-30, and a 25th anniversary for Spirited Away on Oct. 17-21. The festival remains a strictly U.S.-based phenomenon, though some of the films are revived in other countries. Miller said, "We are equally in awe of and proud of what we're building and the opportunity to celebrate instead of all the doom and gloom, 'Is theater dead?' conversations." She added, "We have a different story to tell with Studio Ghibli."
Community, Not Just Consumption
The Academy Museum is hosting a new Ponyo exhibit, and composer Joe Hisaishi is touring the music of many of the films, including a seven-night residency at New York's Radio City Music Hall in August. Angela Lector, 27, said she has attended Howl's Moving Castle dressed as its hero, Sophie, and met Japanese film students at a showing of Princess Mononoke, a favorite from when she was a kid. "Being in the theater is so much more fun than being on HBO Max," Lector said. "Being in your home, you can make your own popcorn and cuddle up with your dog. But being in the theater you can actually talk to people you don't know about the movie."
Lector said she'd like to see 1984's pre-Ghibli Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind brought back. "The Ghibli films are timeless. There's something for everyone in them," she said. "Everything feels human. No one is too powerful or too small." VanCleave said she recently noticed a classmate of her daughter's wearing a bow like Kiki's. "I saw her mom and asked about it. We got to talking, and she also had watched Ghibli movies at home," VanCleave said. "So, we invited her to 'Ponyo,' and it was her first movie theater experience. It was cute. The two 3-year-olds shared a recliner."
Why This Matters:
Studio Ghibli Fest offers a counter-narrative to the collapse of communal culture under streaming monopolies. At a time when algorithms isolate viewers and cinemas close, these screenings prove that people — especially families — still crave shared experiences rooted in values beyond profit: environmental care, intergenerational solidarity, and the dignity of ordinary life. The festival's growth shows that culture doesn't have to be hyper-commercialized to succeed. It can be gentle, humanistic, and accessible — and still draw record crowds. For parents raising children in an anxious, atomized age, Ghibli's vision of a world where kindness matters and nature endures offers something streaming can't replicate: a room full of strangers laughing together when a 3-year-old shouts "Totoro!" That's not nostalgia. It's hope.