Studio Ghibli Fest has been running for a decade, and its theatrical revivals keep proving that cinema isn't dead — it's just competing with the wrong content. The festival's 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.
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, "I'd be lying if I thought the program when we conceived it would be going as long as it has," and added, "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 Theatrical Expansion
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.
Jesteadt said, "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." He also said that when GKids introduced the catalog to streaming 6 years ago for the first time, "we thought, 'OK, surely, this is maybe the moment,'" but "if anything, that just brought in a new audience that wanted to see these films in theaters for the first time."
What the Fans Say
Amanda Mendoza VanCleave, 34, says she circles the dates whenever the calendar comes out because the festival has become a special tradition for her, her 3-year-old daughter and her mother, Araceli. The family discovered the Ghibli movies on HBO Max, but their outings to their favorite theater in Austin, Texas, turned into an annual ritual. Earlier this month, when they went again to see Hayao Miyazaki's 1988 anime classic, My Neighbor Totoro, they wore matching Totoro jammies. VanCleave said, "It's been our thing," and added, "Us three girls together."
VanCleave said her daughter screams "Totoro!" when she sees the opening Totoro logo. "Everyone in the theater started laughing, and I was like, 'Oh, gosh, sorry,'" VanCleave said. 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."
What's Next
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."
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. The festival's appeal stretches across ages. Longtime Ghibli fans and little ones alike keep flocking to the screenings, and the movies have become theatrical mainstays rather than occasional rereleases. The festival has featured My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away and Ponyo, among others.
Why This Matters:
Studio Ghibli Fest's decade-long success offers a counternarrative to the streaming-killed-cinema story that dominates industry conversations. The festival's revenue trajectory — from $5 million in 2017 to $16.4 million in 2024 — demonstrates that theatrical exhibition can thrive when it offers something streaming can't replicate: shared cultural experience, multi-generational ritual, and the kind of communal viewing that turns a film into an event. The expansion from 640 to 1,100 locations shows that demand exists outside major metros. It's a model that doesn't rely on government subsidy or regulatory protection — just content that families want to see together, in a format that streaming can't replace. The fact that streaming availability increased theatrical demand rather than cannibalizing it suggests that the threat to cinemas isn't technology but programming choices. Ghibli Fest proves that audiences will leave their homes when there's a reason to.