New BBC List Honors Studio Ghibli, Anime Classics

Studio Ghibli is one of the most prolific anime studios, and its films are some of the most respected by critics and fans. It’s no surprise to find out that one of its films, Spirited Away, was recently honored by the British Broadcasting Company.

BBC recently polled 209 critics across 43 different countries (with 41 different languages) for a list of 100 of the greatest foreign language films and the results should please anime fans as Spirited Away makes its way onto the list.

The resulting 100 films range across 67 different directors, 24 countries, and 19 languages. The highest number of films come in French (with 27), but 11 come in Japanese. The winning film on the list is Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, and the director also holds the fourth spot on the list with Rashomon, the 72nd spot with Ikiru, and 79th spot with Ran.

But Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away is the only animated foreign language film to make its way onto to the list (at number 37). It’s no surprise that it does as it’s the highest regarded anime film among fans, and was even the highest grossing anime film of all time until Makoto Shinkai’s your name hit theaters last year. The film often gets lots of love from celebrities too, with Ariana Grande being a notable public fan of the film.

For those interested, here’s the Top 40 of BBC’s list of the 100 greatest foreign language films of all time as voted by a pool of 209 critics. You can find the full list at the link above:

• 40. Andrei Rublev (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1966)
• 39. Close-Up (Abbas Kiarostami, 1990)
• 38. A Brighter Summer Day (Edward Yang, 1991)
• 37. Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki, 2001)
• 36. La Grande Illusion (Jean Renoir, 1937)
• 35. The Leopard (Luchino Visconti, 1963)
• 34. Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders, 1987)
• 33. Playtime (Jacques Tati, 1967)
• 32. All About My Mother (Pedro Almodóvar, 1999)
• 31. The Lives of Others (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2006)
• 30. The Seventh Seal (Ingmar Bergman, 1957)
• 29. Oldboy (Park Chan-wook, 2003)
• 28. Fanny and Alexander (Ingmar Bergman, 1982)
• 27. The Spirit of the Beehive (Victor Erice, 1973)
• 26. Cinema Paradiso (Giuseppe Tornatore, 1988)
• 25. Yi Yi (Edward Yang, 2000)
• 24. Battleship Potemkin (Sergei M Eisenstein, 1925)
• 23. The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928)
• 22. Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro, 2006)
• 21. A Separation (Asghar Farhadi, 2011)
• 20. The Mirror (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1974)
• 19. The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966)
• 18. A City of Sadness (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1989)
• 17. Aguirre, the Wrath of God (Werner Herzog, 1972)
• 16. Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927)
• 15. Pather Panchali (Satyajit Ray, 1955)
• 14. Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels (Chantal Akerman, 1975)
• 13. M (Fritz Lang, 1931)
• 12. Farewell My Concubine (Chen Kaige, 1993)
• 11. Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960)
• 10. La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini, 1960)
• 9. In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, 2000)
• 8. The 400 Blows (François Truffaut, 1959)
• 7. 8 1/2 (Federico Fellini, 1963)
• 6. Persona (Ingmar Bergman, 1966)
• 5. The Rules of the Game (Jean Renoir, 1939)
• 4. Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa, 1950)
• 3. Tokyo Story (Yasujirô Ozu, 1953)
• 2. Bicycle Thieves (Vittorio de Sica, 1948)
• 1. Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)

Spirited Away was a Studio Ghibli produced film, written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. The 2001 film followed the 10-year-old Chihiro Ogino into a magical yet perilous town, where spirits reign supreme and people who stay past sunset are doomed to forget who they are. After her parents are transformed into pigs, Chihiro must work at the bathhouse and face all of the trickster spirits and magic to try and free them from the enchantment.

via BBC