The Boy And The Heron

  • Christian Bale, Florence Pugh, Robert Pattinson
  • Hayao Miyazaki
  • December 26th 2023
Through encounters with his friends and uncle, follows a teenage boy's psychological development. He enters a magical world with a talking grey heron after finding an abandoned tower in his new town.

Official Trailer

Our Review

The Boy and the Heron

Verdict: The Boy and the Heron does not reach the heights of Studio Ghibli's Spirited Away and may be too weird for some

  • Christian Bale, Florence Pugh, Robert Pattinson
  • December 26th 2023
  • Hayao Miyazaki

A young boy discovers a portal to a fantasy world after he moves to a new home.

Hayao Miyazaki, a legend at Japanese animation company Studio Ghibli, came out of retirement to write and direct The Boy and the Heron, his first film since 2013’s The Wind Rises.

Set during World War II, The Boy and the Heron follows 12-year-old Mahito Maki (voiced by Soma Santoki) after he relocates from Tokyo to the countryside to live with his father Shoichi (Takuya Kimura), the owner of an air munitions factory, and his new pregnant wife Natsuko (Yoshino Kimura), Mahito’s aunt-turned-stepmother.

Mahito, who has been pestered by a grey heron (Masaki Suda) since his arrival, ventures into the woods to find a missing Natsuko and is drawn to a mysterious tower that leads to an alternate fantasy world.

Like every Studio Ghibli film, there is a limitless sense of wonder and imagination in The Boy and the Heron. This movie is filled with weird fantastical elements such as oversized parakeet guards, a talking grey heron, and villainous pelicans and...

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