Each and every one of the 21 of the movies in the Studio Ghibli catalog will be available for streaming exclusively on HBO Max in 2020.
Studio Ghibli is the Japanese studio responsible for some of your favorite animated movies, including Howl’s Moving Castle, Kiki’s Delivery Service, My Neighbor Totoro, Ponyo, and the Oscar-winning Spirited Away. Since it was founded in 1985, the studio has consistently produced breathtaking animation and conveyed stirring and resonant stories about humanity, spirituality, and the relationship we all have with the natural world.
Studio director and co-founder Hayao Miyazaki directed many of the studio’s movies, including Princess Mononoke, which was the first animated film to be awarded the Japan Academy Prize for Picture of the Year.
In the past, you might have had to leave your home to experience the works of Studio Ghibli, perhaps by taking a trip to a theme park or visiting the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, which will feature an exhibit on Miyazaki’s art when it opens in 2020. Indeed, some had even suggested that the very idea of making the studio’s animated movies available for streaming from one’s couch was a laughable notion.
However, the announcement that the entire catalog of Studio Ghibli films will be exclusively available on the HBO Max streaming service when it makes its debut in spring of 2020 demonstrates how fast life can come at you (especially when it’s available for streaming directly to your home at the press of a remote control’s button).
For the many devoted fans of Studio Ghibli, the news that the studio’s beloved animated movies will only be available to stream on HBO may make selecting from the ever-growing array of streaming services a somehow even more difficult decision than it already was. As Disney+ continues to add an intimidating amount of new and freshly acquired content to their upcoming streaming lineup (launching mid-November 2019) and Netflix strikes back with a long-demanded animated Bone series, the decision is only getting more difficult with each passing day.
