10 Movies So Sad You Can Only Watch Them Once
2. Grave Of The Fireflies (1988)
Though Studio Ghibli is mostly known for their fun fantasy adventures and family wholesomeness, Grave of the Fireflies is 100% not for kids and carries none of their other films' joyous themes. That being said, it is one of their best.
The film follows a teenager called Seito (Tsutomu Tatsumi) and his younger sister Setsuko (Ayano Shiraishi) during the Second World War, after they're separated from their parents and are forced to fend for themselves after Japan is firebombed.
One of the best and most devastating war movies ever made, Grave of the Fireflies follows these two unprepared souls as they fight for survival, and slowly succumb to the deadly world around them.
It's bleak and watches like one big gut-punch after another, and whilst it needs to be seen for how powerfully it condemns the human toll of war and depicts the unconditional love between its two protagonists, Grave of the the Fireflies is - like a lot of war movies - a one-watch-only affair.