Every Studio Ghibli Movie Ranked Worst To Best
8. The Wind Rises (2013)
Before he announced (and not for the first time) that his planned retirement had been put on hold to make "one last film," The Wind Rises was conceived by him and Suzuki as his official swan song.
Surely his most personal film, the drama follows a young pilot who, barred from flying due to poor eyesight, elects to build airplanes that will soon be used in WWII. During this time, he falls in love, and confronts the trajectory of his life.
Like Miyazaki himself, The Wind Rises' real-life protagonist Jiro is a man conflicted by his own contradictions, loving his work but not the outcome.
It's a bracing, lyrical tale of chasing dreams and confronting pasts, a sweeping love story, and the work of a filmmaker contemplating his own work and mortality. If Miyazaki's career ended here, it would've felt truly perfect.