Hayao Miyazaki - Ranking His Movies From Worst To Best

5. Laputa: Castle In The Sky

The first release from Studio Ghibli after its foundation, Miyazaki's 1986 release Castle in the Sky again explores his fascination with flying, this time featuring entire cities floating up above the clouds, kept aloft by immense 'volucite' crystals deriving from an ancient, mystical civilization. Of all of Miyazaki's movies, Castle in the Sky is perhaps one of his most symbolically inspired, with a near-mythological feel to the tale of ancient races, robotic guardians and warring factions. The flying island of Laputa itself can be seen to represent both nature at its most evolved and the pinnacle of technological achievement, and it is the contrast between these two ideologies - seemingly at odds with one another - which Miyazaki evokes. As pleasing on the eye as anything else released by Studio Ghibli, Castle in the Sky is a landmark in 1980s animation with an obvious debt to Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, which also features a flying island and plays on the theme of technology used for nefarious ends when in the wrong hands.