How the Studio Ghibli bracket works
Ghibli movie tier list without dragging anything into rows. You get one matchup at a time — Spirited Away or Princess Mononoke? My Neighbor Totoro or Howl's Moving Castle? — and after 23 picks the bracket has a champion, with everything else placed by how far it got. The awkward pairings are the point: they are the calls a drag-and-drop tier list quietly lets you avoid.
This bracket runs 5 rounds at the default 24-slot size (Round of 24, Round of 16, Elite 8, Final Four, Championship), with every one of the 24 films in the field. 24 is not a power of two, so 8 of them draw a first-round bye — spread evenly across the draw rather than handed to whoever happens to land at the top of it. Because the draw is shuffled, two people playing the same bracket rarely face the same matchups. You can also play it at 8 or 16 slots for a shorter or longer run.
23 picks, 5 rounds
- Round of 248 matchups
- Round of 168 matchups
- Elite 84 matchups
- Final Four2 matchups
- Championship1 matchup
Roughly 2-3 minutes start to finish.
All 24 entrants
All 24 entrants are listed below, including Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro and Howl's Moving Castle.
Spirited Away
2001
Princess Mononoke
1997
My Neighbor Totoro
1988
Howl's Moving Castle
2004
Grave of the Fireflies
1988
Kiki's Delivery Service
1989
Castle in the Sky
1986
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
1984
Porco Rosso
1992
The Wind Rises
2013
Ponyo
2008
The Tale of the Princess Kaguya
2013
Whisper of the Heart
1995
The Cat Returns
2002
Arrietty
2010
When Marnie Was There
2014
From Up on Poppy Hill
2011
Pom Poko
1994
Only Yesterday
1991
Ocean Waves
1993
Tales from Earthsea
2006
My Neighbors the Yamadas
1999
The Boy and the Heron
2023
Earwig and the Witch
2020
Would rather group them than rank them? Open all 24 in the tier list maker and sort them into S, A, B, C, D and F tiers instead — same entrants, no matchups.
How everyone else ranked them
Aggregated from 1 completed Studio Ghibli brackets. Win rate is the share of head-to-head matchups each entrant has won across every play.
- 1
Spirited Away
4W - 0L · won 1 bracket
100%
win rate
- 2
Grave of the Fireflies
3W - 1L
75%
win rate
- 3
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
2W - 1L
67%
win rate
- 4
My Neighbors the Yamadas
2W - 1L
67%
win rate
- 5
Princess Mononoke
1W - 1L
50%
win rate
- 6
Howl's Moving Castle
1W - 1L
50%
win rate
- 7
Castle in the Sky
1W - 1L
50%
win rate
- 8
Ponyo
1W - 1L
50%
win rate
- 9
Kiki's Delivery Service
0W - 1L
0%
win rate
- 10
Porco Rosso
0W - 1L
0%
win rate
Getting a ranking you actually agree with
- 1Pick the film you would actually rewatch tonight, not the one with the better reputation.
- 2The default run puts all 24 films in the draw. Short on time? Drop to 16 slots — a quicker run over a random 16 of them.
- 3Use undo the moment you regret a pick. One reflex answer in an early round can knock out a favourite before it gets going.
Studio Ghibli bracket FAQ
How many films are in the Studio Ghibli bracket?
The pool holds 24 films. A default run puts all of them in the draw and takes 23 picks across 5 rounds: Round of 24, Round of 16, Elite 8, Final Four, Championship. 8 entrants start with a first-round bye, spread evenly through the draw. Other field sizes are available too — 8, 16, 24 slots.
Which films are included?
Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro, Howl's Moving Castle, Grave of the Fireflies, Kiki's Delivery Service, Castle in the Sky, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Porco Rosso, The Wind Rises, Ponyo and The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, plus 12 more. Every entrant is listed further down this page with its artwork.
How long does the Ghibli movie tier list take?
About 2-3 minutes — 23 choices at the default size, or 7 if you drop to a 8-slot bracket. No account is needed, and you can abandon a run at any point without losing anything.
Can I turn the result into S/A/B tiers?
Both are here, and the bracket is closer to a tier list than it looks. It ends with a champion, a runner-up and then every other film grouped by the round it went out in — which is exactly a set of tiers, decided by 23 direct comparisons rather than by your first guess at a layout. What it deliberately does not do is claim a precise gap between two films that never met. If you would rather place the films into S through F rows yourself, the tier list maker loads all 24 of them at bracketranker.com/tier-list-maker.
Can I compare my order with other people's?
Every completed bracket feeds the Studio Ghibli community results page, which aggregates win rates across all plays and tracks how often each of the 24 entrants takes the title. It updates continuously, so it moves as more people play.
What if a film I wanted is missing?
Use the bracket maker: add your own films, name it, and share the link so other people play the same field. That is the route to take when this pool of 24 is missing something you would have picked, or when you want a version scoped to one era, label or franchise.