The Boy and the Heron
GKIDS | Release Date: November 22, 2023 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
91
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 55 Critic Reviews
Positive:
52
Mixed:
3
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Little White LiesMark AschDec 24, 2023
The Boy and the Heron is richly self-synthesising and achingly sentimental, collating artistic motifs from across the Miyazaki filmography and nakedly articulating the hopes it places in the next generation. Read full review
100
The Irish TimesTara BradyDec 20, 2023
It’s a thrilling journey for both young viewers and those with more cause to ponder the afterlife. A fine bow from one of the great directors. Read full review
100
Film ThreatJosiah TealDec 12, 2023
The film has an innate sense of wonder in every moving landscape, colorful character, or evocative performance. Read full review
100
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenDec 8, 2023
It’s nearly an apotheosis, in that the movie synthesizes his greatest achievements into a stirring, standalone work of art. Read full review
100
EmpireBen TravisDec 8, 2023
Don’t call it a comeback — or another retirement. Do call it an astonishing, sumptuous animated fantasy featuring everything you love about one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. Read full review
100
Chicago TribuneKatie WalshDec 8, 2023
What can we impart to future generations? Can we trust them to keep the balance of the universe? These big questions drive the meaning and the purpose of The Boy and the Heron, yet another masterpiece from Miyazaki that helps us to see the beauty of life around us and contemplate the future of the universe more profoundly. Read full review
100
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoDec 6, 2023
It’s a film that somehow plays as both a child’s heroic journey and an old man’s wistful goodbye at the same time, a dream-like vision that reasserts Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli’s voice and international relevance. It’s gorgeous, ruminative, and mesmerizing, one of the best of 2023. Read full review
100
Original-CinChris KnightDec 6, 2023
The Boy and the Heron is a treat for the eyes, the ears and the mind. Or the soul, if you prefer. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleG. Allen JohnsonDec 4, 2023
The Boy and the Heron is unquestionably a personal vision, with its own internal logic. It has a direct conduit with the mind of its creator, who happens to be a genius and one of the best to ever do it. If this is it for Miyazaki, well, what a finish. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangNov 28, 2023
As you leave The Boy and the Heron, you may feel strangely bereft, emptied out in a way that I suspect Miyazaki both intends and hopes to console us against. Read full review
100
Paste MagazineAutumn WrightOct 19, 2023
The film is as complicated as the man it is about, and this is what makes The Boy and the Heron a masterwork. Read full review
100
The TelegraphRobbie CollinOct 13, 2023
The folklore underpinning The Boy and the Heron is crazily sui generis: it rushes and sparkles and sploshes like a child’s imagination, making the sort of synaptic leaps in both image-making and storytelling that should be impossible for an adult brain to pull off. Read full review
100
ObserverLaura BabiakOct 2, 2023
Miyazaki announced his retirement a decade ago with his meditative The Wind Rises, but the legendary filmmaker has returned, thankfully, to deliver one of his best, most imaginative and mature movies yet. Read full review
100
ConsequenceClint WorthingtonSep 27, 2023
If this film is Miyazaki’s true bow, it’s a magnificent final flourish that folds together many of the thematic and aesthetic threads he’s explored through his career: man’s relationship to nature, the majesty of flight, the twin pulls of love and loss. It’s stunning and inscrutable and measures among the best of his works. Read full review
100
Rolling StoneDavid FearSep 8, 2023
No one needed further proof that he’s a master. This meditation on grief and growing up does solidify the position, however, that Miyazaki remains the greatest living animator today, period. Read full review
100
BBCCaryn JamesSep 8, 2023
This may be Miyazaki's most expansive and magisterial film. If it is not the most instantly stunning, that might be because he takes the time to deliver worlds within worlds, layers under layers, to create an overwhelming experience by the end. Read full review
100
New York Magazine (Vulture)Alison WillmoreSep 8, 2023
The Boy and the Heron is irresistible in its dream logic, straddling the adorable (white blob creatures called Warawara that inflate like balloons) and the dark (parakeet soldiers that are on the search for fresh meat). But what makes it most compelling are the ways in which the real and the magical are equal presences. Read full review
100
The PlaylistCarlos AguilarSep 7, 2023
The Boy and the Heron is Miyazaki’s strong-willed encouragement for us to persevere. If this is, in fact, a swan song, then it’s a ravishing one because no one has the ability to distill elemental truths into vividly rendered moving paintings like Miyazaki. Read full review
100
IndieWireDavid EhrlichSep 7, 2023
While this dream-like warble of a swan song may be too pitchy and scattered to hit with the gale-force power that made “The Wind Rises” feel like such a definitive farewell, The Boy and the Heron finds Miyazaki so nakedly bidding adieu — to us, and to the crumbling kingdom of dreams and madness that he’ll soon leave behind — that it somehow resolves into an even more fitting goodbye, one graced with the divine awe and heart-stopping wistfulness of watching a true immortal make peace with their own death. Read full review
95
The AtlanticDavid SimsDec 13, 2023
What’s important is that the film is alive and awake with energy. This is no marble mausoleum of a movie—it’s more of a bold reinvention than a somber farewell. Read full review
93
The Daily BeastBarry LevittSep 8, 2023
It mixes the comfort and reliability of a greatest hits album with the bold visionary direction of a thrilling, experimental album from an artist at the peak of their powers. If The Boy and the Heron is really the end of Miyazaki’s career, he’s gone out with a triumph. Read full review
91
The A.V. ClubLuke Y. ThompsonDec 7, 2023
If The Boy And The Heron is indeed Miyazaki’s final film, it can serve as both a victory lap and a plea for a successor to arrive and take up the mantle of trying to make the world a better place through art. Read full review
90
ABC NewsPeter TraversFeb 23, 2024
Japanese manga master Hayao Miyazaki, 83, came out of retirement for this hand-drawn beauty about his own life growing up in wartime. The Oscar for best animated feature belongs right here since Miyazaki’s unparalleled artistry shines out of every frame. Read full review
90
The Film VerdictAlonso DuraldeDec 9, 2023
If The Boy and the Heron does wind up being his farewell to cinema, Miyazaki will be leaving behind a beacon of encouragement, a guidepost to remind the world that even when all seems lost, courage and compassion can forge a new path. Read full review
90
Arizona RepublicMeredith G. WhiteDec 8, 2023
The second the film starts it's evident you're watching a Studio Ghibli film. The animation is unmistakable and is so detailed and fluid you almost forget you're watching an animation. Read full review
90
VoxAlanna OkunDec 8, 2023
Whether this is Hayao Miyazaki’s final film or not (my money’s on two more, which might be wishful thinking), The Boy and the Heron is a powerful, worthy, and perfectly scaled entry from one of the greatest to ever do it. Read full review
90
SlashfilmJosh SpiegelDec 7, 2023
Miyazaki remains one of our greatest filmmakers because he utilizes the medium of animation to tell intensely personal stories that open up our eyes to grand new worlds, strange new characters, and unforgettable images. "The Boy and the Heron" is one of the year's best films, and hopefully not his last masterpiece. Read full review
90
We Got This CoveredFrancisca TinocoDec 6, 2023
Hayao Miyazaki's 12th and possibly final feature film could not be more relevant as a call to action, bravery, and the unrelenting hope of childhood. Read full review
90
SlateDana StevensDec 4, 2023
The Boy and the Heron may not have moved me emotionally as much as some of Miyazaki’s earlier classics, but it left me intellectually and aesthetically dazzled, and profoundly grateful for this late-life glimpse into the autobiography of one of film’s great living artists. Read full review
90
IGNRafael MotamayorSep 8, 2023
Hayao Miyazaki delivers the perfect coda to his illustrious career with a stunning animated adventure that reminds us how lucky we are to live at a time when Studio Ghibli is making movies. Read full review
90
TheWrapSep 8, 2023
If this is indeed his final film — this time for real — what a way for Miyazaki to launch into retirement, with a swan song so personal, artful and ultimately timeless. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneySep 7, 2023
The film could be read many ways, but fundamentally, it plays like a heartfelt depiction of resilience in the face of conflict and grief, a gentle call to find friends and trusted allies, to move forward and bring humanity and understanding to the world. Read full review
90
PolygonCezary Jan Strusiewicz Jul 17, 2023
The film’s fantasy elements look absolutely beautiful, and they naturally include shots of the classic impossibly delicious-looking Ghibli food. But they come with a kind of wistfulness for days gone by, paired with a full, unsentimental realization that there’s no getting them back. Which all feels like a director taking one last look at his career before bowing out. How Do You Live? has all the makings of a perfect swan song. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleSteve DavisDec 6, 2023
Maybe the film is simply a fanciful manifestation of one person’s healing passage through a landscape of grief and trauma. But there is little doubt that The Boy and the Heron is one of the Japanese auteur’s most cinematic feature-length films – maybe the most cinematic — in his relatively limited oeuvre. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperDec 6, 2023
While this period-piece, existential fantasy adventure doesn’t rank with the absolute finest entries in Miyazaki’s iconic canon, it’s still one of the most inventive and creative films, animated or otherwise, of the year. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeOdie HendersonDec 6, 2023
The Boy and the Heron leaves us with questions about our place in the universe and whether it’s worth saving. You may also exit the theater contemplating the afterlife. Regardless of the ideas swirling around in your head, you’ll have witnessed the work of a director who has not lost his ability to stoke your imagination. Read full review
88
The Associated PressJake CoyleDec 6, 2023
It’s a grand culmination of both Miyazaki’s extraordinary body of work and of a film that gathers, like a flock, or a symphony, so many of his trademark obsessions. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliDec 5, 2023
Regardless of whether the future will bring another Miyazaki movie, The Boy and the Heron is a wonderful gift for everyone who expected The Wind Rises to be his swansong. It’s proof that, no matter how hard Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks, and others try, there’s only one animator who finds magic in every release. Read full review
88
Washington PostLucas TrevorDec 4, 2023
This is not a happy-go-lucky story, but an old-school fairy tale meant to frighten, confuse and excite. Read full review
88
Slant MagazineCole KronmanSep 29, 2023
The true tragedy of The Boy and the Heron seems not to be that the blemishes of its fantasy mirror those of its reality, but that any one person should think themselves capable of sanitizing either. Read full review
88
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiSep 8, 2023
“Heron” is not as perfect as some of Miyazaki’s past movies. The trippy story is dizzying by the end as too many characters are introduced too late and we navigate a thicket of hastily explained narrative elements. But it nonetheless leaves a powerful emotional effect if you let it wash over you. Read full review
84
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzDec 6, 2023
It is tender, true and – depending on your interpretation, or understanding, of the finale – intensely heartbreaking. Read full review
83
ColliderRoss BonaimeSep 8, 2023
In a career full of continuous surprises, The Boy and Heron’s biggest surprise might be just how magical and unique his work still feels after all these years. Read full review
83
The Film StageEthan VestbySep 8, 2023
What defines The Boy and the Heron is its wistful feeling of looking back. Read full review
80
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyJan 5, 2024
Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron contains multitudes. It is beautiful, tortured, whimsical, and stoic. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawDec 20, 2023
The Boy and the Heron is a valuable new addition to this unique film-artist’s canon, about confronting a terrible sadness and finding a way to replace it with wonder and joy. Read full review
80
Time OutIndia LawrenceNov 28, 2023
Ultimately, though, The Boy and the Heron is yet another testament to Miyazaki’s evergreen ability to embrace philosophical themes with boundless imagination. Jaw-dropping visuals, tender moments, and a pinch of comedy make it the perfect Christmas treat for Ghibli fans. Read full review
80
Total FilmMatt MaytumSep 8, 2023
Miyazaki’s first film in 10 years proves that he’s still a master of the medium. And if it’s his last film, it’s a fine one to go out on. Read full review
80
Vanity FairRichard LawsonSep 8, 2023
The emotional punch of The Boy and the Heron is a heart-swelling assertion of cosmic purpose, even amidst sadness and ruin. But it’s delivered after a lot of digression, which can make this swan-song film seem like more a collection of Miyazaki’s disparate, previously unused ideas than a discrete film with a focused mission. Read full review
80
Screen DailyTim GriersonSep 7, 2023
Drawing from elements of his own childhood, Miyazaki has dreamed up a fantastical environment in which anything seems possible — including the potential to remake oneself. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreDec 12, 2023
This grand curtain call is a much better gateway film for inspiring new fans of the undisputed master of his art form to dig into his back catalog and visit the striking and distinct worlds he dreamed up over his legendary sixty year career. Read full review
70
VarietyPeter DebrugeSep 7, 2023
Better to think of The Boy and the Heron as the bonus round — a worthy but mid-range addition to a remarkable oeuvre that expands his filmography without necessarily topping it. Read full review
60
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeDec 24, 2023
The lush orchestral score, by regular Miyazaki collaborator Joe Hisaishi, is shimmering and exultant. All the elements are in place. So it seems almost churlish to note that this is middling Miyazaki at best. Read full review
60
Wall Street JournalKyle SmithDec 8, 2023
The Boy and the Heron, while typically bursting with imaginative elements, is also narratively tangled and a bit confusing, and falls far short of Mr. Miyazaki’s best work. Read full review
60
The GuardianRadheyan SimonpillaiSep 8, 2023
The Boy and the Heron is a gentler and slower though no less soulful addition to his canon. Read full review
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