Paste Magazine's The 100 Best Anime Movies of All Time (2023 Update)

2004 film by Masaaki Yuasa

As a young boy, Xu-Xian is forced to free his pet, a small snake. Unbeknownst to him, the snake is actually a young snake goddess named Bai-Niang and she is in love with him. Many years later, when they are both adults, the princess is magically transformed into a human and sets out to find her love. But the local wizard believes her to be a vampire, and banishes Xu-Xian from the village in order to save him. Xu-Xian's pet pandas Panda and Mimi set out to save him and bring him, in the process becoming leaders of an animal gang.

Jubei is a masterless ninja who travels the land alone, lending his services to those with gold—or a worthy cause. His fearsome abilities have served him well, but a plot to overthrow the government threatens to end his wandering ways—and possibly his life.

In this anime anthology, a salvage ship crew happens upon a haunted vessel in "Magnetic Rose"; a cold tablet turns a lab worker into a biological weapon in "Stink Bomb"; and an urban populace carries on an endless war with an unseen foe in "Cannon Fodder."

After a global war, the seaside kingdom known as the Valley of the Wind remains one of the last strongholds on Earth untouched by a poisonous jungle and the powerful insects that guard it. Led by the courageous Princess Nausicaä, the people of the Valley engage in an epic struggle to restore the bond between humanity and Earth.

In lyrical switches between the present and the past, Taeko contemplates the arc of her life, and wonders if she has been true to the dreams of her childhood self.

2006 film by Michael Arias

1991 film by Hiroyuki Kitakubo

1984 film by Mamoru Oshii

High schoolers Mitsuha and Taki are complete strangers living separate lives. But one night, they suddenly switch places. Mitsuha wakes up in Taki’s body, and he in hers. This bizarre occurrence continues to happen randomly, and the two must adjust their lives around each other.

2003 film directed by Satoshi Kon

A young witch, on her mandatory year of independent life, finds fitting into a new community difficult while she supports herself by running an air courier service.

2018 film directed by Mamoru Hosoda

1988 film by Yoshiyuki Tomino

An anthology of various tales told in various styles with robots being the one common element among them.

The plot follows Mimiko, a bright little girl left alone when her grandmother leaves on a trip. Making a few stops at some local stores, Mimiko comes home to her house in a bamboo grove and finds a baby panda named Panny sleeping on the back doorstep. She quickly makes friends with the little panda, and invites him in for a drink. His father, PapaPanda, soon comes to visit, and they decide to become a family after PapaPanda offers to.

In a utopian society created at the end of the third world war, a female warrior who has been plucked from the badlands begins to see cracks in this new facade. And what does this community have planned for the rest of humankind?

A young boy and a girl with a magic crystal must race against pirates and foreign agents in a search for a legendary floating castle.

In a far-future time ruled by the supernatural, a young girl requests the help of a vampire hunter to kill the vampire who has bitten her and thus prevent her from becoming a vampire herself.

Four talented alien musicians are kidnapped by a record producer who disguises them as humans. Shep, a space pilot in love with bass player Stella, follows them to Earth. Reprogrammed to forget their real identities and renamed The Crescendolls, the group quickly becomes a huge success playing soulless corporate pop. At a concert, Shep manages to free all the musicians except Stella, and the band sets out to rediscover who they really are — and to rescue Stella.