The Boy and the Heron

The Boy and the Heron (2023) — watch online on iFILM. Hayao Miyazaki's return to feature filmmaking after a decade-long retirement, produced by Studio Ghibli in Japan. Runtime: 124 minutes. The original Japanese title, 君たちはどう生きるか, translates as "How Do You Live?"

It's 1944. After his mother dies in a Tokyo fire, twelve-year-old Mahito moves to a rural estate where his father has remarried — to the mother's own sister. A grey heron begins circling him with an impossible claim: it knows where to find her. Mahito follows the bird through a gateway into a realm where the boundary between the living and the dead has simply dissolved. Voice cast includes Soma Santoki, Masaki Suda, and Takuya Kimura.

The film won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature at the 2024 Oscars, Miyazaki's first directing win in that category. Stream The Boy and the Heron online on iFILM.