“Probably better than any Disney”: Spielberg loves this animated film

Steven Spielberg has made only one animated film out of nearly 40 feature films he has made. The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn allowed him to try his hand at combining computer animation and performance capture, with visual results that were quite stunning at the time.

Although he has almost never attempted animation as a director, Steven Spielberg is the co-founder of Dreamworks, a company that specializes in animation. He has often innovated in this field, in particular by financing Les Animaniacs and Minus et Cortex, but also feature films such as Balto, The Various Adventures of Fievel, Little Dinosaur and The Valley of the Wonders or Shrek.

Based on this experience as a producer, the Jurassic Park director shared what he considers to be one of the greatest animated films of all time. A comic book):

I especially admire Miyazaki’s world, his storytelling skills, and his taste. His Spirited Away is one of the best animated movies ever made, probably better than any Disney movie I’ve ever seen. He had a great influence.

Spirited Away follows the journey of a 10-year-old girl and her parents. A small family vacations in an abandoned theme park. Surprisingly, there is a party waiting for them there. Chihiro is suspicious, but not her parents, who were once fed up and became pigs. A young girl then finds herself alone in a complex fantasy world.

Considered one of the masters of the genre in Japan, Hayao Miyazaki has created several masterpieces, including Castle in the Sky, Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro or Ponyo on the Rock, and many others.

Pixar’s creative director at the time, John Lasseter, who also directed the first two Toy Story films and 1001 Paws itself, oversaw the film’s English dubbing, convinced Disney to release the film in the United States. It would eventually collect $10 million there and nearly $275 million internationally in its first release.

As a fine connoisseur of cinema as a whole, if Spielberg says that Hayao Miyazaki’s films are probably better than all of Disney’s feature films put together, he might be worth more than all of them!

And good news if you’re subscribed to Netflix, most of Miyazaki’s movies are there during these lines.