Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind

Spirited Away may have made anime icon Hayao Miyazaki a household name internationally, but he made his first truly great film 17 years earlier with 1984’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Influenced by the European and American fantasy epic writers he so admired like J.R.R. Tolkien and Ursula K. Le Guin, Miyazaki formed a world millennia past environmental collapse, where humans are dwarfed by giant insects and living in harmony with nature has become a perilous endeavor. Spectacle and heart meld in this true landmark of Japanese cinema. If you only ever saw the horrifically dubbed and butchered Warriors of the Wind cut as a kid, here’s a chance to walk among its rippling fields of gold the way Miyazaki meant. – Richard Whittaker