My Neighbor Totoro 

Masterpieces from Studio Ghibli Full Festival Schedule

My Neighbor Totoro (1988) was the second official Studio Ghibli film and is easily the most beloved of all of Miyazaki’s works. A quiet film set in the early 1950s, it depicts a Japanese family that moves to the countryside so the mother can recover from tuberculosis in a sanitorium. In their new country home, the two young girls discover a trio of magical tree spirits called Totoros, who take them on small adventures. In the process, the girls are exposed to the wonders of the natural world, even as the potential loss of their mother hovers in the background. The late film critic Roger Ebert called Totoro “one of the five greatest family films ever made.” Starring the voice talents of Dakota Fanning (Satsuki), Elle Fanning (Mei), Tim Daly (the father), and Lea Salonga (the mother).
Watch the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaLISMAGdOE
86 minutes; G

Tickets and full-festival passes will be available online and at the admission desk beginning July 10.

All film screenings will be held in the Modern's auditorium. Tickets are $10; $8 for Friend-level Modern members; $7 for Associate-level Modern members and above. Cinephiles who plan to enjoy the weekend’s entire selection of films will receive a discount for pre-purchasing all of their tickets at once. 

Welcome to the Modern’s film festival, Masterpieces from Studio Ghibli. This year we are excited to feature an all-Ghibli festival showcasing five films from the animation masters who founded the studio—Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata—along with two versions of the live-action staging of Spirited Away in Tokyo. A highlight of our program is The Boy and the Heron, this year’s winner of the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film.

All films in the Masterpieces from Studio Ghibli Film Festival will be introduced by Dr. Marc Hairston, a research scientist at the University of Texas at Dallas. A professional space physicist, part-time anime scholar, and Fort Worth native, Hairston has hosted annual Japanese animation festivals at the Modern since 2012. He is one of the founding editors of Mechademia, the first academic journal focused on anime and manga studies and has written numerous scholarly articles about anime. With Dr. Pamela Gossin, also at UT Dallas, he has co-authored two books about anime and manga aimed at high-school-age readers, Cultural Guide to Anime and Manga (2023) and Exploring Anime and Manga (World of Art) (2024).