10 best Makoto Shinkai anime movies to watch

Makoto Shinkai has emerged as one of the anime industry’s most prominent directors. Known for animated films rich in emotional depth, imaginative visuals, and bittersweet themes, Shinkai has garnered both critical and commercial success.

Over the past two decades, his body of work exhibits evolution in creative voice paired with refinement of style. Makoto Shinkai anime movies often focus on distance, impermanence, and human connectivity. He uses vivid colors and detail to tell personal stories with universal appeal.

As anime’s preeminent auteur for capturing complicated feelings between people and within individuals, Shinkai’s filmography offers profound emotional catharsis. If you’re looking to get into Shinkai’s filmography or relive some of his best works, here are 10 of Makoto Shinkai anime movies that you should definitely watch.

10 must-watch Makoto Shinkai anime films

1) Your Name

Your Name is arguably Shinkai’s most popular and breakthrough film, propelling his work to mainstream success around the world. Released in 2016, it tells an ingenious body-swap story between a high school boy named Taki in Tokyo and a high school girl named Mitsuha in rural Japan.

When a mysterious connection causes them to start randomly switching bodies, they set out to meet in person. Your Name’s stunning visuals bring the rural-urban divide of Japan to life. Shinkai employs magical realism to craft a moving narrative about yearning and the inexorable force of time.

Enhanced by RADWIMPS’ evocative music score, the story's emotional payoffs in the final act never fail to induce tears. No anime fan’s watchlist is complete without this modern classic.

2) Weathering With You

Weathering With You (Image via CoMix Wave Films)

Fresh off the immense success of Your Name, Shinkai decided to explore similar supernatural themes in 2019’s Weathering With You.

This film focuses on Hodaka, a high school runaway who takes refuge in rain-soaked Tokyo. There, he meets a mysterious orphan girl named Hina, who has the power to control the weather. As Hina uses her powers to bring sunshine for money, Hodaka sees a way for them to build a life together.

However, they soon realize her sunny days have catastrophic environmental consequences. This Makoto Shinkai anime poignantly examines love in the face of unstoppable external hardships with Shinkai’s signature visual style.

3) Suzume

Shinkai’s latest anime film is the magical adventure Suzume, released theatrically in November 2022 in Japan.

The movie follows the titular Suzume, a 17-year-old girl living in quiet Kyushu, who embarks on a journey to close various doors that are opening across Japan, threatening to unleash destruction on the world. Along the way, Suzume encounters troubled individuals coping with loss, longing, and apathy.

As she travels across vividly detailed Japanese locales, each infused with mysterious ruins, she comes to understand what it means to truly connect with other people. Suzume delivers all the emotional impact you expect from a Makoto Shinkai work with imaginative worldbuilding.

4) 5 Centimeters per Second

5 Centimeters per Second (Image via CoMix Wave Inc.)

Before his two biggest hits, Shinkai made a notable debut with 2007’s poetic drama 5 Centimeters per Second. Split into distinct “chapters” depicting stages of life, the movie chronicles the story of two childhood friends and classmates, Takaki and Akari, who are separated when Akari’s family moves from Tokyo to Tochigi prefecture.

As the years pass, with their occasional letters and brief reunions, their promise to meet again as adults gradually slips further away. 5 Centimeters per Second is a minimalist meditation on how time, distance, and circumstances reshape people’s lives and adolescent dreams.

This early Makoto Shinkai anime captures intense emotions through impactful visual details.

5) The Garden of Words

The Garden of Words (Image via CoMix Wave Films)

Shinkai brings subtlety and delicacy to his 2013 romantic drama The Garden of Words, which focuses on two lonely, ostracized souls. When 15-year-old student Takao seeks solace in a quiet park on rainy mornings, he meets the mysterious Yukari Yukino, who is similarly escaping her own life problems.

As rain brings them together repeatedly, they bond through intimate conversations over their setbacks. Shinkai uses soft pastel hues in this 46-minute film to explore emotional shelters, as well as society’s judgments about age and dreams, through Takao and Yukino’s tender relationship.

6) Voices of a Distant Star

Voices of a Distant Star (Image via CoMix Wave Inc.)

Before breaking through commercially, Makoto Shinkai created the 25-minute short Voices of a Distant Star in 2002, largely by himself with some assistance, including voice acting. This emotional short serves as his first complete vision.

The story follows junior high school friends Mikako and Noboru as Mikako is sent to fight invading aliens across the galaxy. Separated by lightyears, Mikako’s text messages to Noboru exhibit ever longer delays until communication becomes impossible.

It is a raw, heartbreaking take on time dilation and growing distance seeded with themes that Shinkai would later master.

7) Children Who Chase Lost Voices

Children Who Chase Lost Voices (Image via CoMix Wave Films)

Makoto Shinkai fully embraced fantasy storytelling in his 2011 film Children Who Chase Lost Voices. This film centers on Asuna, a young girl who embarks on a quest for renewal and closure when a mysterious boy leads her to the magical realm of Agartha after a strange encounter.

As Asuna navigates Agartha’s charms and dangers, alongside both old and new companions, she confronts her lingering feelings about her family bonds. This parallel world, filled with possibility, helps her process grief and undergo the maturation central to her journey.

Children Who Chase Lost Voices represents Shinkai branching out to a full magical setting for meaningful character development rather than just magic realism elements. The film showcases his creative versatility, with a sincere and impactful core, despite being less focused than his later works.

8) The Place Promised in Our Early Days

The Place Promised in Our Early Days (Image via CoMix Wave Inc.)

Before 5 Centimeters per Second, Makoto Shinkai directed his first full theatrical feature with 2004’s The Place Promised in Our Early Days.

Set in an alternate history where Japan is split between the Union-controlled North and American-aligned South, childhood friends Hiroki and Takuya try to build an aircraft to fly into the Union-controlled territory to reach a mysterious looming tower.

However, as their project and friendship falter amid this divide, they get tangled up years later with another friend, Sayuri, in connection to the tower. This drama is a quintessential Shinkai narrative about growing up, time’s passage, and distance tempered by sci-fi and political intrigue.

9) She and Her Cat

She and Her Cat (Image via Shinkai Creative)

Makoto Shinkai’s very first publicly released work, created in 1999, was a five-minute short film titled She and Her Cat. The entire story is told from the perspective of Chobi, a cat who observes his owner as she putters around her small apartment, the woman Chobi loves with feline devotion.

It follows Chobi through moments of affection, indifference, and even pain, as he remains loyal despite challenges. Shinkai employs a sharply intimate viewpoint, framed by everyday routines, to craft surprising emotional depth around unconditional love.

As his inaugural animation directly presented to audiences, She and Her Cat overflows with the hallmarks Shinkai would later amplify across full films, from the slicing simplicity of the setup to the melancholy aspects that give such weight even to pure affection.

10) Someone’s Gaze

Someone’s Gaze (Image via CoMix Wave Films)

Shinkai’s short film Someone’s Gaze was released in 2013. The nearly seven-minute short is a vignette about a young woman living independently and her relationship with her aging father.

The film follows their separate lives, unspoken feelings, and the connections they maintain through memories and their family cat. It explores themes of family bonds and the passage of time.

In addition to the seeds of profound themes to develop further, this short displays Shinkai’s honed eye for detailed urban visuals as well as narrative techniques for imbuing melancholy into mundane moments that would only grow in impact.

Conclusion

Makoto Shinkai anime movies over the past two decades showcase a stunning evolution as a creator, conveying emotional depth through animation. From his early shorts to crossover hits like Your Name, his works unite resonant stories about distance, time, growth, and longing with meticulously painted visuals.

For anime fans, exploring films like 5 Centimeters per Second, Children Who Chase Lost Voices, or his breakout commercial work Your Name offers a window into the development of a master director. Shinkai's bittersweet, moving tales continue to capture the hearts of viewers as he creates new films.