Hayao Miyazaki won his second Oscar for his movie “The Boy and the Heron” at the 96th Academy Awards in Los Angeles. This Japanese animated film is a fantasy story about a boy who is sad about his mom’s passing.
The movie got a lot of attention after winning a Golden Globe and a BAFTA award. When it came out in 2023, “The Boy and the Heron” was the top movie in North America, making $13 million at the box office.
Miyazaki, at 83, is known as one of the best animation directors worldwide. He’s made lots of movies with Studio Ghibli, which he co-founded in 1985 with Isao Takahata and Toshio Suzuki.
Even though Miyazaki retired, he returned to make “The Boy and the Heron.” In 2023, Studio Ghibli was sold to Nippon TV because he couldn’t find someone to take over the studio.
Miyazaki is still the most well-known Japanese animator in the west, winning many awards.
He won the best animated feature Oscar in 2003 for “Spirited Away” and got nominated two more times for “Howl’s Moving Castle” in 2006 and “The Wind Rises” in 2014.
He’s the oldest director ever nominated for this category and the oldest winner by more than two decades. This adds to a big year in Hollywood for older filmmakers.
Miyazaki and producer Toshio Suzuki’s win on Sunday wraps up a successful awards season for their movie. It won the top prize for an animated feature at the Golden Globes and the BAFTA Film Awards.
They couldn’t attend the awards ceremony, but Studio Ghibli’s Kiyofumi Nakajima read a statement from Suzuki backstage.
“Both Hayao Miyazaki and I have gotten quite old,” he said through a translator. “I am thankful to receive such an honor at my age. Taking this as a message to keep going, I will dedicate myself to working even harder in the future.”
About The Boy and the Heron
Three years into the war, Mahito Maki loses his mom in a fire at the hospital. His dad then marries Natsuko, Mahito’s mom’s younger sister.
They leave Tokyo and go to his mom’s old rural home. There, Mahito keeps getting teased by a strange gray heron who seems really interested in him.
Still sad about losing his mom and feeling lost in this new place, Mahito gets a big shock when he finds out Natsuko is going to have a baby.
To make things weirder, the heron can talk! It tells Mahito that his mom is alive and leads him to a mysterious tower nearby.
The heron says Mahito can save his mom, but Mahito isn’t sure. Then, one day, Natsuko disappears and walks into the tower.
Mahito decides he has to save her and goes inside. But as he explores, he finds himself in a whole new world below his own.
In this strange place, where life and death are mixed up, Mahito has to figure out what it really means to live if he wants to get back home safely.