Castle in the Sky

120 minutes • 1986 • 8.0

Written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki,Castle in the Sky is an imaginative extrapolation of a reference in Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" to Laputa, an island town floating in the clouds above Balnibarbi. Miyazaki uses this to spin a modernist science fiction fable with a subtle ecological message that only emerges after a two-hour adventure in pure Indiana Jones style.

It's been more than thirty years since filmmakers Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata, and producer Toshio Suzuki, founded Studio Ghibl. Castle in the Sky was the very first film they produced after the company was established in 1985.