Every Makoto Shinkai Movie of This Century, Ranked Worst to Best

Few anime directors today carry the kind of weight Makoto Shinkai does. Since the early 2000s, he’s built a body of work defined by longing, distance, and impossibly beautiful skies, turning teenage heartbreak into something that feels almost cosmic in scale.

What started as a one-man passion project with a dream has grown into a filmography capable of shaking the global box office. Not every entry hits the same emotional peak, though, and some early experiments show a director still finding his voice. So, here’s how every Makoto Shinkai movie released this century stacks up.

9 Voices of a Distant Star: A Mecha Tale of Cosmic Longing

Shinkai’s first real feature-length story, Voices of a Distant Star, is the rawest showcase of his style: two people kept apart by unbridgeable distance, communicating through messages that take longer and longer to arrive.

The fact that Shinkai animated much of it essentially alone on his computer remains staggering. However, the mecha-battle framing feels weird next to the emotional elements, and the pacing shows the limits of a lone creator working without a full studio behind him.

Where to Watch (USA): NA

8 Someone’s Gaze Packs Loss and Family Into 6 Minutes

This is a short animated movie rather than a full feature, which makes it easier to overlook. In just a handful of minutes, Shinkai sketches a story about a girl processing grief and the quiet, complicated bond she shares with her father.

There’s no space here for the disaster themes he’d later become known for. Just small gestures, a warm color palette, and emotions that linger well past the runtime. It ranks low mostly because there’s so little of it to sink into, but as a piece of concentrated emotion, it’s a reminder that Shinkai doesn’t need scale to land a good story.

Where to Watch (USA): NA

7 Sci-Fi Meets Romance in The Place Promised in Our Early Days

Shinkai’s first true theatrical feature, The Place Promised in Our Early Days, was very ambitious: an alternate Japan split between two occupying powers, a mysterious tower visible from miles away, and two boys chasing both a girl and a dream of flight.

However, the story struggles to balance its political themes with its central romance, and the pacing drags in the back half. It’s an admirable step forward – the moment Shinkai proved he could sustain a full story, even if he hadn’t yet learned how to make every element of it perfect.

Where to Watch (USA): Prime Video

6 Children Who Chase Lost Voices Shows Shinkai Finding His Style

Often described as Shinkai’s most Miyazaki-influenced work, Children Who Chase Lost Voices sends its young protagonist into an underground fantasy realm in search of a way to reunite with someone she’s lost, which itself sounds like something straight out of Ghibli. In fact, many fans compare this movie to The Boy and the Heron itself.

It’s a fun detour, but it also feels like the film where Shinkai was still figuring out which parts of his sensibility to lean into. The intimate, quietly devastating storytelling that defines his best work gets a little lost amid the fantasy world here.

Where to Watch (USA): Prime Video

5 5 Centimeters Per Second Is Among the Saddest Films Ever

5 Centimeters Per Second is where Shinkai’s signature style starts blooming properly. This film follows a boy and girl whose childhood closeness slowly, achingly dissolves under the weight of distance, time, and other people (the very same theme that he was experimenting with in Voices of a Distant Star).

There’s no dramatic disaster other than a snowstorm, no fantastical hook – just the quiet, devastating truth that people drift apart, even when they don’t want to. The train station sequence alone has become one of the most referenced moments in the modern anime landscape for a reason. It’s not ranked higher only because its deliberately muted, melancholic tone can feel like a tough watch without the emotional highs that can be seen in his later films.

Where to Watch (USA): Prime Video

4 The Garden of Words: A Short Romantic Masterpiece

Clocking in under an hour, The Garden of Words is proof that Shinkai’s talent doesn’t need a huge runtime to leave a good impression. A teenage boy and an older woman keep crossing paths in a garden every time it rains, and what unfolds between them is tender, restrained, and quietly complicated.

The animation in this movie – particularly the rain itself – is some of the most gorgeous work of his career, turning a simple park bench into something that feels sacred. It’s compact, focused, and confident in a way his earlier films weren’t quite yet, making it rank this high.

Where to Watch (USA): HIDIVE

3 Suzume Is Among the Most Beautiful Anime Ever Made

Shinkai closes out his so-called disaster trilogy with Suzume, which is a road-trip story about a teenage girl, a sentient chair, and doors scattered across Japan that must be sealed before catastrophe follows. It’s his most visually ambitious film yet, hopping between real, lovingly rendered locations across the country while weaving in an undercurrent of grief tied to national tragedy.

The emotional core – a girl reckoning with loss she’s spent years running from – hits harder the longer it sits with you. It just barely misses the top spot because its plot machinery occasionally overshadows the intimate character work that makes Shinkai’s best films so effective.

Where to Watch (USA): Crunchyroll

2 Weathering With You Nails Coming-Of-Age Romance

Weathering With You follows a runaway teenager and a girl who can manipulate the weather in a gorgeously rendered Tokyo in the rain. What makes it stand out is its willingness to let its young leads make a selfish, romantic choice and stand by it, refusing the easy, self-sacrificing resolution most films would reach for.

It’s messier and more morally ambiguous than Shinkai’s other work, and that’s exactly what makes it so compelling. The visuals are relentlessly stunning, the soundtrack is unforgettable, and the central relationship feels genuinely earned by the time the credits roll.

Where to Watch (USA): HBO Max

1 Your Name Remains Makoto Shinkai’s Best Film

The outcome happens to be not so surprising, as Your Name is the best movie Shinkai has ever created. Two strangers swapping bodies across time and space sounds like a simple premise, but the way it unfolds is nothing short of masterful.

Every element clicks into place here: the animation, the score, the aching sense of two people fighting to find each other against impossible odds. It’s the perfect culmination of everything Shinkai had been building toward across his earlier films. It went on to make over $350 million worldwide (as per Box Office Mojo) and became the highest-grossing anime film at the time as well. So, more than anything else on this ranking, it earns every bit of its reputation as a modern anime classic.

Where to Watch (USA): HBO Max

Which of these is your personal favorite? Let us know in the comments.