Hayao Miyazaki's 1986 debut for Studio Ghibli follows orphans Sheeta and Pazu as a government agent, the army and a band of air pirates all chase the crystal pendant that unlocks Laputa, a legendary castle adrift above the clouds. It underperformed on release but has since become a Ghibli staple, prized for its nineteenth-century-engineered flying machines and Joe Hisaishi's score.
A stolen dream-sharing device lets a psychologist's alter ego, the detective Paprika, chase a saboteur through other people's nightmares. Satoshi Kon's 2006 feature, adapted from Yasutaka Tsutsui's novel, folds one dream into another until the seams between them disappear.
Pom Poko follows a colony of shapeshifting tanuki in the hills outside Tokyo as they organize, and ultimately fail, to stop a suburban development project from destroying their forest home across three decades. Isao Takahata wrote and directed for Studio Ghibli, drawing on Japanese bake-danuki folklore and crediting several folklorists and illustrators for the tanuki's designs and lore. The film topped Japan's box office in 1994, taking in ¥4.47 billion, and won the Grand Prix at Annecy the following year.