Grave of the Fireflies is Isao Takahata's 1988 animated drama about two siblings orphaned during the final months of World War II in Japan, and it rewards anyone willing to sit with a genuinely devastating story rather than the whimsical reputation most people associate with its studio.
It's often filed away as one of the studio's sad ones, recommended in passing and then avoided, when it's closer in intent to a wartime memoir than a fantasy: Takahata adapted Akiyuki Nosaka's semi-autobiographical short story, and the film treats its two children with the gravity of a war record rather than a fable.
Takahata directs with real patience, refusing to soften the daily mechanics of hunger and loss the way a more commercial version of this story would, which is part of why it still holds a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes decades after release.
It's streaming on Netflix now, best watched in one sitting with your full attention.
