Top 250

Hauru No Ugoku Shiro (2004)
Number 241 on IMDb's Top 250

Young Sophie Hatter is cursed by the Witch of the Waste, and turns into an old hag. Ashamed of how she looks, she flees into the hills where she finds shelter in a moving castle roams the hills. It is said to belong to the young and handsome wizard Howl, who has a bad reputation, he gets young beautiful girls to love him and he then devours their heart. Within the castle, Sophie befriends the fire demon Calcifer, who promises to help her become young again. One catch: she must help Calcifer to be free of Howl, whom he has a contract with, and Calcifer cannot tell her how. However, Sophie agrees to stay and try to find out about the contract through other ways. Still, Howl can see that Sophie is under a spell like Calcifer can, and he falls in love with her for who she is and not for what she looks like. Sophie manages to bring life to the moving castle, and she helps Howl to face his former tutor, Madam Suliman. Hilarity ensues.

Trivia: Loosely based on the novel by Diana Wynne Jones. The character Pazu, from Miyazaki's Castle in the Sky, can be seen running in front of the Wizard Jenkins' door.

Hayao Miyazaki is an amazing artist and director. All of his movies are full of bright, vivid characters, magical situations, fantastical flying machines, and very strong female characters. Howl's Moving Castle is no exception. He also does something very cool, in my opinion, with the character of Sophie. Sophie starts out as a pretty young girl of around 18 who thinks she isn't pretty. The Witch of the Waste curses her and she turns into an old maid of about 70. The interesting thing is that Miyazaki could have left her as the old hag until the curse was lifted, but he didn't, each scene she is in (an she is the main character so she is pretty much in all of them) in each scene she looks like a different age depending on her mood or circumstances. As she starts to fall in love with Howl, she starts to look younger, when she is asleep, she is her true age, when something stressful happens where she starts to doubt herself, she starts to look older. Truly amazing. It was a good movie.