The best Ghibli movies to watch with a 2-year-old
Quarantining with a toddler isn’t always easy. When my daughter gets a meltdown while both my girlfriend and I are in a meeting, for example, or if she wants to say hi to all the people I have a Zoom call with. Fortunately, there’s still a laptop and a Netflix subscription that can entertain her — and me.
Indeed, there are a lot of movies on Netflix that can captivate not only my daughter, but me too. I’m of course not talking about Peppa Pig or Paw Patrol, but something much better: the Studio Ghibli movies. The animation studio, founded in 1985 by Hayao Miyazaki, among others, could easily be described as the Japanese Disney.
Since all 21 Ghibli movies arrived on Netflix in February, my daughter and I have watched 12 of those movies together. Because these films are often incorrectly rated 7+ by Netflix, it’s a bit hard to figure out which films are and which are not suitable for a child of two. Some of those films may not contain violence, but they cover very mature themes (Only Yesterday and Ocean Waves) or are just too weird (Castle in the Sky and Spirited Away).
These are the films that we both thoroughly enjoyed — of course in several viewing sessions:
