The saddest movie ever made is coming to Netflix

While I was still in college, a local movie theater put on a Studio Ghibli Fest. I was a busy, broke student, so I just went to the only film on the list I had never seen before—Grave of the Fireflies.

I knew absolutely nothing about the movie except that it was not directed by Hayao Miyazaki but by Miyazaki’s mentor, Isao Takahata. The title should have clued me in, but imagine my surprise when the president of the university’s Japanese Club opened his introduction of the film with, “This is the saddest movie I’ve ever seen.”

Dear reader, he was correct. I have seen Schindler’s List, and Grave of the Fireflies is a heavy contender for the saddest movie ever made.

Anyway, Grave of the Fireflies is coming to Netflix on September 16, 2024. You absolutely need to watch it, sadness and all.

Why you need to watch Grave of the Fireflies

I’m so glad I went to that screening blind. I’m the type who has an incredibly tough time psyching myself up to watch sad things, so I likely would still have never seen Grave of the Fireflies had I known what was in store. This is actually rather common: I know many, many American adults—film buffs, even—who know they should watch Grave of the Fireflies, but just haven’t.

Contrast this with a discussion I had with a friend in Tokyo, where she told me that she and most people she knows watched Grave of the Fireflies when they were children. Like, before age 10.

Grave of the Fireflies is not your typical Studio Ghibli fantasy. It’s about two children struggling to survive in World War II Japan. The very first line of the film is the older brother, Seita, saying, “September 21, 1945. That was the night I died.” It’s a film whose runtime you spend finding out not whether these two children will die, but how they will die.

You find out quickly that the horrors of war only begin at firebombing. Grave of the Fireflies is based on a novel, the author of which lost his little sister during the war to starvation and malnutrition. With the world such as it is, the film’s sobering reminder that the effects of war stretch far beyond the battle itself is much warranted. It’s also undeniably Takahata’s masterwork.

Grave of the Fireflies is a film everyone should see at least once in their lifetime. You can use the newness of it coming onto Netflix as your impetus. I highly recommend it.