Max, Please Just Let Us Stream This Year’s Best Animated Feature Over and Over to Our Heart’s Content

The Boy and the Heron nabbed this year’s Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, meaning Hayao Miyazaki is now two for four in the category after previously winning for Spirited Away and garnering two other nominations with The Wind Rises and Howl’s Moving Castle.

And while Best Animated Feature winners are less likely to draw a new swath of viewers than their live-action counterparts (especially since even the tamest Ghibli enthusiasts have probably long since tuned in to Miyazaki’s latest), that doesn’t mean there won’t be plenty of eyes and ears on the hunt for a streaming release date.

With that in mind, exactly when can we expect The Boy and the Heron to roll up to Max, where all Studio Ghibli films settle after a turn on the big screen?

When will The Boy and the Heron be released on Max?

While there’s currently no concrete date for The Boy and the Heron‘s streaming release, it’s effectively written in the stars that it will show up on Max for those of you in the United States when it does arrive. The streamer signed a multi-year licensing deal in 2020, gaining exclusive rights to Studio Ghibli’s storied library of animated works.

As for a rough estimate, it’s worth noting that it’s been quite some time since December 8, 2023, when The Boy and the Heron hit North American theaters. We’ve just recently passed the fairly standard 90-day window so (fingers crossed) a streaming release shouldn’t be terribly far off at this point.

Ultimately, we’ll just have to wait until more concrete information becomes available to get the full picture. But especially after The Boy and the Heron‘s aforementioned Oscar win the other night, it would be a wise move to capitalize on this awards season hype and a streaming announcement is perhaps the best move that Max and Ghibli have right now.

(featured image: Studio Ghibli)