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Japanimation legend Hayao Miyazaki came out of retirement to create The Boy and the Heron, the 2023 film that won him an Oscar and his first Golden Globe award.
The Studio Ghibli founder’s animated film is now available to stream on-demand at Max and centers on Mahito, a young boy who “ventures to a fantastical realm to find his missing stepmother.” In his review, THR’s David Rooney writes that Miyazaki drew “from formative childhood memories to reflect with dizzying flourishes of fantasy on loss and legacy, on finding peace and even comfort in sadness and holding tight to one’s sense of self in a life inevitably destined to slip in and out of chaos.”
The Boy and the Heron premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 2023 and won best animated feature at the 2024 Academy Awards. The English voice cast includes Christian Bale, Dave Bautista, Gemma Chan, Willem Dafoe, Karen Fukuhara, Mark Hamill, Robert Pattinson, Florence Pugh, Luca Padovan and more.
Read on below to watch the trailer and find out where to stream The Boy and the Heron online, including for free.
How to Watch The Boy and the Heron Online
The Boy and the Heron is now streaming exclusively on Max in the U.S. (Outside the United States, the film is available on Netflix.) Max subscriptions cost at $9.99 per month with ads (or $99.99 per year with annual billing), $16.99 monthly (or $169.99 per year) for the Ad-Free package or $20.99 ($209.99 per year) for the Ultimate Ad-Free tier.
Max includes access to Emmy-winning and awards-nominated HBO original series such as Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon, The Last of Us, Succession, Euphoria, The Gilded Age, The Sopranos, The Wire and many others. Some of the best Max deals include the new Disney+, Hulu and Max bundle for $16.99 per month with ads or $29.99 monthly without ads.
At the moment, Max doesn’t offer a free trial. However, cord-cutters can find one of the best deals on Max by adding the streamer to an existing subscription to DirecTV, which is offering a free two-month trial to Max for a limited time. Learn more here.
Those without a Max subscription can buy The Boy and the Heron on digital for $19.99 on Prime Video and Apple TV.
Where to Watch Studio Ghibli Films Online
Artist and filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki co-founded Studio Ghibli in 1985, and all of the Japanese animation company’s titles are available to watch online at Max. The Warner Bros. Discovery-owned streamer’s library includes My Neighbor Totoro, Ponyo, Ocean Waves, The Wind Rises, Kiki’s Delivery Service and more.
