6 top award-winning anime films on Netflix to watch

In This Corner of the World

The pastel-colored, storybook 2D animation is a signature feature of anime writer and director Sunao Katabuchi, most known for the films Mai Mai Miracle and Kiki’s Delivery Service. In This Corner of the World is set in the 1930s to 1940s in Hiroshima and Kure in Japan, roughly 10 years before and after the atomic bomb. While the film is a confirmed fictitious story, the official guidebook of the film (in print) notes that parts of the film are based on facts and real incidents of pre-war Hiroshima.

In This Corner of the World follows the years of a young woman artist named Suzu, who lives in a coastal town called Eba near Hiroshima. She and her family are visited by a young man named Shusaku who met Suzu when they were both children and expresses his desire to marry her.

Suzu agrees and moves out to Shuzaku’s hometown Kure, which is a large naval port city. While Suzu seems to just be getting started settling into her new life, the Pacific War begins to make its way to their town and little by little, Suzu’s peaceful and happy world starts to crumble.

Food shortages, air raids, and emergency evacuations become Suzu’s new normal while she waits for her Shusaku to return from the war. In the midst of helping other wives with food distribution and refashioning kimonos for efficiency during evacuations, Katabuchi’s story focuses on Suzu’s struggle to maintain joy in such darkness while nature and culture are contrasted in the film against the terror of war.

In This Corner of the World is unique among our list of award-winning anime films on Netflix to watch as it has won more than 50 awards worldwide since it was released in 2016.