Annual Top Films Lists

Top 200 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2023: #24. Hayao Miyazaki’s How Do You Live?

Published on January 18, 2023

How Do You Live?

In the end, The Wind Rises was not the film that would see Hayao Miyazaki hang up his brush. In production since 2016, How Do You Live? crossed the finish line and set up a July release just after the launch of Ghibli Park. The film depicts the psychological growth of a teenage boy through interactions with his friends and uncle. This is adapted from the 2017 manga by Haga Shōichi, itself based on the famed 1937 children’s story by Yoshino Genzaburo.

Gist: Honda Junichi is a middle school aged boy who begins a lengthy exchange of letters with his uncle following the death of his father, which challenge the boy to embrace the unexpected.

Release Date/Prediction: The film gods are pointing to a Cannes showing. This could be a competition film. This is receiving a domestic (Japan) drop in July.

Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).