Amanda VanCleave, her 3-year-old daughter, and her own mother love watching films together in Austin, Texas. They are all big fans of the movies made by Studio Ghibli, a famous Japanese animation company. When the little girl sees the Totoro logo on the screen, she shouts "Totoro!" and the whole theater laughs. In July 2026, the three of them wore matching Totoro pajamas to watch "My Neighbor Totoro." "It's been our thing," VanCleave says.

The family goes to Ghibli Fest each year, an event that brings old movies back to theaters. It began in 2017 and has become a yearly tradition. Films like "Ponyo" return to cinemas again and again, sometimes decades after they first appeared. This year, "Princess Mononoke" is also coming back to theaters.

Surprisingly, the event keeps growing. In 2017, five films earned about $5 million (about 820 million yen). The biggest year was 2024, when 14 films made $16.4 million (about 2.69 billion yen). The number of theaters has also risen, from about 640 to more than 1,100. Sales went up even after the movies became available on HBO Max, a streaming service, in 2020.

Angela Lector is a longtime Ghibli fan. She loves seeing the films on the big screen. "Being in the theater is so much more fun than being on HBO Max," she says.