GKIDS and Fathom Entertainment have unveiled a seven-film Studio Ghibli Fest 2026 slate for US theatres, running June through October with Ponyo, Princess Mononoke in 4K and a 25th-anniversary Spirited Away.
GKIDS and Fathom Entertainment announced the Studio Ghibli Fest 2026 theatrical slate at CinemaCon in Las Vegas on April 16, locking in seven Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli classics for US cinemas between June and October. The yearly retrospective returns with a mix of milestone anniversaries, a 4K remaster and a rarely screened Isao Takahata drama.
The festival opens on June 13-17 with Ponyo (2008), followed by My Neighbor Totoro (1988) on July 11-15. August is the densest month, with the 20th anniversary of Tales from Earthsea (2006) on August 8-10, the 35th anniversary of Only Yesterday (1991) on August 9-11, and the 40th anniversary of Castle in the Sky (1986) on August 22-26.
The back half of the festival is built around two of Ghibli's most recognisable titles. Princess Mononoke (1997) screens in a newly 4K-remastered version on September 26-30, and Spirited Away (2001) closes the run on October 17-21 to mark the Oscar-winning film's 25th anniversary. Every title will play in both English dub and Japanese subtitled presentations, a format the festival has used for each of its previous editions.
Fathom Entertainment CEO Ray Nutt described the festival as one of the exhibitor's most durable programming blocks, saying in the joint announcement that Studio Ghibli Fest "endures every year by offering some of the most consistently popular programming Fathom brings to theatres." GKIDS president David Jesteadt framed the 2026 line-up around its archival picks, calling it a year of "milestone anniversaries, rarely screened classics, and some of the greatest animated filmmaking."
Tickets go on sale May 15 through FathomEntertainment.com, GhibliFest.com and participating theatre box offices. The lineup tips noticeably toward older library titles this year; unlike the 2025 edition, there is no Hayao Miyazaki feature making its festival debut, with the slate instead leaning on 4K restorations and anniversary programming to anchor the calendar.
The inclusion of Only Yesterday is the most notable deep-cut selection. Takahata's 1991 drama only received a proper US theatrical release in 2016, a quarter-century after its Japanese debut, and it has seldom returned to American screens since. Tales from Earthsea, directed by Goro Miyazaki and based on the Ursula K. Le Guin novels, is similarly one of the least-screened Ghibli features in the West and gets a compact three-day window for its 20th anniversary.
The announcement covers US theatrical distribution only, and neither GKIDS nor Fathom handles Indian exhibition. Indian viewers continue to access most of the Ghibli catalogue through Netflix, which holds streaming rights to the library outside the US, Canada and Japan. A separate theatrical pathway in India would require a local distributor deal, and none has been announced alongside the 2026 Fest.
With ticketing opening in mid-May and the first screenings four weeks later, Ponyo's mid-June run will be the first indicator of whether the catalogue-heavy 2026 slate can match the box-office pace Ghibli Fest set during its 2025 cycle.
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