Film

SBS Is Playing 27 Hours Of Ghibli Movies This Weekend, So Cancel Every Single Plan You Have

by Joseph Earp  6 July 2019
Studio Ghibli movies are playing on SBS on Demand this weekend

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No matter what you’ve got planned for this weekend, it pales in comparison to what you could be doing. Thanks to SBS World Movies, you can now spend the rest of the weekend sitting back, cracking open some popcorn, and gorging on 27 straight hours of Studio Ghibli movies.

Sure, you could hang out with your friends, those flesh and blood human beings who lack Ponyo’s freewheeling spirit, Totoro’s sense of mischief, and Princess Mononoke’s warrior spirit. Sure, you could go out into the actual world, which contains no talking cats, witches, or perpetually stoned-looking cat buses. And sure, you could forge new connections with strangers and reaffirms old ones with family members — but literally none of that involves a mermaid who loves scarfing ham, so what precisely is the point meant to be?

Yep, determined to make sure that you don’t see sunlight until at least tomorrow evening, SBS’s new free-to-air channel SBS World Movies will be playing nothing but Ghibli movies — including many directed by the studio’s mastermind, Hayao Miyazaki — from 6am to 7:30pm today and tomorrow. That is a truly staggering amount of content from one of the very best animation studios in the entire world, making any other plan completely irrelevant.

The films played over that staggering 27-hour block include The Cat Returns, Kiki’s Delivery Service (Studio Ghibli’s best film, please do not @ me), Laputa: Castle In The Sky, Ponyo, The Secret World Of Arrietty, Howl’s Moving Castle, Mary and the Witch’s Flower, Spirited Away, Summer Wars, Tales From Earthsea, The Wind Rises, When Marnie Was, and The Red Turtle. If you have a single gap in your Ghibli knowledge, then now is certainly the time to fill it.

SBS World Movies is available on channel 443 and in HD on channel 442. If you need more information on how to find it, check out this handy article.