The Castle of Cagliostro · reception & legacy

1979 · Hayao Miyazaki

How The Castle of Cagliostro has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

A modest box-office performer for a Lupin III entry in 1979, it was slowly rehabilitated through Japanese TV airings and Miyazaki's later fame into a perennial favourite — now routinely called the best Lupin film and an essential piece of pre-Ghibli history.

What's debated

The eternal fan fight: it's the best Lupin the Third *movie* but arguably the least Lupin the Third *Lupin* — even creator Monkey Punch said Miyazaki's gallant gentleman-thief wasn't really his character.

Its footprint

The opening Fiat 500 car chase is animation-nerd scripture, endlessly clipped and studied, and a Spielberg quote praising it — never actually sourced — has circulated for decades as part of the film's legend. Its clock-tower climax echoes through later animation, most famously Disney's The Great Mouse Detective.

Where it stands

The 'Ghibli film before Ghibli' — a rite-of-passage watch for anyone working backwards through Miyazaki, and a fixture of Letterboxd completionist marathons.

★ Did you know? The animators of Disney's The Great Mouse Detective (1986) acknowledged Cagliostro's clock-tower finale as an inspiration for their own Big Ben climax — American animation borrowing from Miyazaki years before most of the West knew his name.

Named by the director

Influences Hayao Miyazaki has publicly named — the director's own word, distinct from the inferred lines of influence.

The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep (1952) — Miyazaki cited Paul Grimault's vertical castle fantasy as a formative influence, an inspiration long acknowledged in Cagliostro's tower-topped castle.
Paul Grimault — Miyazaki has repeatedly named the French animator as a key early influence on his idea of what animated features could be.