Spirited Away (Hayao Miyizaki, 2001) Winner: 2002 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature

Almost certainly the best-loved and most accessible films within the Studio Ghibli canon, Spirited Away, through its triumph at the 2002 Academy Awards (so far the only non-English animated feature to win in the category) awakened the Western world to the presence of Miyazaki's work and Japanese animation as a whole. Before long, the entire Studio Ghibli collection was being dubbed and released on DVD, to be seen by a much wider audience. And rightly so. The films of Studio Ghibli, and Miyazaki in particular, deserve to be viewed by as wide an audience as possible. And with it's rich detail, wild imagination and dark, complex themes, Spirited Away stands as one of the grandest achievements in the world of animated cinema. Far less violent and disturbing than other Ghibli classics such as Princess Mononoke, but more adult-friendly than the cutesy My Neighbour Totoro, Spirited Away tackles themes of youthful alienation, dislocation and loss of innocence, channelled through a magical folklore-ish narrative.

The story sees young girl Chihiro, miserable about moving to a different town, separated from her parents in a strange abandoned themepark. Upon relocating her parents and discovering they have been transformed into pigs by dark magic, Chihiro realises she is in deep trouble as night falls and the themepark comes alive with bizarre spirits. Discovered by morally-ambiguous Haku, Chihiro is put to work serving spirit-guests in what turns out to be, not a themepark, but a bathhouse. Encountering various odd and freakish characters, including devious witch Yubaba and her grotesque giant baby; a spider-like boiler room operator called Kamajii; and a silent, stalking shadow figure appropriately named No-Face, Chihiro eventually earns the respect and friendship of her spirit captors and sets out on a surreal journey to rescue her parents and unveil the true identity of the mysterious Haku.

The Japanese equivalent of Alice In Wonderland, Spirited Away is a classic in its own right. A refreshingly imaginative take on the coming-of-age story, Miyazaki's film, with its memorable characters, gorgeous illustrations and complex yet coherent narrative, is truly an Oscar-worthy film. Yet with only one of the four Ghibli films produced since Spirited Away receiving an Academy Award nomination (Howl's Moving Castle in 2006), let us hope that Miyazaki's western success is not forgotten as quickly as it was recognised.

Academy Award Special

The Oscar. The most prestigious award in the cinema industry. Win one, just one, and a filmmaker can rest easy. Their name will forever be associated with the world of cinema legends. Gone With The Wind, Casablanca, Ben-Hur, The Godfather... well, it's easy to see why such a big fuss is made over the Academy Awards. But who will triumph this year? Will it be Tom Hooper's crowd-pleasing biopic The King's Speech? Or will it be Darren Aronofsky's fever-dream masterpiece The Black Swan? Or perhaps one of the underdogs; light-hearted indie The Kids Are Alright, or the critically-lauded Winter's Bone? Or how about Toy Story 3 to make it really controversial? Nothing is certain. Yet by the end of the month it will all be over and another picture will join the likes of Slumdog Millionaire and The Hurt Locker under the title of modern classic. So, in this time of excitement and uncertainty, let us look back upon some of the previous winners and remind ourselves of just what made them worthy of such prestigious immortality...

1. The Blair Witch Project (Daniel Myrick & Eduardo Sanchez, 1999)

An utterly revolutionary film, not just within the horror genre, but for the film industry as a whole, Myrick and Sanchez's ultra-low-budget mockumentary proved that you don't need a big budget to achieve big scares. Or big bucks...

Made on a shoestring budget of roughly $500,000, The Blair Witch Project grossed almost $250 million worldwide, creating mass hysteria due to its revolutionary marketing techniques and becoming one of the most effective and influential horror flicks of all time.

While much attention is paid to the filmmakers' approach to marketing (heavy emphasis on internet hype, "missing" posters of actors produced to further authenticity etc.), and rightly so, the film's content must not be understated when assessing Blair Witch's impact. Myrick and Sanchez manage to craft an entirely convincing legend to fuel their "documentary", using interviews of local Burkittsville residents to piece together the mythical Blair Witch, incorporating fabricated figures such as Rustin Parr, a 1940s child killer and Elly Kedward, a 16th century sorceress. The legend is pieced together by a trio of amateur documentarians, led by bossy matriarch Heather Donahue, who use the interviews as an introduction to their documented expedition into the dense woodland surrounding the town in an attempt to dismiss or confirm the existence of the purported witch.

Surprisingly, the interviews with locals, filmed entirely in an amateur manner, are considerably unsettling - a tribute to the strength of Myrick and Sanchez's made-up legend. And as the trio venture deeper into the forest, away from the smiling locals, the feeling of unease becomes more and more apparent. However, even after the protagonists leave civilization behind, becoming lost in the woods, surprisingly little actually happens. It is therefore a solid argument for inference over the explicit that horror can be drawn from simple sources such as a mound of stones mysteriously placed outside the trio's tent, strange stick figures suspended from trees and unidentifiable cracking noises in the night. Indeed, such small events, when placed within such an authentically realised and effectively-paced narrative become strikingly believable and utterly chilling.

And while it could be argued that the fabled Blair Witch may be one of the scariest monsters in cinema history, the true nature of the trio's tormenter remains unknown. Indeed, the figure itself is never caught on camera, raising the question of whether supernatural forces really are at work or if it is merely a clan of Deliverance-style yokels lurking in the shadows. The fact is, it really doesn't matter. Witch or not, the creature producing guttural noises outside the tent, leaving slime on the camper's belongings and luring them towards an abandoned cottage is a force of sheer horror.

In one of the most disturbing climaxes in film history, we follow Heather through the lens of her camera (on night-vision mode) as she and Mike search the derelict cottage for missing friend Josh, who disappeared without a sound two nights earlier. The terror reaches feverish levels as, through the nauseating handheld camerawork, we can see children's bloody handprints on the walls - an obvious reference to the story recounted by a local earlier in the film, about a notorious child-killer who dwelled in the forest. And what was it about him taking them into the basement and standing them in the corner?...

In the final moments, we hear Mike declare, "He's downstairs! I can hear him downstairs!" As Heather and the camera rush down into the basement to investigate, we catch a brief glimpse of Mike, his back to us, standing motionless in the corner of the room. A sudden scream from Heather and the camera drops, recording the silent gloom for several moments, leaving the audience unsettled and disorientated before shutting off and definitively ending the film. It is a bleak end to an utterly harrowing experience.

A triumph on every level, The Blair Witch Project stands as a shining example of industrious filmmaking, blending realism, effective storytelling, subtle narrative devices and naturalistic acting to create an entirely convincing and entirely horrific mockumentary. Paving the way for other acclaimed horror films such as Cloverfield and REC, Blair Witch may very well be the scariest horror film ever made.