Two auteurs return to the big screen this fall after too many years away, including our greatest living animator. My fifth day at the Mill Valley Film Festival featured two of the most anticipated movies of the week. And they did not disappoint:

The First Main Feature: The Boy and the Heron

Hayao Miyazaki hung up his pens and brushes after 2013’s The Wind Rises. Retirement lasted a decade, but now he has returned with a flourish. The Boy and the Heron plays like a greatest hits collection. The story and characters are new, but the film hits many beats from Miyazaki’s impressive filmography–the wartime realism of The Wind Rises, the young hero’s journey of Princess Mononoke, and the merging of the real into the world of the spiritual of Spirited Away.

The story starts in Japan in 1943, as young Hisako loses his mother in a fire at the hospital. His father, who owns a factory making planes for the military, soon marries Hisako’s younger sister, and the family relocates to her ancestral home. There, Hisako finds a old tower that is deemed off-limits and an mysterious heron which goads him towards it. Soon, Hisako is on a trek into the tower to save his aunt/stepmother, which is (of course) not a mere tower, but the spiritual center of not only their whole family, but possibly the entire universe. As to be expected from a Miyazaki film, all sorts of fantastical creatures provide help or obstacles as Hisako seeks to make the world right again.

The artist is at the top of his game–the art is breathtaking, the world-building is highly imaginative, and the narrative is heroic (if a bit overlong). Long-time collaborator Joe Hisaishi adds a beautiful piano-and-string score that compliments both the pastoral first half and the mystical second. If The Boy and the Heron is Miyazaki’s last film (he says he’s started on another), it’s a fitting finale.

The Second Main Feature: The Holdovers

Speaking of returns, Alexander Payne hasn’t had a film out since 2017’s Downsizing and hasn’t had an acclaimed one since 2013’s Nebraska. That’s about to change. He reteams with Sideways star Paul Giamatti to tell the story of an gruff teacher at a New England prep school charged with taking care of the “holdovers,” the boys who do not go home to their families over the winter break. This includes newcomer Dominic Sessa’s Angus, a smart-mouthed disaffected teen (is there any other kind) dealing with the death of his father and his mother leaving him at school while she goes off with her new husband for the break.

The beats of the movie are pretty recognizable from a lot of the trope of the school teacher learning from his student as his student learns from him. But it’s still pretty great. Payne has often had a cynical tone to this movies, but this one trades much of the that for a more heartfelt approach. It never gets sappy, though, thanks to a smart script, excellent performances, and a cool early ’70s vibe that starts with the rating card at the very beginning of the film. I’ll have more to say in a full review when it comes out in theaters, but make plans now to prioritize The Holdovers in your fall moviegoing.

The Boy and the Heron releases in theaters and on IMAX on December 8. The Holdovers releases in theaters on October 27.