Hayao Miyazaki · 1992 · sea

Miyazaki's 1929 Adriatic, and the only Ghibli film set almost entirely on real geography. An Italian flying ace who has been turned into a pig hunts air pirates between the Italian coast and the Croatian islands - and Miyazaki was making it when Yugoslavia went to war over the ground he had drawn.

1. 1
   Genoa

   Marco Pagot was born here, and carries the city's emblem on the tail of his aircraft - a Great War fighter ace who came out of it turned into a pig, which the film never explains and is better for not explaining.

2. 2
   The Adriatic

   Summer 1929, and air pirates take a school cruise ship full of girls - and a red Savoia S.21 comes out of the sun to get them back, because bounty hunting is what an ex-ace does when he will not fly for Fascists.

3. 3
   Porco's hideout

   A limestone cove on a Croatian island with a tent, a radio and a jetty - drawn from Stiniva on Vis, which is a real cove, a protected nature monument since 1967, and was voted Europe's best beach in 2016.

4. 4
   Hotel Adriano

   Gina's hotel on a small Adriatic island, named after the plane she and Marco flew as young people - a garden, a bar, a secret telegraph room, and three dead husbands who were all pilots.

5. 5
   Milan

   Piccolo's workshop, where the Savoia is rebuilt by a seventeen-year-old girl and every woman in her family because all the men have gone looking for work - and an escape down the canals with the secret police behind.

6. 6
   The Adriatic

   The duel with Curtis, settled by a fistfight in the water in front of everybody - and Miyazaki, who set out to make something light for tired middle-aged men, finishing it while Yugoslavia came apart underneath his setting.