Top 10 Best Steampunk Films

The wizard Howl's gigantic, walking castle is the most iconic steampunk structure in film history: a chaotic assembly of turrets, chimneys, and steam pipes that shuffles across the landscape on mechanical bird legs, powered by the fiery demon Calcifer. Amid a devastating war full of flying battleships and steam trains, Miyazaki tells an enchanting tale of love, aging, and peace. A timeless masterpiece that elevates steampunk to pure cinematic art.

Studio Ghibli's very first official film and one of Hayao Miyazaki's most influential works. The story follows two children fleeing pirates and the military in a desperate search for Laputa, a legendary floating island full of lost ancient technology. With fantastical flying machines ('flaptors'), gigantic armored airships, and a mining village full of steam elevators and furnaces, Miyazaki laid the foundation for the aesthetics of modern steampunk with this film.

Martin Scorsese proved with Hugo that steampunk can also be heartwarming and deeply human. The film follows an orphan boy secretly living within the walls of a 1930s Paris train station, keeping the giant station clocks running. At the center is a mysterious mechanical doll (automaton) that responds to a heart-shaped key.

Director duo Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro created a dark, hypnotic steampunk fever dream with The City of Lost Children. Ron Perlman plays a good-natured circus strongman searching for his kidnapped little brother, taken by a deranged scientist who steals children's dreams because he cannot dream himself.

This acclaimed French-Belgian animated film, based on the unique art style of Jacques Tardi, is pure steampunk perfection. In an alternate history where the invention of electricity and the combustion engine never happened, twentieth-century Paris still runs entirely on coal and steam. Amid cable cars gliding between double Eiffel Towers and talking cats, young scientist April searches for a secret serum that could save her missing parents.

Anime legend Katsuhiro Otomo (known for Akira) spent ten years on this ode to steam power, at the time one of the most expensive Japanese animated films ever made. Set in an alternate Victorian England of 1866, the story follows young inventor Ray Steam. When he comes into possession of a mysterious 'Steam Ball' containing a near-infinite amount of compressed steam energy, a fierce battle for the ultimate technology ignites, culminating in a breathtaking climax around a flying steam castle.

Disney gave Robert Louis Stevenson's classic book Treasure Island a brilliant retro-futuristic makeover that has since grown into a true cult classic. Wooden galleons sail through space on shimmering solar sails, while cyborg pirate John Silver sports a brass robotic arm full of gears and built-in tools.

Produced and co-written by Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson, Mortal Engines offers one of the most spectacular steampunk worlds ever shown on screen. Thousands of years after a devastating war, humans survive in gigantic mobile cities ('Traction Cities') that rumble across a desolate Earth on colossal treads, devouring smaller towns for resources.

This groundbreaking Disney classic, based on the masterpiece by Jules Verne, laid down the visual blueprint for everything we associate with steampunk today. Kirk Douglas and James Mason shine in a timeless adventure surrounding the mysterious Captain Nemo and his iconic, rivet-and-copper-clad submarine. The legendary battle with the giant squid rightfully earned the film two Oscars for Special Effects and Art Direction.

Based on the graphic novel of the same name by Alan Moore, this action film brings together a colorful assembly of Victorian literary heroes, led by Sean Connery as adventurer Allan Quatermain. The film was a flop, but for steampunk fans the production design is worth it: from Captain Nemo's gigantic silver submarine Nautilus to the brutal six-wheeled steam car tearing through the narrow streets of Venice.