When Marnie Was There (PG)
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Caution: spoilers, I guess.

This came out in 2014 in Japan, and 2015 in the U.S., but I didn't see it until 2024, during my summer of Ghibli.

Anna (voiced by Hailee Steinfeld in the English dub) is a self-deprecating, anti-social 12-year-old foster child who likes to sketch, and seems to be suffering mild depression. She also has asthma, so her foster mother, Yoriko (Geena Davis), sends her to spend the summer in a seaside town with Yoriko's relatives, Setsu (Grey Griffin) and Kiyomasa Oiwa (John C. Reilly), hoping the fresh air will do her some good. Anna becomes interested in an abandoned mansion across a marsh, and begins having dreams about a girl who lives there. She eventually meets the girl, Marnie (Kiernan Shipka), in real life, and the two become friends. However, the mansion is bought and restored by a new family, with a young daughter named Sayaka, who at first thinks Anna is Marnie, because she had found Marnie's diary in her bedroom. Sayaka begins investigating, hoping to learn about who Marnie actually was. Meanwhile, Anna keeps meeting Marnie and continues their secret friendship, even though it has become apparent that Marnie isn't really there. Anna and Sayaka eventually learn some things about Marnie from an old woman named Hisako (Vanessa Williams), who had been friends with Marnie when she was a child.

Well, there's one other plot twist that I'm not going to spoil, and I'm leaving out lots of details. I don't know what else to say about the plot, but I thought it was a beautiful and touching movie. I'm still not quite sure whether Marnie was a ghost, or she and Anna were somehow connecting across time, but that's not really important.