When SBS's new free-to-air 24-hour World Movies channel arrives in July, it'll boast plenty of reasons to get cosy on your couch, ignore the world and settle in for your own stay-at-home film festival. In fact, you might want to cancel your weekend daytime plans for the month — because you'll be spending every Saturday and Sunday watching a non-stop Studio Ghibli marathon.

From 6am–7.30pm each weekend during July, the new channel will work its way through a heap of the studio's beloved flicks, including Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, Kiki's Delivery Service, Ponyo, Laputa: Castle in the Sky, The Secret World of Arrietty, Tales From Earthsea, The Cat Returns, The Castle of Cagliostro, From Up on Poppy Hill, The Wind Rises and When Marnie Was There.

If that's not enough delightful Japanese animation for you, a couple of other films will be thrown into the mix — such as The Red Turtle, a gorgeous Ghibli co-production directed by Dutch animator Michaël Dudok de Wit; the lively Mary and the Witch's Flower, which was made by animators who previously worked at Studio Ghibli; and The Boy and The Beast and Summer Wars, which both hail from rightfully acclaimed filmmaker Mamoru Hosoda.

SBS has also revealed what else will be screening on World Movies throughout its first month, and it's a hefty list that includes box office hits, festival favourites and plenty of familiar faces. Get teary over Lion's Oscar-nominated real-life reunion tale, start pondering the afterlife in A Ghost Story (aka the film where Rooney Mara devours a pie and Casey Affleck stands under a sheet), or check out the moving, banned-in-Kenya lesbian romance Rafiki.

Elsewhere, Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem team up for the second time in as many years in Loving Pablo, which follows a journalist who falls for Pablo Escobar, while applauded Chinese auteur Jia Zhangke unveils a sprawling crime epic in Ash Is the Purest White. If you're looking for something to do on a Tuesday, the channel is devoting the night to French actor Romain Duris (Heartbreaker, The New Girlfriend), while Thursday evenings will be all about women in film.

SBS World Movies launches on Monday, July 1 on channel 32. For its full lineup, visit the SBS TV guide.

Published on June 21, 2019 by Sarah Ward