Grave of the Fireflies (1988)

Studio Ghibli made a film that functions as emotional ordnance. Two children try to survive the final months of World War II in Japan, and the film documents their decline with the calm precision of a coroner's report wrapped in watercolor. The animation is beautiful. The pacing is deliberate. The outcome is told in the first scene so there's no suspense — just the slow, meticulous work of watching something inevitable happen to people who don't deserve it. Most people watch this once. The ones who watch it twice probably need to talk to someone.