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Daveigh Chase, Rumi Hiiragi, Jason Marsden, Miyu Irino, Mari Natsuki ... see more see more... , Suzanne Pleshette , Yumi Tamai , Susan Egan , David Ogden Stiers , Yasuka Sawaguchi , Lauren Holly , Tatsuya Gasyuin , Ryunosuke Kamiki , Michael Chiklis , Takashi Naitô , John Ratzenberger , Yo Oizumi , Tara Strong , Koba Hayashi , Tsunehiko Kamijyo , Takehiko Ono , Bunta Sugawara , Tatsuya Gashuin , Yasuko Sawaguchi

Master animation director Hayao Miyazaki follows up on his record-breaking 1997 opus Princess Mononoke with this surreal Alice in Wonderland-like tale about a lost little girl. The film opens with ten... read more read more...-year-old Chihiro riding along during a family outing as her father races through remote country roads. When they come upon a blocked tunnel, her parents decide to have a look around -- even though Chihiro finds the place very creepy. When they pass through the tunnel, they discover an abandoned amusement park. As Chihiro's bad vibes continue, her parents discover an empty eatery that smells of fresh food. After her mother and father help themselves to some tasty purloined morsels, they turn into giant pigs. Chihiro understandably freaks out and flees. She learns that this very weird place, where all sorts of bizarre gods and monsters reside, is a holiday resort for the supernatural after their exhausting tour of duty in the human world. Soon after befriending a boy named Haku, Chihiro learns the rules of the land: one, she must work , as laziness of any kind is not tolerated; and two, she must take on the new moniker of Sen. If she forgets her real name, Haku tells her, then she will never be permitted to leave. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

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156 critics

PG, 2 hr. 4 min.

Directed by: Hayao Miyazaki

Release Date: September 20, 2001

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DVD Release Date: April 15, 2003

Stats: 26,911 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (26,911)

  • danperry17
    April 24, 2012
    danperry17
    Breath-taking, magical animation and a story with a big heart; and though I'm still not sure I understood the premise, exactly, this was a beautiful film to watch, brilliantly drawn and animated.
  • aquateen2
    April 2, 2012
    aquateen2
    [img]http://images.rottentomatoes.com/images/user/icons/icon14.gif[/img]

    I have no doubt that Spirited Away is the most imaginative movie I have ever seen in my life. It was the first Studio Ghibli film I ever saw and I couldn't have picked anything better quite frankly...wel... read morel besides Princess Mononoke. Firstly, I love how it approaches both adults and children. Young viewers of Spirited Away will see themselves in the main character Chihiro and relatable characters are key in animation. From a technical viewpoint it looks outstandingly brilliant and the creatures are stuff beyond my imagination. It's an emotional rollercoaster that's severely intense and then laid back and then heartwarming. Then somehow from all this it maintains a consistent tone. It's a beautiful film that goes to show how powerful and wonderful animation is.
  • fb1033186916
    February 27, 2012
    fb1033186916
    Spirited Away is beautifully animated and innocently portrayed. Its journey to Miyazaki's imagination gives a simple yet powerful story of a girl who ventures to save her parents. It emphasizes on the beauty of traditionally drawn animations which in our times right now are being... read more replaced by computer generated ones that lacks the colors, emotions, and depth of every line, texture, and detail that traditional drawing offers.
  • sanjurosamurai
    February 25, 2012
    sanjurosamurai
    miyazaki is such a visionary. visually this film is stunning, and the story was so creative. the only thing slightly holding the film back is its lack of direction at points when it feels a bit aimless, but the romantic in me doesnt care as the film was so touching, and so beau... read moretiful. one of the best animated film of all time.
  • fb1216165431
    November 8, 2011
    fb1216165431
    Considered as a great masterpiece from Studio Ghilbi and Hayao Miyazaki, Spirited Away is of a spellbinding adventure of a young lady in a place ruled by an evil witch and native to mysterious Gods and spirits. An imaginative perfect composition of weight, beauty, and complexity,... read more Spirited Away is a genuine animation feature that revels in visual perfection and noble messages. Magnificent.
  • paulkoh110
    October 25, 2011
    paulkoh110
    WHY IS THIS FILM SO GOOD?!?!??! I WAS HOOKED FROM THE FIRST SCENE AND I REALIZED...WOW MIYAZAKI JUST MADE ONE OF THE GREATEST ANIMATED FILMS IN HISTORY! EVEN JOHN LASESNTER (TOY STORY) SAID THIS MOVIE WAS AMAZING SO THATS ENOUGH PROOF!
  • spielberg00
    October 1, 2011
    spielberg00
    SPIRITED AWAY is the gem of Japanese anime.

    A lot of anime is clearly made to impress the audience in a look-how-well-we-can-draw or a haha-we-can-draw-special-effects. This certainly does not. There are some scenes in which it seems the artists are simply trying to imp... read moreress visually, but this has a fantastic, complex plot.

    Though it may seem strange, the story is about a young girl who gets lost on a trip with her parents. They go looking for directions, and they find what looks like an abandoned carnival. They find nobody there, but they do find food. The girl's parents decide to indulge the food, but after a while, they have turned into hogs. The girl must then go on a long, creepy quest to transform her parents back into humans before it is too late.

    This is really good. Two words: must-see.
  • riverdale237
    June 30, 2011
    riverdale237
    While I prefer Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke more, this movie is still, as another critic said "brilliant". It has a very creative plot, developed characters, fantastic animation. Just absolutley stunning.

    One thing I hate is when this movie gets compared to "Alice in Wonderlan... read mored" I absolutley HATED Alice in Wonderland. It was stupid, pointless, plotless and had no conflict. Spirited Away, on the other hand, had a very emotional and suspensful plot, major conflict and is pretty much the farthest thing from stupid.

    The main thing that makes Spirited Away so amazing is the characters. Chihiro is a very brave despite being in situations that would probably make her own parents, and almost any adult, scream in fear. She also manages to maintain her bravery despite being very compassionate.

    My favorite character has got to be Haku, because he seems to be the most complex. He starts out as an outcast, Yubaba's henchman who cannot be trusted. However, by the end of the movie, he seems less like a villain, and more like a hero, or at least an antihero.

    The voice acting was also VERY good, especially Jason Marsden and Mari Natsuki. Deveigh Chase was VERY good, especially for a child actor. She obviously has a great career ahead of her.

    Add some stunning animation, a very creative ending, and you have one of the best animated movies ever. Miyazaki at his finest!
  • mumby1988
    May 28, 2011
    mumby1988
    When I reviewed Mulholland Drive not so long ago, I commented that it was "one of a very rare breed of films which hold you in such a hypnotic state that your normal critical faculties become temporarily suspended." Films like Lynch's work contain so much of the magic and mystery... read more of cinema that the experience becomes everything, and no matter where it goes, we follow. But this was not the only film from 2001 to achieve such a powerful effect upon its audience.

    Spirited Away is the culmination of Hayao Miyazaki's extraordinary career, only just edging out over its predecessor, Princess Mononoke. It is a stunningly animated, beautifully told story which reinvents Alice in Wonderland for the 21st century while offering profound insight into Japanese culture and the psychology of growing up. While Princess Mononoke has more ambition in terms of its story, Spirited Away wins out through the sheer power of its emotional appeal.

    On its simplest level, Spirited Away sees Miyazaki returning to the story and themes of Alice of Wonderland, whose influence can be seen throughout the work of Studio Ghibli. But whereas something like The Cat Returns bore only fleeting similarities, the early sections of Spirited Away are like a direct retuning of Lewis Carroll. Instead of sitting on the river bank being bored at her lesson, Chihiro is sullen in the back of the car, cross with her parents for moving house and taking away all her friends. And instead of falling down a rabbit hole, she wanders through a long tunnel which, in a further fairy tale connection, is found in the middle of a deep, dark wood.

    As with Alice, Chihiro drifts into the company of many unusual characters, all of whom in some way misinterpret her purpose in this world (assuming of course that she has one). And many individual scenes or characters play out like Miyazaki's own wry take on Carroll's bizarre fantasy. The sequence of the baby being turned into a fat little mouse is like Alice shrinking after sipping the bottle marked 'Drink Me', while No-Face is a spookier version of The Cheshire Cat, and Yubaba and her twin sister Zeniba fill in for the red and white queens from Through The Looking-Glass.

    But there is so much more to Spirited Away than a join-the-dots parallel with Alice in Wonderland. For starters, Chihiro is not a conventional protagonist, either in her narrative arc or in the extent to which we empathise with her. Instead of immediately bonding with her, like we would with Nausicaa or Kiki, we initially find her an irritating brat; she is cowardly, prone to sulking and stamps her feet when she doesn't get her way.

    When her parents are turned into pigs by gorging themselves on the ghostly food, we bond with Chihiro since she is the only human character remaining in this ever-creepier world (at least, until Haku turns up some minutes later). Much like Pan's Labyrinth a few years later, we adopt the viewpoint of the central character so closely that when the fantasy elements are introduced we accept them with open arms and wide eyes. No matter how bizarre, surreal or downright strange Miyazaki's designs become over the next two hours, we remain totally absorbed in Chihiro as a character.

    Although her overall goal may be to save her parents, Chihiro's arc through Spirited Away is not to be a hero, but to survive. Lost in a world which she has no hope of understanding, she relies on her own judgment in choosing who to trust and when to trust them. She does not enter the world of the gods with the intention of destroying a great villain, with most of her major acts being accidental or having consequences which are unintentional. Sometimes this works out in her favour, in the case of the River God; other times, in the case of No-Face, it almost claims her life.

    Chihiro's search for her parents is both a literal and a metaphorical one, being bound up with the search for her own identity. When Yubaba allows her to work in the bathhouse, she steals Chihiro's name and begins calling her Sen; Haku warns Sen that unless she remembers her own name, she will be trapped here forever. Chihiro came into the ghost world at a crossroads of her own identity, having been forced to part from her old self with the move. The theft of her name represents the death of her childhood self; she must decide what must be erected in its place, and what role her parents must play in her life after she returns to reality.

    Just as in Princess Mononoke, the characters in Spirited Away walk a tightrope between good and evil in which our definitions of either do not carry much weight. This is a world in which loyalties are if not constantly shifting then very difficult to pin down; as before, we have to trust our heroine's judgment because her perspective is all we have to go on. The film tricks us beautifully into believing that the friendly can be threatening or vice versa, making something as simple as a paper man be really scary or an eight-armed, spidery mechanic be deeply endearing.

    This richness and ambiguity make Chihiro's process of self-realisation more compelling, as Miyazaki avoids the painting-by-numbers character development of recent Disney efforts. Her relationship with No-Face in particular is a learning curve in which she learns to adjust her impetuous naivety to something more mature, while retaining her belief in everyone's capacity to do good. Even when No-Face is chasing her while regurgitating black sludge, Sen is motivated less by out-and-out fear than a desire to help him overcome himself even at the cost of her own life. It is this form of sheer selflessness which endears her and which eventually saves her.

    Just as Mulholland Drive used its characters to examine the nature of filmmaking past and present, so the spirit world of Spirited Away reflects modern-day Japan, looking to its imperial past as it drifts ever more away from it. When Chihiro's parents find the town, they remark it must be an old theme park, saying that many were built before the economic downturn in the early-1990s. The gluttony of her parents reflects the consequences of this downturn and the difference between generations, while the scenes with the River God tap into issues of pollution previously explored in Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.

    The design of Spirited Away is staggeringly beautiful, incorporating elements of both hand-drawn animation and CG techniques to reinterpret themes from Miyazaki's previous works. There is the same use of rapid background movement in frames, so that whole cities seem to rush by while Chihiro and Haku rush through the streets in perfect clarity. The film is deeply dreamlike in places, particularly the scenes which take place in or around water and which are complimented by the beautiful score by Joe Hasaishi. But Miyazaki is not just a genius where light is concerned; his darker tones are extraordinary too, from the thick sludge spewed forth by No-Face to the fire that spews from Yubaba's mouth.

    On top of everything else, Spirited Away is a proper children's film in its accessible and intelligent treatment of themes and characters. Its blend of darkness and light is note-perfect, so although there are many scenes which are creepy or strange, there is more than enough in the way of humour to compensate. In fact, it's surprisingly laugh-out-loud, with the bouncing heads, the balls of soot or the baby-turned-mouse being so adorable that they threaten to steal the show.

    Spirited Away is a truly astonishing animation which marks the high point in a career of already dizzying heights. Its thematic richness and subtle storytelling are matched only by its impeccable level of craft, with Miyazaki at the top of his game in every respect. Even after a dozen viewings it never fails to work its magic, bringing out the childlike spirit in even the most cold-hearted viewer. It is the Pan's Labyrinth of animation, and nothing more needs to be said.
  • DreamExtractor
    May 19, 2011
    DreamExtractor
    An animated masterpiece. Spirited Away was to good for words. The plot was dramatic and heartfelt. The animation was hard to believe it was hand drawn. If you need a movie thats as good as this one, it'll be hard.

View All Spirited Away Reviews

Critic Reviews

Peter Travers
August 14, 2007
Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

Think you're too hip for Japanese anime about a lost ten-year-old girl whose parents turn into snorting pigs? Get over it.

Eleanor Ringel Gillespie
November 4, 2002
Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Miyazaki's nonstop images are so stunning, and his imagination so vivid, that the only possible complaint you could have about Spirited Away is that there is no rest period, no timeout. Full Review

Jay Boyar
October 10, 2002
Jay Boyar, Orlando Sentinel

Visually imaginative, thematically instructive and thoroughly delightful, it takes us on a roller-coaster ride from innocence to experience without even a hint of that typical kiddie-flick sentimental...

Peter Rainer
October 6, 2002
Peter Rainer, New York Magazine

[Spirited Away is] the most deeply and mysteriously satisfying animated feature to come along in ages. Full Review

Bruce Westbrook
October 4, 2002
Bruce Westbrook, Houston Chronicle

Packed with strange beings amid painterly settings, Spirited Away delivers one of the most colorful fantasy worlds since the similarly surreal Yellow Submarine. Full Review

Terry Lawson
October 4, 2002
Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press

Children may not understand everything that happens -- I'm not sure even Miyazaki himself does -- but they will almost certainly be fascinated, and undoubtedly delighted. Full Review

Robert Denerstein
October 4, 2002
Robert Denerstein, Denver Rocky Mountain News

Miyazaki floods the screen with beautiful scenes and enough fascinating creatures to put Pokemon to shame.

Bill Muller
October 4, 2002
Bill Muller, Arizona Republic

...brilliant in its imagery and astonishing in its creativity. Many films are billed as voyages into fantasy, but this one actually delivers.

Tom Maurstad
October 3, 2002
Tom Maurstad, Dallas Morning News

That rare movie that has the emotional and psychological depth to match its stunning surface. Full Review

Andrew O'Hehir
September 26, 2002
Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com

Spirited Away is a trip, in the literal, metaphorical and indeed lysergic senses of that word. Full Review

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Facts

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    • Chihiro's father [USA Version]: A new home and a new school? It is a bit scary.
    • Chihiro [USA Version]: I think I can handle it.
    • Chihiro: I finally get a bouquet and it's a goodbye present. That's depressing.
    • Yubaba/Zeniba: [after turning Boh into a mouse] There. Your body matches your brain.
    • Chihiro [USA Version]: I'm dreaming,im dreaming! [pounds herself in the head]
    • Chihiro: [leans near elevator wall]
    • Lin: You wanna lose your nose?!
    • Kamaji: Here, roasted newt, real quality.
Submit a Fact | View All

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Spirited Away Trivia

  • Which animation knocked titanic off the spot as the biggest selling film in Japan?  Answer »
  • In Hayao Miyazaki's "Spirited Away", What kind of spirit is Haku?  Answer »
  • What film directed by Hayao Miyazaki recieved an Academy Award for Best Animated Featured Film in 2003?  Answer »
  • What animals do Chihiro's parents turn into in "Spirited Away"?  Answer »
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