Spirited Away

Hayao Miyazaki wrote and directed Spirited Away, a Japanese animated fantasy film produced by Studio Ghibli. It opened in Japan on 20 July 2001. The story follows ten-year-old Chihiro Ogino, who is traveling with her parents to a new home. After the family enters an apparently abandoned amusement park through a tunnel, Chihiro's parents gorge themselves on unattended food and become pigs. At night, the site reveals itself as a spirit world, and Chihiro must work in its enormous bathhouse to survive and save them. Its proprietor, the sorceress Yubaba, takes Chihiro's name and renames her Sen, making identity central to the film.

At the bathhouse, Sen meets the boiler operator Kamaji and Lin, a worker who helps her obtain employment. She also encounters Haku, a boy who can transform into a dragon and serves Yubaba. Haku warns Sen not to forget her real name. A polluted “stink” spirit arrives, and Sen discovers that it is a river spirit clogged with human rubbish; pulling debris from it restores its form. The grateful spirit gives her a medicinal dumpling. Later, Sen uses part of it to purge No-Face, a lonely spirit whose unchecked appetite has disrupted the bathhouse. He then leaves Yubaba's bathhouse peacefully.

After Yubaba transforms Haku into a dragon and he is badly injured, Sen travels by train across flooded country to Zeniba, Yubaba's twin sister. No-Face accompanies her and eventually finds a role in Zeniba's home. Zeniba explains that a stolen golden seal had cursed Haku. During the journey back, Sen remembers that Haku is Kohaku River, the river that carried her when she fell in as a child. Knowing his true name breaks Yubaba's control. Yubaba then makes Sen identify her parents among pigs. Sen says none of them is, and she is released. Her parents return to human form.

Joe Hisaishi composed the film's score, continuing his long collaboration with Miyazaki. Spirited Away won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature at the 75th Academy Awards in 2003, becoming the first non-English-language film to receive that prize. It also received the Golden Bear at the 2002 Berlin International Film Festival, sharing the award with Paul Greengrass's Bloody Sunday. In Japan, its box-office performance made it the country's highest-grossing film until Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Mugen Train eventually surpassed it in 2020. Rumi Hiiragi voiced Chihiro in Japanese, while Miyu Irino voiced Haku and Bunta Sugawara voiced Kamaji.