Image via Toho
Published Oct 5, 2026, 7:19 PM EDT
Hannah covers horror, sci-fi, and games at Collider, where she writes news and features, reviews new releases, and interviews the people who make them. She’s helping build out Collider’s gaming coverage, with Pokémon as one of her specialties. If she isn’t writing about a monster, she’s probably watching one on a tape from her VHS collection.
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October moviegoing doesn’t have to mean spending two hours waiting for a masked killer to jump out of the darkness. Sometimes, a bathhouse full of spirits, a sorceress with a very strict employment policy, and the possibility of your parents turning into pigs are more than enough. Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away has all of that, but its greatest adventure belongs to a frightened little girl who has to find the courage to navigate a world that makes absolutely no sense to her.
Twenty-five years after its original release, the Studio Ghibli movie still makes getting lost in that world an irresistible proposition. Chihiro’s journey takes her through rooms crowded with strange creatures and encounters with characters whose intentions aren’t always easy to read, giving audiences plenty to absorb beyond the central rescue mission. It’s also a movie that rewards a big screen, where the bathhouse’s towering architecture and the details tucked into Miyazaki’s spirit world have room to fill your field of vision.
GKIDS and Fathom Entertainment have announced that Spirited Away will return to theaters nationwide from October 17 through October 21 to celebrate its 25th anniversary. The five-day engagement will conclude Studio Ghibli Fest 2026, with screenings offered in both the English dub and the original Japanese with subtitles. Tickets are on sale now through GhibliFest.com, Fathom Entertainment, and participating theater box offices, giving fans a limited window to revisit the Academy Award-winning adventure.
Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes What Fantasy World Do You Belong To? Middle-earth · Grand Line · The Continent · Camp Half-Blood
Pick your magic, your crew, where you want to wake up and who you would rather be fighting, and we will tell you which world you actually belong in. Four are open to you: an ancient kingdom living through its last good age, an endless sea full of pirates, a continent that pays people to kill monsters, and a summer camp where the Greek gods are extremely real and mostly a nuisance.
💍Middle-earth(Rings of Power)
👒Grand Line(One Piece)
🐺The Continent(The Witcher)
🔱Camp Half-Blood(Percy Jackson)
FIND YOUR WORLD →
01
What kind of power do you want? Every one of these worlds runs on a completely different sort of magic.
ASomething ancient and half forgotten that came down through my family. BSomething completely ridiculous that works in a fight and gets a laugh. CNo magic at all, just training, potions and a very sharp sword. DSomething I inherited from a parent I have barely met.
NEXT QUESTION →
02
Who is travelling with you? Nobody gets through any of these stories entirely on their own.
AA fellowship drawn from every corner of the world who barely trust each other. BA crew I picked up one at a time, all of whom would die for me. CTwo or three people I would never describe out loud as friends. DTwo mates from school who are exactly as out of their depth as I am.
NEXT QUESTION →
03
Where do you want to wake up tomorrow? The best fantasy is usually just somewhere you would genuinely like to live.
AA high city of white stone with the sea somewhere far below. BA ship under sail, with an island ahead that nobody has mapped. CA rented room over a tavern, in a town I am leaving in the morning. DA cabin at a summer camp with everybody else already awake outside.
NEXT QUESTION →
04
How are you making a living out there? Even in fantasy somebody has to pay for the horse.
AI am not, because somebody far older than me decided this was my duty. BTreasure, and I am not always careful about whose it used to be. CI take contracts, since people will pay well for what they will not touch. DI am fifteen and this is all technically a school trip.
NEXT QUESTION →
05
There is something in the woods. What do you do about it? All four of these worlds keep something unpleasant out there in the dark.
ASend word to somebody who has seen this before, then hold the line. BWalk straight in, because it is interesting and possibly edible. CAsk what it has been eating and what the village is willing to pay. DWork out which myth it escaped from, then improvise very badly.
NEXT QUESTION →
06
Who is the villain of your story? The enemy tells you far more about a world than the hero ever does.
AAn ancient evil that has been patient for several thousand years. BA government that has spent a long time calling itself the good guys. CA man who turns out to be far worse than anything I hunt for money. DA god, or possibly my own family, and quite likely both at once.
NEXT QUESTION →
07
What do you actually believe in out there? Every world hands its heroes one rule and asks them to hold onto it.
ASome things are worth defending even when the odds are hopeless. BNobody gets to tell me where I can go or what I am allowed to want. CPick the lesser evil, and never pretend afterwards that it was not evil. DMy friends come before anything a prophecy has to say about it.
NEXT QUESTION →
08
A thousand years from now, how are you remembered? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your world.
AIn a song, in a language hardly anybody still speaks. BAs the one who got there first and proved the whole thing was possible. CBarely, and mostly wrongly, in ballads I would absolutely hate. DOn a plaque at a camp, read by kids about to do the same thing.
REVEAL MY WORLD →
The Map Is Drawn Your World Is…
Four worlds and four completely different ideas of what a good life looks like. This is where you belong, what it would ask of you, and what you would get back in return.
Middle-earth
You belong somewhere old enough that the mountains have names and somebody can still tell you who gave them. Middle-earth is for people who think the right thing is worth doing even when it will not be finished in their lifetime.
- This is the only world on the list where doing good is understood as a very long defeat, fought anyway, by people who will never see how it ends.
- You are drawn to grandeur, to white cities and deep forges and the sense that almost everything you touch is older than your entire family line.
- The Rings of Power is set in the last good age before it all goes wrong, which gives every quiet scene in it a slightly unbearable weight.
- You would take the hard road, and you would take it on foot.
The Grand Line
You want the sea, a crew, and absolutely nobody telling you where you are allowed to go. The Grand Line is the world for people whose main ambition in life is finding out what is over there.
- One Piece has run for decades on one very simple engine, which is a group of people who each want something impossible and have decided to go and get it together.
- You collect people. Your ideal crew is a set of misfits who were each written off somewhere else before you turned up and offered them a better idea.
- The world is enormous and deliberately ridiculous, and the emotional gut punches land harder because of that rather than in spite of it.
- You would set sail knowing the map runs out, which is more or less the entire point of it.
The Continent
You would rather be feared and useful than liked and useless. The Continent is a world where the monsters are the straightforward part of the job and the people are where it all gets complicated.
- Witchers get paid to do what nobody else will and resented for existing at all, which is a trade most people would refuse and you would probably accept.
- You have no real illusions about which side is the good one, largely because on the Continent that question tends to have a disappointing answer.
- The best of these stories are not about the fighting. They are about somebody with a rigid code being repeatedly cornered into caring about people.
- You would take the coin, finish the job properly, and be out of town before the story got told wrong.
Camp Half-Blood
You want the myths to be real and loose in the actual world, and you want to find out at about thirteen that you were never anywhere near as ordinary as everybody kept telling you.
- Percy Jackson takes the oldest stories we have and drops them into car parks and diners, which makes the gods considerably funnier and a great deal worse.
- You would be the kid every school gave up on, who turns out to have been built for something nobody thought to test for.
- The series is genuinely about friendship rather than destiny, and it says so out loud every time a prophecy tries to get in the way.
- Camp Half-Blood is the real fantasy here: a place where the thing that made you difficult everywhere else is the thing that makes you belong.
↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ
When Can You See ‘Spirited Away’ in Theaters This October?
The announced schedule begins with an English-dubbed screening on Saturday, October 17, at 3 p.m., followed by two English-dubbed showings on Sunday, October 18, at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. Audiences who prefer the original Japanese performances can catch subtitled screenings on Monday, October 19, and Tuesday, October 20, both at 7 p.m., before the engagement closes with an English-dubbed showing on Wednesday, October 21, at 7 p.m. Theater participation is subject to change, so moviegoers should check their local listings for specific showtimes and availability before making plans. There’s also an extra reason to stay in your seat once Chihiro’s adventure ends. Each screening will include a post-film clip from the “Nippon Television Special” bonus featurette, adding something beyond the feature itself to the anniversary celebration. The announcement doesn’t specify which portion of the special will be shown, but it does confirm that the additional footage is part of the theatrical presentation.
For newcomers, Spirited Away follows Chihiro after a stop during her family’s move leads to her parents’ mysterious transformation. Trapped in a spirit world ruled by Yubaba, she takes a job in a magical bathhouse while searching for a way to save them and return home. That premise gives Miyazaki room for both unsettling encounters and moments of extraordinary tenderness, with Chihiro’s determination holding the sprawling fantasy together.
Whether it’s a first visit or a long-awaited return, the movie's final Studio Ghibli Fest engagement runs October 17–21.
Release Date July 20, 2001
Runtime 125 minutes
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Rumi Hiiragi
Chihiro (voice)
