Repeating the cliche: one of the best animated movies ever made!

Rating: 10/10 (19 April 2003)

Frankly, I haven't much to say about this film already heard in the positive comments below but I'll explain my feelings. I've seen it a total of six times in theatre and it never lost its power to astonish me. The audience's reaction, particularly developmentally mature children and skeptical older adults, was unanimously positive. Some of them even sat through the closing credit until the last frame, stunned that they saw a movie that's out-of-this-world strange and emotionally muted and that it beat the recent U.S.-animated movies they may have seen in terms of quality on authentic storytelling and vivid imagination without ever pandering to the children while simultaneously condescending adult viewers.
Subtle humor, scary moments and a couple of moving sequences towards the ending of the movie made us laugh, gasp (for children anyway - but it's good to be scared reminiscent of being told a horror story at bedtime) and, yes, cry. Fantastic story, impressive character development and sublime wisdom interjected in the feel and style of The Brothers Grimm's terrifying fables and Lewis Carroll's wondrous Alice's Adventures in Wonderland stories makes it one of the best animated films ever made. This is definitely a classic alongside Walt Disney's Pinocchio and Brad Bird's The Iron Giant.

Filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki deserves the awards, including the Oscar for Best Animated Feature, but he intended for the film to inspire the audiences to be compassionate, understand the importance of self-respect and be less selfish.
Forget the preconception about Japanese animation as violent and ugly, do yourself a favor and see this film. It's truly a rare epitome of an extraordinary work of art that actually makes you think and feel in the cinema. Don't deny yourself the opportunity to see why Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi is one of the increasingly rare best reasons we go to the movies for the simple fact of aesthetical pleasure and mind simulating magic.