Spirited Away · reception & legacy
2001 · Hayao Miyazaki
How Spirited Away has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
No reappraisal needed — it dethroned Titanic as Japan's highest-grossing film on release, then won the Golden Bear and the Animated Feature Oscar. Two decades on it's only climbed, from 'the anime even your parents saw' to fixture of all-time-greatest lists, animated or otherwise.
What's debated
The eternal fan fights: is it actually Miyazaki's best (Mononoke and Totoro partisans object), and sub vs. dub — with a side debate over whether its gateway-anime status unfairly overshadows everything else Ghibli made.
Its footprint
No-Face is a cosplay and meme institution, the train gliding over water is one of the most-screenshotted images on film Twitter and Letterboxd, and the film basically launched the whole 'Ghibli food looks better than real food' genre of internet appreciation.
Where it stands
Perennial top-five on Letterboxd's all-time chart and the default answer to 'greatest animated film ever' — less cult object than load-bearing pillar of the modern cinephile canon.