Spirited Away

Spirited Away is a 2001 Japanese animated fantasy film directed by Hayao Miyazaki, produced by Toshio Suzuki at Studio Ghibli and distributed by Toho on a budget of about 19.2 million dollars. It follows ten-year-old Chihiro Ogino, who enters a supernatural bathhouse run by the witch Yubaba after her parents are turned into pigs, and who must recover her true name and win her family's freedom. On its Japanese release in July 2001 it grossed 1.6 billion yen, about 13.1 million dollars, in its first three days, breaking the record set by Princess Mononoke, and it went on to earn 31.68 billion yen domestically, becoming the highest-grossing film in Japanese history, a record it held for nineteen years until Demon Slayer: Mugen Train surpassed it in 2020. Worldwide it earned about 396 million dollars, making it the first film to gross more than 200 million dollars outside the United States alone. At the 2003 Academy Awards it won Best Animated Feature, becoming the first hand-drawn, non-English-language animated film to win that award.