20 Films to Watch If You Love Spirited Away

Spirited Away drops a sulky ten-year-old into a bathhouse for gods and never once explains the rules — and that's exactly why it works. The wonder comes with real danger, the strangeness is treated as ordinary, and growing up is the actual plot. If that's the feeling you're chasing, these twenty share its DNA: worlds next door to ours, child heroes who earn their courage, and animation (mostly) made with obsessive love.

1. My Neighbor Totoro (1988) Miyazaki's gentlest film — wonder without a villain at all.
2. Princess Mononoke (1997) The fierce older sibling: gods, industry, and no easy answers.
3. Howl's Moving Castle (2004) A cursed girl, a vain wizard, a walking house; peak Ghibli romance.
4. Kiki's Delivery Service (1989) A young witch's gap year — the quiet ache of becoming independent.
5. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984) Where it all began: toxic jungles and a heroine who refuses to hate.
6. The Boy and the Heron (2023) Miyazaki's late, strange farewell — grief as a tower full of worlds.
7. Your Name (2016) Body-swapping teens and a comet; the biggest-hearted anime of its decade.
8. A Silent Voice (2016) No spirits, all feeling — bullying, guilt and redemption, beautifully drawn.
9. Wolf Children (2012) A mother raising two half-wolf kids; quietly devastating.
10. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006) Time travel spent on ordinary teenage days — until it isn't.
11. Millennium Actress (2001) Satoshi Kon's love letter to cinema, memory folding into film sets.
12. Paprika (2006) Kon again: a dream-invading device and the maddest parade ever animated.
13. Coraline (2009) The Western answer to Spirited Away — a button-eyed other world with teeth.
14. Pan's Labyrinth (2006) Del Toro's dark fairy tale; wonder and fascism sharing one house.
15. The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) A world-next-door built from song and stop-motion.
16. Kubo and the Two Strings (2016) Laika's origami epic about stories, memory and loss.
17. Song of the Sea (2014) Irish myth in watercolour — a selkie sister and a grieving family.
18. The Secret of Kells (2009) Illuminated-manuscript animation; every frame a page.
19. Grave of the Fireflies (1988) Ghibli's masterpiece of sorrow — devastating, essential, watch once.
20. Suzume (2022) Doors to disaster across Japan; Shinkai chasing the Miyazaki torch.