This movie is fantastic. This movie is not violent exept for a few paper cuts. The movie is about a ten year old named Chihiro who is a spoiled child and is worried about moving away. Her parents stop at a tunnel off-road to check it out and they find a shop with food and eat it, they turn into pigs and Chihiro must find a way to change them back. She finds herself in a magical world of spirits and she gets a job at a local bath house from a kind boy spirit. As weird as it may seem, at the end Chihiro learns a lesson about growing up. After her journey she becomes less of a small child and more of an independent adult. This movie was a fantasic journey into adulthood and away from the safety of childhood.

I have to admit my affinity for dragons was one of the main reasons I wanted to see this movie as a kid. And oh boy did I love it...It warmed my heart and gave me that good feeling at the end of the movie where you think anything is possible...and life just seems to drift away for that moment. I especially loved the scene where she nuzzles her dragon-friend, that made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside as a kid ^.^

LOVED IT!!!!!!! great movie! great story line graet animations GREAT EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!! a must watch! best anime movie ever!

Definitely not recommended for kids! Only suitable for Young Adults and above.

Beautiful Movie

I love this movie and so do the kids. The characters in this movie may be frightening to small children, but it is a sweet show.

Rather than simply echo all the great things everyone else has said, I'll say this: I am a 25-year-old with a degree in anthropology with a focus on Japan and a minor in Japanese - so trust me when I tell you that this film is CHOCK FULL of Japanese culture. In fact, it's one of the best films out there (probably tied with Mononoke-hime) to present a nice overview of Japanese traditional culture and folklore. Parents who homeschool or just want their kids to have a good understanding of other cultures would be very, very well served by watching this movie with their kids! However, do yourselves a favor and read about Japanese folklore first. This movie is so very Japanese that it can be hard to understand it if you don't have some knowledge of Japanese folk beliefs. It's useful to learn about the cultural context of the movie and to study differences between Western fairy tales and Asian fairy tales - because at its heart Spirited Away is a modern Japanese fairy tale. For example, Haku is a dragon, a creature that in the West we tend to think of as evil and destructive - but in Japanese folktales, dragons are harbingers of good luck and felicity, and protectors of good people and entities like the Buddha. This film can be a wonderful way to experience another culture! But parents would definitely be well-served by learning a little about Japan with their kids before watching.

My 10 year old and I both thought this movie was very confusing...normal family one minute and parents turned into giant pigs the next. That's just for starters. The rest of the characters and happenings are equally outrageous and unexpected and therefore the move was a bit confusing and difficult to follow.