Spirited Away is back on big screens starting today, Oct. 17, for a run through Oct. 21, per Fathom Entertainment and the calendar for GKIDS' 2026 Ghibli Fest. Fathom's page marks the occasion as the film's 25th anniversary. Check local listings for showtimes and whether a screening is subtitled or dubbed; we did not confirm format by theater.
What's on
The anniversary run follows two nationwide screenings of the filmed stage production, Spirited Away: Live on Stage, on Oct. 1 and Oct. 8, in Japanese with English subtitles, with Kanna Hashimoto and Mone Kamishiraishi each playing Chihiro on one of the two nights, per Fathom. Tickets go through GKIDS. The original film won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

The culture angle
This is the pattern anime distributors have learned: a catalog film, a round-number anniversary, a short run, and fans turning out as an event. We saw the same model with the Princess Mononoke 4K run in September. Scarcity is the marketing. For a hip-hop audience that grew up trading VHS copies and burned DVDs of these films, the theater run is a reminder of how much of this canon moved by word of mouth before anyone priced it.
## Sources - Fathom Entertainment, "25 Years Later, Spirited Away Returns With Glorious New Theatrical Release" (Sept. 1, 2026) - Anime News Network, "Spirited Away: Live on Stage Joins Studio Ghibli Fest 2026 Lineup" (Sept. 2, 2026)
