Hayao Miyazaki’s best film unfolds like a dream. A young girl, Chihiro, is out with her family. Her parents stop to investigate an abandoned theme park designed like a traditional Japanese bathhouse and soon turn into pigs through a strange spell, who thrust the girl into a supernatural world of wandering ghosts, talking animals and hungry ghosts. While the structure is reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland, the film is about creatures, cultural traditions and folklore that are completely alien to me, an American, and I never tire of following Chihiro on her way to her normal life – because how out the awakening A dream, I find I can never keep everything in my head and I discover new things every time I look at it. – Joel Cunningham, managing editor

Find it on: HBO max