Academy Awards — 1 win, 1 nominationAnnie Awards — 1 winBerlin International Film Festival — 1 winEuropean Film Awards — 1 nominationAll 5 wins · 2 nominations on record
Academy Awards: Best Animated Feature
Annie Awards: Best Animated Feature
Berlin International Film Festival: Golden Bear
Animation Kobe Theatrical Film Award: Animation Kobe Theatrical Film Award
Critics' Choice Movie Award: Best Animated Feature
Scholarship
Named in the title of 21 peer-reviewed works
Examples
Spirited Away, 2008
Spirited Away — University of Arkansas Press eBooks, 2017
Sources: Wikidata · OpenAlex. The record of the motion picture, not an assessment of this cell.
FILM NOTES
Spirited Away arrived from Studio Ghibli in 2001 under Hayao Miyazaki's direction, becoming the highest-grossing film in Japanese history at the time and the first anime feature to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. It marked a high point for hand-drawn animation at the dawn of the digital era and introduced international audiences to a distinctly Japanese vision of folklore, labor, and transformation. The film's success helped cement Ghibli's reputation abroad and remains a touchstone for discussions of craft, mythology, and coming-of-age storytelling in animated cinema.
This cell gathers four figures central to the bathhouse world that anchors the story: Chihiro, the young girl thrust into servitude and self-discovery; Lin, her sharp-tongued coworker and protector; Kamaji, the spider-armed boiler man who sets her on her path; and Aogaeru, one of the bathhouse's many frog attendants. Together they represent the working community Chihiro must earn her place within, a hierarchy of spirits and laborers that defines the film's middle stretch. Collectors prize ensemble cells like this one for bringing together supporting and lead characters in a single frame of the film's most memorable setting.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm Dolby Digital release print strip from Spirited Away (2001).
Gauge
35mm layout with four perforations per frame along both edges; the strip holds three frames, one of them cropped at the left end.
Perforations
Four perforations per frame on both edges, evenly spaced, rounded-rectangle and cleanly punched, with no visible tears or missing holes.
Soundtrack
Dolby Digital data blocks sit in the gaps between the perforations along one edge; no optical track or DTS timecode line is visible beside the picture.
Edge print
A yellow numeral "3" appears twice along the upper edge; no manufacturer text or safety-film marking is readable in this capture.
Base & colour
Base looks neutral to slightly cream, and the dye image shows full, balanced colour with no visible fading or red shift.
Projection history
No scratches, cue marks or splices seen at this size; the strip shows only a gentle curve across the panel.
Picture
Positive colour image; the last two frames are consecutive and near-identical, the first frame is a different shot, and the animation style fits Spirited Away.
Era check
Dolby Digital data between the perforations on a positive colour print fits a 35mm release print of a 2001 feature.
Read from the original intake capture shown below. Observations only — film is authenticated, not graded.
This original motion picture film element has been examined and authenticated by Crown Grading in partnership with National Film Vault, and encapsulated for archival preservation.
Why so little survivesRelease prints were leased to theaters, not sold. When the run ended they went back to the distributor to be destroyed, and most were. What collectors hold today came from the prints that escaped that order, and no new 35mm prints of these films are being struck.
CROWN SERIAL 000070182
Original Film CaptureAs received
Photographed on the light panel at intake, before encapsulation — tap to open full size
Tap to enlarge
