Studio Ghibli's beloved tale of Chihiro and her strange, spirit-filled world gets a screening in English dub at The Beverly Theater, a fitting home for Miyazaki's dreamlike animation given the venue's intimate setting and crisp sound. Watching Chihiro navigate the bathhouse of shape-shifting spirits, sooty little coal creatures, and the enigmatic No-Face feels different on a big screen surrounded by strangers who gasp and laugh at the same moments you do.

The film's hand-painted backgrounds and painstaking detail reward a proper theater viewing, especially in a space built with acoustics in mind. There's something about hearing that score swell through a room designed for it that makes the whole thing land harder than watching at home, and the English dub brings its own charm with voice performances that shaped how a generation of Western audiences first met this world.