25 Years Later, The Anime Masterpiece Better Than Spirited Away Is Yet to Get Its True Respect

In the anime world, some movies do more than tell a great story; they stay with you long after the credits roll. Satoshi Kon’s Millennium Actress is one of them.

The movie tells a beautiful story about love, memories, movies, and the passage of time. While Spirited Away became a worldwide hit, Millennium Actress quietly built its own loyal fanbase. Now, 25 years later, the film still feels fresh and deserves far more attention.

Millennium Actress Rivals Spirited Away With Its Emotional Depth

At the center of Millennium Actress is Chiyoko Fujiwara, a famous actress who has spent most of her life looking for a mysterious man from her past. The story is told through an interview with Chiyoko. Documentary filmmaker Genya Tachibana visits her to learn about her life and career. However, the interview soon becomes much more than a simple look back at her past.

As Chiyoko tells her story, her memories begin to mix with the movies she made. One moment, she is a young girl running through the streets. The next, she is a character in a samurai film. Then, the story can suddenly move into a science-fiction movie or a historical drama.

Satoshi Kon makes these changes feel completely natural. The movie does not always tell viewers when they have moved from reality into one of Chiyoko’s films. Instead, everything flows together. Her real life, her memories, and her movie roles become part of the same story. That is one of the biggest reasons Millennium Actress still feels so special.

The movie is not simply about what happened to Chiyoko. It is about how she remembers those events and how movies became a huge part of her life. Her search for the mysterious man also gives the story its emotional heart. Chiyoko spends decades trying to find him, and that search becomes one of the most important parts of her life.

But the movie eventually shows that the search itself may be more important than finally reaching the person she has been chasing. This gives Millennium Actress a different kind of emotional power. It is not just a love story. It is also a story about memories, dreams, and the things people spend their entire lives chasing.

The film was also recognized for its artistic value. At the Japan Media Arts Festival, Millennium Actress received the Animation Grand Prize (via the official website). The festival praised its use of animation, romance, visual ideas, and its appeal to adult audiences. Interestingly, Millennium Actress shared that animation prize with Spirited Away (via the official website).

The movie is also only around 87 minutes long, but Kon manages to pack a huge amount into that short runtime. The quick changes between different periods, movies, and memories give the film a unique energy. It is the kind of movie that can reveal something new when watched again.

Millennium Actress Remains One of Anime’s Overlooked Masterpieces

So why has Millennium Actress never reached the same level of fame as Spirited Away? One reason may be that, as one of Hayao Miyazaki’s movies, it’s easier for a wider audience to understand. Spirited Away has a magical world, strange creatures, memorable characters, and a simple emotional journey that works for both children and adults.

Its Academy Award win also helped make it one of the most famous animated movies in the world. Millennium Actress takes a very different approach. Its story deals with memories, movies, aging, love, and the way people remember their own lives. Reality and fiction are constantly mixed together, meaning viewers have to pay closer attention to what they are seeing.

That can make the movie feel more complicated at first. But it is also what makes it so rewarding. The film has received plenty of critical praise over the years. It currently holds a 93% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes (as of September 1, 2026). Still, Millennium Actress has never become a household name in the same way as Spirited Away.

Instead, it has often been discovered by anime fans and movie lovers who are looking for something different. Those who watch it often come away impressed by how much Kon manages to do with animation. That is what makes its lack of mainstream recognition so surprising.

Now the big question: Could Millennium Actress finally get the wider recognition it deserves alongside Spirited Away? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Millennium Actress and Spirited Away are both currently available to watch on HBO Max.