Director: Hayao Miyazaki 
Writers: Eiko Kadono (novel), Hayao Miyazaki
Producers: Hayao Miyazaki · Jane Schonberger (US version)
Voice cast (Japanese): Minami Takayama, Rei Sakuma, Mieko Nobusawa
Voice Dub (US Version): Kirsten Dunst as Kiki, Phil Hartman as Jiji
Music: Joe Hisaishi
BBFC: U
Runtime: 103 mins
4K IMAX re-release: 21 August 2026
Many people mark turning thirteen with a cake and / or puberty party. Kiki gets a broom, a full moon and a year away from home to find a town without a witch and learn the trade alone. Miyazaki’s 1989 coming-of-age gem now arrives in 4K on IMAX screens, and those hand-painted skies and harbour rooftops finally get the canvas they deserve.
The send-off scene sets the tone: the whole neighbourhood turns out at midnight, there’s a family debate over whose broom she should take, and black cat Jiji plays the voice of reason which remains throughout the film. Then she’s off over the coast as the credits roll, Joe Hisaishi’s breezy score carrying her past a snooty fellow trainee and into a rainstorm that ends with a nap in a hay wagon, on a moving train!
The seaside town isn’t instantly welcoming, (i.e. Kiki’s arrival nearly causing a traffic pile-up doesn’t help), until pregnant baker Osono swaps one good deed for a room and a job. The deliveries are where the fun begins: indignant crows, a lost parcel, an old lady’s herring pie that costs Kiki a party with Tombo, the aviation-mad boy who won’t stop orbiting her. Their propeller-bike ride to the beach is a little gem of awkward first friendship.
Then the film does something braver. Kiki’s powers fade, (she can barely fly and can no longer understand Jiji), and a stay with painter Ursula in her woodland cabin becomes the gentlest conversation about burnout I’ve seen on film. Artist’s block, witch’s block: once she stops forcing it, they pass. The dirigible rescue delivers the crowd-pleasing finale, but it’s that quiet cabin scene that stays with you.
I caught the American dub via a screener not the IMAX; purists should book a subtitled showing.
Small in stakes, big in heart, and at its very best on a screen this size.