From Book to Film 2026: Howl’s Moving Castle (2004) 4K Restoration
- Sat, Jul 4
- Sun, Jul 5
Director: Hayao Miyazaki Run Time: 119 min. Rating: PG Release Year: 2004 Language: Japanese
Starring: Akihiro Miwa, Chieko Baisho, Ryunosuke Kamiki, Takuya Kimura, Tatsuya Gashûin
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese with English Subtitles
From Book to Film at Gateway Film Center
The essential summer film series returns! Admission is free with your library card. Don’t have a card? You can apply for one online.
No advanced tickets are available on From Book to Film screenings. Visit our Ticket Center on the day of the screening to grab your tickets and reserve your spot!
See the 2026 lineup
About the film:
From acclaimed director Hayao Miyazaki and the legendary Studio Ghibli, comes the Academy Award-nominated romantic fantasy adventure based on the beloved book by Diana Wynne Jones.
Sophie, a quiet girl working in a hat shop, finds her life thrown into turmoil when she is literally swept off her feet by a handsome but mysterious wizard named Howl. The vain and vengeful Witch of the Waste, jealous of their friendship, puts a curse on Sophie and turns her into a 90-year-old woman. On a quest to break the spell, Sophie climbs aboard Howl’s magnificent moving castle and into a new life of wonder and adventure. But as the true power of Howl’s wizardry is revealed, Sophie finds herself fighting to protect them both from a dangerous war of sorcery that threatens their world.
“Howl’s Moving Castle has the logic of a dream: behind every door lie multiple realities, one more astonishing than the next.”
—David Ansen, News Week
About the filmmaker:
One of Japan’s most distinctive filmmakers, Hayao Miyazaki’s stories consider the conflict between human progress and nature with the existence of the spirit world alongside the mundane. Before founding Studio Ghibli, he worked for various animation studios and crafted his first feature films Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro (1979) and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984). With fellow animator and longtime collaborator, Takahata Isao, he launched Studio Ghibli in 1985 and began producing some of most iconic hand-drawn animated films of all time, including My Neighbor Totoro (1988), Princess Mononoke (1997), SpiritedAway (2001), Howl’s Moving Castle (2004), Ponyo (2008), and The Wind Rises (2013). In 2015, Miyazaki received an honorary Academy Award for his impact on animation and cinema, and his most recent film The Boy and the Heron (2023) won Best International Feature.
See all upcoming films