Spirited Away was my first exposure to Studio Ghibli and I'll admit, I was charmed. Kept my attention the whole way thru. I'd recommend that over Kiki if you're looking for something more engaging (if you don't mind the nightmare fuel it's got).

Interesting enough, the Engligh voice actress for Chihiro, the little girl protagonist, is Daveigh Chase. She also did the voice acting for Lilo, from Lilo and Stitch, which I thought was a cool tie-in, considering that Disney helped distribute the anime in the U.S.

Yeah I'm aware of all that, Spirited Away was also my first exposure to Ghibli films back when Cartoon Network premiered all those years ago.

Interesting. What about "My Neighbor Totoro"? It's got quite a big following because of the bizarre creatures in it and theory about Totoro himself being a God of Death (which is kind of ridiculous).

Never saw it, heard it was not all that and I'll leave it at that, saw Princess Mononoke though, it was pretty good.

Ghibli's more dark and thrilling ones always seem to be the most memorable. If that's what you like in an anime, then I can recommend a few titles from Satoshi Kon: Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, Paprika, and (my favorite) Tokyo Godfathers.

Some of those are on my list due to a friend who also likes those movies.

Cool. It's nice to know that we got something in common with anime.

Although let me preface I am not an anime watcher, there are shows that I've watched and liked but it doesn't go beyond that.

I remember not a whole lot really happens in Kiki's delivery service. Maybe it's run time is a bit shorter than Spirited Away, as well.
She basically tries to get a handle on being a witch for most of the movie and only one other guy manages to do pretty well with flying other than her. And, well,
Props to the dude for basically having a flying bicycle, that crap's amazing. But otherwise it's definitely not the most interesting movie in Ghibli's catalogue.

I couldn't stand that kid, dude was so fucking thirsty it was insufferable, he could borderline be a simp.

My memory's foggy on the movie, it's been years since I watched it. So I can't really say I remember what he was like. That's partially why I think it can't have been that interesting...
So that's basically confirming my suspicions right now. That this would probably be a good movie for those just getting into Ghibli films but not ready for all the dark parts yet, just as Spirited Away is a great intro to them for everyone else.
I personally remember liking Castle in the Sky and maybe some of Howl's Moving Castle. Haven't seen much other than that.
Edit: I lied, I also remember Arietty the Borrower was a thing. That movie was pretty neat too I think.