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With Practical Magic 2 headed to theaters this September — Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman back as the Owens sisters, joined by Joey King, Lee Pace, and a cast full of familiar faces — it felt like the right moment to say the quiet part out loud: this franchise has always hit different for señoras. Not because of the witchcraft exactly. Because of how familiar it all feels.
Here’s why.
1. Every Family Had a Herbalist Long Before It Was a Trend
The Owens women steeping mysterious teas and mixing remedies in mason jars? That’s not fantasy to a lot of us — that’s just what you heard in stories about your grandmother’s great grandma. Every family seems to have had one woman, usually a great-grandmother, who knew exactly which plant fixed which ailment, who had a jar of something for stomachaches and a different jar for nerves, and who never wrote any of it down because it lived entirely in memory and instinct. Watching Practical Magic feels less like watching movie magic and more like watching a slightly dramatized version of Sunday afternoons in your family’s ancestral hometown.
2. The Wardrobe Is Basically Our Family Photos
Flowy skirts, layered jewelry, that loose, unbothered, boho silhouette the Owens sisters wear — it’s the same aesthetic that shows up in old family photos from the 70s and 80s, the ones where your mom or tía looks effortlessly cool without trying. There’s a reason that look keeps cycling back into fashion.
3. Someone in the Family Tree Was “That Woman” in the Village
Every family seems to have a version of this story: a great-grandmother, an aunt, someone a few generations back, who didn’t quite fit in where she was from. Maybe she read cards. Maybe she knew things she shouldn’t have known. Maybe the neighbors whispered about her, or she was the one people quietly went to when something needed fixing that a doctor couldn’t fix. The Owens family’s reputation as the strange, talented, slightly feared women in town isn’t such a stretch — a lot of us have a Maria or a Rosa somewhere in the family tree who lived exactly that story, minus the literal spellbook.
4. We Grew Up Being Told We’re “A Little Intuitive”
Somewhere between “don’t put your purse on the floor” and “if your ear is ringing someone’s talking about you,” a lot of us absorbed the idea early that some things just can’t be explained — you feel them before you understand them. Call it intuition, or seeing the dead. Practical Magic doesn’t feel like a stretch of the imagination so much as a slight exaggeration of something a lot of us were raised to believe was completely normal.
5. It’s Really a Movie About Women Protecting Each Other
Underneath the spells and the curses, Practical Magic has always actually been about sisters, aunts, and generations of women showing up for each other when things fall apart. That’s the part that quietly makes it feel like home. Family being complicated and loyal at the same time, older women passing down both wisdom and warnings, everyone circling the wagons when someone’s in trouble — that’s not fantasy either. Our cultures are just very matriarchal when it really comes down to it.
What’s Coming in Practical Magic 2
If you need a reason to be excited beyond nostalgia: the sequel brings Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman back as the Owens sisters, this time confronting a family curse that threatens to unravel everything, with a cast that includes Joey King, Lee Pace, Maisie Williams, Xolo Maridueña, Solly McLeod, Dianne Wiest, and Stockard Channing. It’s directed by Susanne Bier, based on Alice Hoffman’s novel The Book of Magic. It hits theaters in North America on September 11, 2026.
And we cannot wait!