PRACTICAL MAGIC 2 movie poster | ©2026 Warner Bros.

Rating: PG-13
Stars: Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman, Joey King, Lee Pace, Maisie Williams, Xolo Maridueña, Solly McLeod, Dianne Wiest, Stockard Channing
Writers: Akiva Goldsman and Georgia Pritchett and Kelly Marcel, based on the novel THE BOOK OF MAGIC by Alice Hoffman
Director: Susanne Bier
Distributor: Warner Bros.
Release Date: September 9, 2026

The new movie PRACTICAL MAGIC 2 is a sequel to the 1998 film PRACTICAL MAGIC, which was adapted from Alice Hoffman’s 1995 novel of the same title.

PRACTICAL MAGIC 2 is also adapted – by director Susanne Bier and screenwriters Akiva Goldsman and Georgia Pritchett and Kelly Marcel – from Hoffman’s novel THE BOOK OF MAGIC, which was published in 2021.

THE BOOK OF MAGIC serves as the finale of Hoffman’s quartet of MAGIC books. Both PRACTICAL MAGIC, the novel and the film, and the novel THE BOOK OF MAGIC and its adaptation PRACTICAL MAGIC 2, deal with the Owens sisters, Sally (Sandra Bullock) and Gillian (Nicole Kidman).

(For those keeping track, Hoffman’s second tome in the series, THE RULES OF MAGIC, published in 2017, chronicles the adventures of Sally and Gillian’s aunts in their younger days, and MAGIC LESSONS, published in 2020, is set in the 1600s, which depicts the origins of the curse afflicting the Owens women.)

In some ways, PRACTICAL MAGIC 2 has a premise that’s a retread of PRACTICAL MAGIC. The curse dictates that any man who is loved by or falls in love with an Owens woman will die a premature death. In the first film, Sally loses her husband, father of their two young daughters, to the curse. She swears off witchcraft, only to need it to rescue Gilly, who is proud of their magical heritage. Sally finds new love, she and Gilly believe the curse is broken, and apparently everyone can live happily and magically ever after.

Well, not so fast. At the start of PRACTICAL MAGIC 2, although Sally and her beloved from the first film married, the curse struck again after all. Broken-hearted, Sally does a graveside spell that at least superficially strips her of all her powers. Sally makes Gilly swear not to tell Sally’s daughters, Kylie and Antonia, that they are hereditary witches. Gilly is extremely reluctant but gives her word.

When Kylie (Joey King) is in college and Antonia (Maisie Williams) is a student doctor, the siblings are tightly bonded to each other, to their mom, to Aunt Gilly, and to great-aunts Jet (Dianne Wiest) and Franny (Stockard Channing), themselves Owens witches who raised Sally and Gilly.

Several things happen almost simultaneously. For one, Jet locates a book that contains the spell that can break the curse – but can’t get the pages to open. For another, Kylie realizes she is in love with her sweet boyfriend Gideon (Xolo Maridueña).

These things combine to force Sally to try to get back in touch with her witchy nature in order to save a loved one.

The best reason to see PRACTICAL MAGIC 2 is the chemistry between Bullock and Kidman, who bring out the best in each other as performers. Without naming movies, both have been saddled with some roles where the jokes and the spark weren’t there. Here, they conjure an energy that feels spontaneous and playful that’s delightful to witness.

While they don’t get as much screen time together as Bullock and Kidman, King and Williams also have an appealing sibling dynamic. Wiest and Channing both have warm authority, Lee Pace charms as an English warlock, and Solly McLeod does well as a groundskeeper with a tale to tell.

Director Bier and the cinematography and design team do a visually entertaining job of keeping the Owens’ world look plausibly enchanting – that is, these are spaces that people who like spirits and the unseen and rich colors (and lots of books) might ensconce themselves in within our world.

There are a number of witchy glitches, though, starting with the basic premise. Did Sally learn nothing from what she and others went through in PRACTICAL MAGIC? Since she knows the curse to be true, shouldn’t she have warned her daughters about it back when they first reached dating age?

The workings of the curse may be a little too mysterious for any viewer who contemplates it. It inevitably came to pass before, but at least Sally had enough time to have two children with her first husband and a wedding with her second. Kylie barely has time to declare her feelings before there’s a big kapow.

Then there are the story mechanics that fuel the inevitable mortal jeopardy. Hoffman may have set these up well in THE BOOK OF MAGIC, but in PRACTICAL MAGIC 2, the peril and how it’s investigated and combatted all seem borrowed from any number of mostly standalone episodes of supernatural TV shows (including but not limited to SUPERNATURAL).

Still, PRACTICAL MAGIC 2 is worth watching. It is pleasing to the eye, and the joy that the cast has in playing squabbling but adoring family is genuinely fun to observe.

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