We all know that Disney is the king of animated movies. So, what are some good animated movies that weren’t made by the House of Mouse?
Anything by Aardman Animations. Arthur Christmas is one of the best Christmas movies ever (not just one of the best animated ones), and The Pirates: Band of Misfits Chicken Run, and the various Wallace and Gromit films are better than most Disney and Pixar films.
I like a few. The Miyazaki films are mostly exceptional. I also liked Anastasia, Several Dreamworks things, including Shrek and El Dorado. Chicken Run and the Wallace and Grommet film.
Here’s a list:
for 2-D animation:
** Watership Down
The Secret of NIMH
The Land Before Time** (but NOT the sequels)
**Yellow Submarine
Gay Purr-ee
Spirited Away
Kiki’s Delivery Service
My Friend Totoro
Ponyo
Howl’s Moving Castle
**
Dimensional Animation
**The Adventures of Mark Twain
Kubo and the Two Strings
Coraline
(The Collected Wallace and Gromet)
Curse of the Were-Rabbit
Chicken Run
Best of Claymation
The Pirates** (Aardman movie – very underappreciated)
Mad Monster Party (even though it’s Rankin-Bass, it gets points for the Jack Davis character design and the voices – Boris Karloff! Phyllis Diller!)
Akira
Well, if we’re including stop-motion then The Nightmare Before Christmas tops my list.
Nightmare Before Christmas IS Disney.
Through the Touchstone subsidiary, at first, but it’s been incorporated into Kingdom Hearts, so Disney clearly is absorbing it into the main brand.
I’m just gonna list a few I haven’t seen posted yet:
South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut
A personal favorite that I doubt would make anyone else’s “best” list is Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters.
Are we doing shorts or just features? I assume just features, or we get every Bugs Bunny cartoon pasted in the thread, etc.
We might want to separate this into “Anime” and “Non-Anime” categories…
Actually, we should probably separate it into “children’s” and “non-children’s,” as well. It’s probably not fair to put “Felidae” and “The Secret of NIMH” into the same category, much less “Ponyo” and “Ghost in the Shell.”
Anastasia was lovely.
Allegro Non Troppo still delights.
Shrek. Frankly, that’s the hands-down winner.
I love How to Train Your Dragon.
American:
It’s Such a Beautiful Day
World of Tomorrow (2015)
Rango
Spirit: Stallion of Cimmaron
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (mostly for the visuals)
If you’re into super heroes there’s a boatload of direct to video DC animated movies of greatly varying quality. My favorites:
Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker
Wonder Woman (2009)
Superman\Batman - Apocalypse (mostly for the fight scenes)
Batman: Under the Red Hood
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Justice League: Flashpoint Paradox (if only to see the over the top grimdark alternate universe)
French:
Rabbi’s Cat
Japanese:
Sword of the Stranger
Redline
Ninja Scroll
Paprika
Right. My favorite is Princess Mononoke, although others listed by CalMeacham are also great: (Spirited Away, Kiki’s Delivery Service, My Friend Totoro, Ponyo, Howl’s Moving Castle)
I’m going to complain once again about Dreamworks’ inexplicable decision to not release its early animation features on blu-ray. Antz, The Prince of Egypt, The Road to El Dorado, Chicken Run, Sinbad, Over the Hedge, Flushed Away, Shark Tale; none of them have had a blu-ray release yet. Why?
Everything done by Laika and Aardman.
Local studio Triggerfish has recently done some nice work with* Revolting Rhymes* and Julia Donaldson’s Stickman
Pixar movies are held in pretty high regard. For the twenty years prior to Disney’s purchase of it, it was an independent corporation.
Heavy Metal.
I don’t think this was a Disney Movie.
The first Ice Age is better than you’d think. They get worse as they go on, slowly getting weirder.
As is Despicable Me, and its sequel. Haven’t seen Minions, but a lot of people like that too.
Both How To Train Your Dragon movies are great fun.
The Secret of Kells, and Song of the Sea are both amazing, though kind of similar to each other. Wolfwalkers is next.
Don Bluth’s Anastasia has some good moments too.
Fritz the Cat.
And two that my children adored when growing up: The Brave Toaster and Rockadoodle.