Not mentioned so far are a couple by Satoshi Kon:
Millennium Actress
Tokyo Godfathers
(Though they are by the same director, they are in completely different styles.)
What - no love for The Lego Movie? I freaking love that film. (The recent Lego Batman film, however, should be avoided.)
The Triplets of Belleville.
Correcting myself-- The Brave Little Toaster. Which, if I’m remembering correctly, had a storyline very much like Toy Story but with appliances. Or should I say Toy Story had a storyline very much like The Brave Little Toaster, since the TBLT is almost 10 years older.
See, I’m the opposite … The Lego Movie was okay, but I really liked Lego Batman. Laughed out loud several times.
I liked TBLT in spite of myself. I didn’t want to like it, because it was just so weird and treacle-y, but I did anyway.
And seconding (or thirding, or whatever) The Iron Giant. One of my favorite movies, period, animated or not.
Some of the same people were involved - John Lasseter, Joe Ranft. There are elements from it in all three Toy Story movies, really.
Yeah, if memory serves, it actually tracks most closely with Toy Story III.
All Dogs Go to Heaven
An American Tail
My favourite animated film of all time is Lupin III and the Castle of Cagliostro. Although Lupin and his gang were already established by the time of its release (1980) with manga and TV series, Miyazaki added his magical touch to this movie. Like Big Trouble in Little China or Pacific Rim, I could watch it again and again, any time it comes on.
My favourite Miyazaki film featuring his own original characters is Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind.
My favourite Pixar film is still The Incredibles, which came out in 2004, prior to the Disney buyout. Does it count? Like Lupin, I could watch it any time it comes on. No capes!
Other … watchable non-Disney animated films that haven’t yet been mentioned in this thread:[ul][]Rock & Rule - Geez… Debby Harry, Lou Reed, and Iggy Pop all lent their pipes to this animated rock opera about a small-time band that gets swept up in an evil musical mastermind’s plans for world domination.[]Starchaser: The Legend of Orin - A lot of folks poo-poo’ed this sci-fi tale about a young lad who escapes an underground mining world to find that the universe is indeed vast, but I liked it![]Patlabor: The Mobile Police - If you use 30-foot tall robots (“Labors”) for construction and military purposes, somebody else is going to use them to commit crimes; that’s why you need “Patlabor” (“Patrol” + “Labor”) to police them. The first movie is fantastic. The TV shows and OVA’s can be hit or miss (the live-action adaption looks horrid!), but are generally good if you stick with them.[]Robot Carnival - When it was released, Robot Carnival was a pretty big deal as a monumental collaborative effort. It’s a collection of short stories – most of which have no dialogue at all - that involve robots one way or another. Each story is presented in a different style by various famed animators and character designers, including Katsuhiro Otomo (Akira), Yoshiyuki Sadamoto (Neon Genesis Evangelion), and Hiroyuki Kitazume (Mobile Suit Gundam).[/ul]
My mistake - it is Disney from a financial/distribution sense, but I’m pretty sure that the Disney animation department was not involved in the production.
All the Miyazaki films. Especially Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro.
[quote=“psiekier, post:29, topic:786317”]
[ul][li]Starchaser: The Legend of Orin - A lot of folks poo-poo’ed this sci-fi tale about a young lad who escapes an underground mining world to find that the universe is indeed vast, but I liked it![/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
I liked this too, it was very obviously a Star Wars rip-off, or perhaps homage, and it used a pioneering combination of 3D and 2D, but then I watched it again on DVD a few years ago and… it’s not quite as good as I remembered it.
I’m guessing few will agree with me, but we love VeggieTales, so I’d put The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything and Jonah on the list.
And Aardman, of course.
All the Despicable Me films have been very good, IMO.
My nomination for the thread would be The Lego Movie, which is brilliant and works on so many levels. The Lego Batman Movie was excellent too, I thought.
Anomalisa — Definitely not a Disney movie! Stop-motion, with amazingly realistic sets.
A Scanner Darkly — Very faithful version of a Philip K. Dick novel, and a beautiful example of rotoscoping.
I’m a big Don Hertzfeldt fan so I’m not sure how I missed World of Tomorrow. I watched it online yesterday and all I can say is “Holy crap”.
For a short film that is pretty much entirely exposition and contains only two characters drawn as stick figures and voiced in a monotone for one and by piecing together the ramblings of a four-year-old girl for the other, it packs a hell of an emotional wallop. In terms of absurdist existential horror-comedy, Hertzfeldt leaves Franz Kafka in the dust.
Weirdly, this remains my favourite Johnny Depp movie. It took several viewings to get into the groove (and I still haven’t decided which ending I prefer) but it’s strangely compelling.
On the Despicable Me films I have to say that the first one was very good but the second one had too many rehashes of the same jokes from the first one for me to enjoy it. I laughed exactly once, and that was at the “fire brigade” (which, to be fair, was extremely funny). It is not inspiring me to watch the third one.
Love Rango, but didn’t realize that there was an alternate ending. Apparently, this is it.
Part of it might be that most animated movies with anthropomorphic animals make them stylized and cute for maximum appeal, whereas Rango makes them ugly as sin, bordering on grotesque. Or “ugly cute,” at best.
The Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs movie are absolutely brilliant. They have such a different kind of humor that you either love or hate…and I absolutely love it.
Although in terms of overall storytelling, I think How to Train Your Dragon is the best of the bunch. Both movies have compelling stories with GREAT endings. I’ve heard rumors of a third one and I want it to happen very badly.
My very favorite is The Book of Life. It’s beautifully done, and doesn’t get the recognition it deserves. And Diego Luna sings in it!
After that, personal favorites include the Despicable Me movies, and Spirited Away.