I know Disney will get the lion share of votes here, but what do you all consider to be the best cartoon movies out there? Such as cartoons that make an effort to reach the adult audience…
My Top Three are:
Important question: are you asking for “cartoons” or animation? If you’re asking for cartoons, I have a short list. If you’re asking for animation, it’s a much longer list, including many anime titles, some American animation, and some British and even Chzech work.
There is a lot of Anime out there that has a primarily adult audience. Akira, Robotech (well more a series), and others like that come to mind. They are of varying quality though.
Other than that, I really liked, Monsters Inc, Fern Gully, and Fire and Ice.
Watership down was alright but I thought it was over dramatized with the music. Likewise for the Hobbit. It was ok but the musical tension (in the background, not their singing) was too disjunct for the general feel of the movie.
I don’t consider stuff like “Toy Story” to be a cartoon any more than I consider “Bug’s Life” and that ilk to be so. It’s animated, but it uses to many computers and gadgets, so I consider it cheating.
Anyway, I’m a fan of Ralph Bakshi’s animation as the best non-Disney non-Japanese animated movies.
The guy in Japan who did My Neighbor Totoro and Princess Mononoke draws alot of his own cells by hand, so I appreciate his style and effort, but I don’t think anyone could consider Totoro to be a film even merely watchable by adults. His stuff is defintely more “cartoonish” than what people generally consider “anime”, so perhaps he counts.
Anyway, it pretty much depends on how you limit that question.
We all live in a Yellow Submarine
. . . a Yellow Submarine
. . . a Yellow Submarine
Not counting Anime, I’d say The Secret of NIMH. Accept no imitations.
I’d add Shrek and Chicken Run to the list. Both are just hysterically funny
Shrek and The Secret of NIMH have already been mentioned.
I have to bring up the rapidly-being-forgotten work of Will Vinton. The Adventures of Mark Twain still blows me away – Twain and Vinton, a perfect mix. Vinton came up with the term “claymation” (although everybody seems to use it), and his brightly-colored plasticene works of art are happier than Aardman’s grom and dark palette. TAoMT actualy brought tears to my eyes at times. If you can find it, The Best of the Will Vinton Festival of Animation is also great, with James Earl Jones read “The Creation”. (Actually, if you can see the *entire] Festival of Animation, do so. The Video version lacks the music video for “Vantz Can’t Dance”, the Pizza Hut commercials, and the California Raisin commercials, apparently because they couldn’t get the legal rights to include them.) Vinton also did a number of other, harder to get works – Rip Van Winkle, The Little Prince, Meet the Raisins, and the animated portions of Return to Oz (the neglected Disney one circa 1987, with Fairuza Balk. Vinton did the Nome King segments).
I also love the Fleischer Studio’s feature Gulliver’s Travels. For some reason critics didn’t like it when it came out, and still don’t seem to like it much, but it seems to me a perfectly made animated film. Critics prefer Hoppity Goes to Town, which I’m pretty lukewarm about.
Of course, if you’re mentioning Fleischer studios, you have to bring up the Betty Boop cartoons and Popeye. Betty was for a long time the only female lead cartoon character, and she still has few rivals. The old Popeye cartoons (Before Fleischer studios fell, and were replaced by Famous Studios) are wonderful. Ditto for the Fleischer Superman cartoons, which were (except for the first one) “serious” cartoons, with no “cartoony” elements.
Have to agree about Watership Down.
Don Bluth brought a wonderful cartoon lushness back to cartoons, but I was never satisfied with his storylines. My daughter would disagree – she loves The Land Before Time.
The Iron Giant.
oh! and The Iron Giant.
Lilo and Stitch.
Plus what sirtonyh said.
Pretty much anything by Hiyao Miyazaki blows Disney out of the water, but particularly these:
The Castle of Cagliostro
My Neighbor Totoro
Princess Mononoke
Spirited Away
Other stuff deserving of mention:
Dave Unwin’s 1996 made-for-TV version of The Wind in the Willows. (The one with Rik Mayall as Toad – a masterpiece of casting.)
Dianne Jackson’s 1982 adapation the The Snowman by Raymond Briggs. Beautiful pencil sketch animation and a haunting story.
Hiroyuki Yamaga’s Wings of Honneamise. An often overlooked masterpiece about the first manned rocket launch in an alternate reality that only vaguely resembles our own. Outrageously inventive. Everything in the movie – from money to architecture to the games the characters play – is both totally alien and strangely familiar.
Isao Takahata’s Grave of the Fireflies – Heartbreakingly sad story of a brother and sister trying to survive in World War II Japan.
, “but I don’t think anyone could consider Totoro to be a film even merely watchable by adults.”
Actually Roger Ebert put Totoro on his all time Great Movies list. I liked Totoro a great deal myself even though I just saw the dub.
It was made by Miyazaki, probably the greatest animator in the world. He does more than children’s cartoons; see Princess Mononoke and [b/]Nausicaa**.
His Studio Ghibli is probably the best animation studio in the world. In addition to the above mentioned they have made Kiki’s Delivery Service, Only Yesterday and Grave of the Fireflies (the last I haven’t seen but it gets near unanimous rave reviews and is also on Ebert’s Great Films list.)
Coming back to American animated films I thought Iron Giant was decent but several notches below Miyazaki’s best. I don’t know if Toy Story 2 counts but I thought it was superb, probably the best American animated film I have seen.
Any Miyazaki
Titan A.E. - It’s a shame Fox shut down the animation department. I thought it was great.
Other than that, I have to go into series.
The best part of the Redwall series is it’s super accuracy to the books. Characters basically quote entire paragraphs from the book, and minor characters that could easily be dropped still show up. And Brian Jacques does extras that they show in the PBS Amercian version. He must have creative control on par with Rowling and the Harry Potter movies. I can just imagine Hollywood f—ing up Redwall:
Hollywood creep: “Let’s make Matthias be looking for an electric guitar, and rename him Sonic. And dump Martin the Warrior for Pikachu. Oh, and no one will die!”
Hollywood toadie: “great idea boss. Now how about that new Superman script?!”
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Vampire Hunter D
Fantasia
The Last Unicorn
Batman: The Animated Series.
The Simpsons, although this is noted more for its writing than animation.
Cowboy Bebop.
Shrek, and despite it’s complete historical inaccuracy, Anastasia. That’s what got me interested in the Romanovs in the first place, and because of that interest, I eventually got my degree in history.
Yeah, I’d have to reply with all of the cartoons I watched at my babysitter’s house as a child.
The Last Unicorn was amazing. I bought the book years later, when I was fifteen, and the story still fascinates me. I’m still searching for a copy of the video. I haven’t seen it in about six years.
The Hobbit was pretty good – Led me to read the book, at least. When I was a child, I always wanted to be Thorin. He was my favourite, and it always upset me when he died.
The Snowman always makes me cry, even now. The story is amazing. The music is beautiful. And the sketches are fabulous. I think I’m going to go watch it again.
And this one has absolutely terrible animation, but the story has always stuck with me – last night I watched Puff, the Magic Dragon for the first time in about eight years. It still gets to me.
Allegro Non Troppo - Fantasia done properly.
(the English-language (dubbed) is cut - see the original Italian)
You’re welcome.