My top three are:
Princess Mononoke
Grave of the Fireflies
Only Yesterday
All of them are by Studio Ghibli with the first by Miyazaki and the other two by Takahata. Each of them extends the range of animation beyond the traditonal children’s story.
The remaining seven in no particular order:
Toy Story 2
Spirited Away
Finding Nemo
Millenium Actress
Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves
Metropolis
I include Snow White mainly for its historical importance though it’s still a pretty good film.
I feel like I’m forgetting something, but a quick check of my DVD collection didn’t turn up any new candidates. (Unless Who Framed Roger Rabbit? counts as animated, in which case it’s on there.) For a while after I saw it, Disney’s Tarzan was at the top of my list, but now I realize I don’t have any desire to see it again – for all the beautiful stuff that went into that movie, I just remember all the Disney formula stuff.
Orual, I finally saw Perfect Blue for the first time last night. I was very impressed; it was really well-done and had me guessing the whole way through, even after I thought I’d already figured it out.
The Nightmare Before Christmas (does stop-motion count?)
Toy Story
Monster’s Inc.
Spirited Away
Watership Down
The Last Unicorn
South Park
Alladdin
Fantasia
The Jungle Book
Having a 4 year old, I’ve seen way too many animated movies, so I’m not going to make a list. But I will add one: Shrek. When that movie came out on video a couple of years ago, my daughter became totaly fascinated with it. I am not exagerating when I say I’ve seen that movie at least 75 times. I wouldn’t watch any movie that many darn times if it wasn’t good. I had to get up and walk away from Scooby Doo and the Boo Brothers after 40 minutes for cryin’ out loud!
I think A Bug’s Life belongs on the list for sure. The creativity of its artificial world, the characters of the ants despite looking nothing like people, and just the beauty of the animation. Plus, it was a damned good story.
How could I forget Fantasia?! See that’s why I can’t really compile a top ten list…
I really liked Chicken Run, but I’m not sure I would put it in the all-time top ten. I’d include the three Wallace and Gromit films but I guess they don’t count 'cause their shorts. So I’ll add the upcoming W&G feature, even though it’s still a few years away. I’ve very little doubt it’ll go on the list when it gets here.
Spirited Away, no question. Excellent story, excellent voice-acting, beautiful animation.
Watership Down. I appreciate it when “animated adaptation” of a novel does not equate to “dumbed down beyond all hope of redemption for the peace-of-mind of overprotective parents”. That and I still the voice-acting. Creation bless Rosen for this and his adaptation of “The Plague Dogs”, though it made me cry for days.
The Secret of Nimh. Ah, for the days before the name Don Bluth became synonymous with kiddie crap. This was not so much a faithful adaptation of the book it was based on as a beautiful re-imaging of it. And I still love the score.
Toy Story. Again, good story, good acting, and excellent use of a new sort of animation. I wonder if Disney knows that Pixar is everything that they haven’t been in well over a decade.
The Last Unicorn. Another case of ‘love the book, love the movie’. Thank you, Mr. Beagle!
Fantasia. The ORIGINAL Fantasia, not that sad-sack sequel crap. The first one was an equal mix of whimsy, raw emotion, and animators that were high as the sky. The new one was pretty enough, but wasn’t trying anything new; it just tried to ride the coat-tails of a true experiment.
The Nightmare Before Christmas. I am so Danny Elfman’s adoring fangirl.
South Park: Bigger. Longer. And Uncut. Bwahahahahaha…
The Escaflowne Movie. Bestest, prettiest AU fan-fiction ever.
<i>This place is reserved in honor of the one-day-to-be-made ‘Elfquest’ movie because it’s going to rock when it finally gets here, dammit!!!</i>
Honorable mentions:
Cowboy Bebop: Knocking on Heaven’s Door - very nice, but doesn’t make much sense as a stand-alone movie.
Princess Mononoke - So beautiful that it makes me ache, but the characters were such obvious metaphors that I couldn’t really care much about them as people.
The Hobbit - Love the book, but I only like this movie, and that’s mostly for the nostolgia factor. I love the Gandalf and Gollum and Smaug in it. I don’t even mind the music. But God DAMN it, RB, What have you done to my Elves?! They look like they’ve been pickled in brine for 500 years!
Porco Rosso (and Nausicaa,Kiki,Mononoke,Totoro,Laputa,Sen)
Grave of the Fireflies (and Pom Poko,Only Yesterday)
Fantasia
Ghost in the Shell
Fantastic Planet
Toy Story
Nightmare Before Christmas
Iron Giant
Beauty and the Beast
Akira
Honorable Mentions:
An American Tail
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Heavy Metal
Waking life
Wallace and Gromit
Watership down
Not really. I know for a fact that Sol Grundy has seen the film and likes it but not enough to place it in his top ten. It’s a matter of taste and the films does have a few flaws.
