The 22 Greatest Animated Movies of All Time

 

22. The Little Mermaid

Though the Disneyfication process stripped the story of its most searing moments (the mermaid's legs causing her pain, the prince marrying another woman, the mermaid dissolving into foam),  what's left still provides a more enjoyable viewing experience than the average animated feature.

21. Night of the Animated Dead

20. Seoul Station

19. Beware My Power

Suffering from PTSD largely due to his final tour as a sniper, combat veteran John Stewart encounters a downed starship piloted by a dying extra-terrestrial. But before the alien takes his last breath, he bequeaths a strange, AI-equipped ring to the former soldier. After the ring transports him to the Watchtower, Stewart is pulled into an entirely new world filled with vigilantes, interplanetary conflicts and would-be galactic warlords.

18. Cinderella

17. The Amazing Maurice

16. Trolls World Tour

Trolls World Tour is the other big musical of 2020 (the other is Hamilton). After causing an uproar by releasing TWT on Video On Demand on the same day that it was released in theaters, Universal claimed that it had solved the global theater shutdown problem. While this Trolls sequel has not actually turned a profit it is a fun family movie that actually does offer something for the whole family.









15. Shrek

Saturday Night Live generations collide in this subversive adventure-comedy starring Mike Myers and Eddie Murphy (who steals the show). Proving that Disney hasn't yet cornered the market on fairytale animation, this story that casts an ogre as the hero was the fourth highest-grossing film of 2001 and spawned three sequels and a spin-off.









14. Finding Nemo

Marlin is just an ordinary clown fish and single dad. He's normally not courageous or adventurous at all. But when his son, Nemo, is caught by a scuba diver, he travels from his home waters in the Great Barrier Reef to Sydney Harbor 1,096 miles away braving bloodthirsty sharks, hungry pelicans, jellyfish, the aggravation caused by his moronic sidekick (Dory) and his own neuroses along the way in order to get Junior back safe and sound.









13. The Sword in the Stone

12. Ron's Gone Wrong

11. The Sea Beast

Swashbuckling sailors and sea monsters clash in this tale about man vs. (super)nature.

10. Throne of Atlantis

9. The Rise of Technovore

8. The Fantastic Mr. Fox

7. Secret Magic Control Agency

This insane fairytale about Hansel and Gretel on a covert mission to save a magic kingdom is one of the funniest animated movies of all time. 

The story begins with the famous siblings all grown up but very much estranged. Gretel works for the titular clandestine organization dedicated to policing those who use sorcery. Meanwhile, Hansel is a rich and popular magician -- except that in their world, in which magic really exists, he's actually a super-successful con-man who doesn't have any genuine supernatural abilities. Although the pair of orphans are all the family that either of them has left, they haven't spoken in years. Gretel despises her brother for leading a life of white-collar crime; Hansel resents his sister for turning her back on blood.

However, when the king is abducted, Gretel is tasked with finding and rescuing him. And after her initial leads turn out to be dead-ends, she's ordered to partner with her famous sibling by her director who believes that "it takes a thief to catch a thief". Not long into the mission, an enchanted potion transforms the pair back into children, forcing them to continue the assignment while stuck in their juvenile bodies (not to mention, bickering the entire time). What follows is a fantasy land-trotting adventure that brings the duo face-to-face with witches, mermaids, Baba Yaga and gingerbread men in what may be H&G's best film to date.

6. The Hobbit

5. Bambi

4. Mortal Kombat Legends: Cage Match

3. WALL-E

Nemo? Nope. Frozen? Get the hell outta here. WALL-E represents the zenith of Disney Pixar films. In fact, Entertainment Weekly named it the greatest animated film ever. WALL-E is an example of one of the rare times that the AMPAS got it right when the film earned the Oscar for Best Animated Feature at the 81st annual Academy Awards.

Like many space stories, our hero endures more than his share of isolation and loneliness. At its core, WALL-E is about an unassuming guy living in a desert wasteland, stuck doing menial labor, who travels to outer space for the first time in order to rescue a sophisticated female clad in white. Said female also happens to be pretty handy with a gun. He soon realizes that he, and she, are part of something much bigger than he ever imagined. Sound familiar? The difference is that instead of ending up in one, the hero is a trash compactor.

He barely talks, he looks like he belongs in the landfill in which he resides, and yet, you can't stop watching him. If he were a person, that little dude would be a great one. 

Believe it or not, WALL-E is also among the number of films in which a significant amount of its hero's woes can be traced to either an artificial intelligence or a huge corporate conglomerate. In this case, it's both. 

There are quite a few barely-veiled Christian themes at work here too: Imagine the spaceship, the Axiom, is Noah's Ark and Eve is the dove who brings back an olive branch. All that and Sigourney Weaver, too.

2. Pinocchio

The heart invested in this fairytale about a father and son's love for each other is a refreshing departure from its source material.









1. The Transformers: The Movie

Contrary to popular misconception, neither Shia LaBeouf nor Michael Bay has any connection whatsoever to the first Transformers film. Nor is it a combination of live-action and CGI. The first and best big-screen depiction of the Autobot/Decepticon conflict is rendered in old-fashioned, two-dimensional anime and premiered way back in 1986. Despite the format, its the darkest and most mature of the Transformers films to date. Transformers also bears the distinction of being the final film for both Scatman Crothers and Orson Welles. Crothers and Welles gave vocal performances alongside other well-known figures such as Leonard Nimoy, Robert Stack, Judd Nelson, Eric Idle and radio legend Casey Kasem.

The Transformers' initial on-screen incarnation was a daily television series which aired from 1984-1987. The animation style employed in the film, like everything else, is a vast improvement over the one used for the series. The theme song even gets a hard rock update from the LA band Lion. Even for those who don't like hair bands (a group that includes me), it sounds great and is further evidence that the filmmakers took the project seriously. The film's signature song, "The Touch", by Stan Bush, was initially produced for the 1986 hit, Cobra, starring Sylvester Stallone. "The Touch" is also the song main character Dirk Diggler records for his demo tape in the 1997 movie, Boogie Nights.

The Transformers, which is based directly on the animated television series, picks up 20 years after the events of the show -- in the distant future of 2005 (How about that?). In a departure from the series, which was set largely on Earth, the film takes place mainly in space and on other planets. There is a vast leap in maturity on display here -- in more ways than one. For one thing, while the film is not without moments of comedic relief (much of it dark comedy), the tone is astoundingly serious for an animated feature. You'll even hear some curse words during a couple of particularly stressful situations. You'll also notice that Spike Witwicky (the same last name used in the Shia LaBeouf movies), one of the few human regulars on the televison series and teenaged during the seasons preceding the film, is now a grown man with a son. Spike's father, Sparkplug (another series regular), is never seen or mentioned. Lastly, the film whole-heartedly embraces the premise of the Transformers concept: the Autobots and Decepticons are engaged in a war. A war that claims lives -- on both sides.

Updated 12/12/22