In celebration of the release of Pixar's 'Up' and Wes Anderson's beautiful stop-motion rendering of Roald Dahl's 'The Fantastic Mr Fox', Time Out ushers in the help of master animator Terry Gilliam – whose own partially animated 'The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus' opens in cinemas this month – to run down 50 of the greatest animated features of all time
50. (1981)
Directed by Gerald Potterton
Lick my love pump!
As an exercise in nakedly exploiting the sweaty peccadilloes of the teenage male, ‘' would appear at first glance to be a sure-fire winner: an adaptation of stories stripped from the pages of ultraviolent French sex-comic, Métal Hurlant, with a slew of churning metal anthems booming over the top. It's everything an adolescent boy could wish for, non?
Sadly, it's not the breast-filled bloodbath of orgiastic carnage set to the savage cacophony of Iron Maiden and Sabbath that one remembers. What we're in fact offered is a jarringly discontinuous parade of badly drawn cockamamie featuring heavy-set, matronly women riding tigers to the strains of art-rock also-rans Devo covering ‘Working in a Goldmine’ or Stevie Nicks bleating away over an inscrutable snippet of hamstrung space opera. At the time though, it was boss! ALD’
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49. (2009)
Directed by Phil Lord
This time, the food fights back…
Too soon? Perhaps, but we’re convinced that this maddeningly ingenious and wildly original smart kids’ adventure will one day take its rightful place in the animated pantheon. In time-honoured cartoon fashion, ‘Cloudy… ’ takes a simple idea – scientist creates machine that turns water into food – and milks it for all its worth: you want spaghetti tornadoes? Ice-cream snowfalls? Palaces made of jelly? Killer Gummi-Bears? ‘Cloudy… ’ has it all.
But perhaps the film’s most notable characteristic is it’s absolute refusal to fall prey to this century’s most annoying cartoon bugbear: cultural referencing. From the industry in-jokes of ‘Shrek’ to the soul-searching self-help psychology of the ‘Ice Age’ movies, animators seem to have forgotten how to make movies for kids without patronising their parents. ‘Cloudy… ’ gets the balance just right, with a winning parade of witty asides, outrageous sight gags and beautifully judged character moments. TH
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48. (2001)
Directed by Hironobu Sakaguchi
All fur coat, no knickers
With its impenetrable plot, lazy voice casting and dialogue that sounds as if it’s been mangled through an online interpreter, there’s little to be said for the narrative elements of this CGI spin-off of the enduring computer game franchise. But turn the sound down and slap some mellow beats into the CD player – we suggest Slowdive or mid-period Simple Minds – and you’ve got yourself some serious ambient eye candy. Full-tilt gun battles, ethereal aliens and stately space action fills every frame, and with the sound off you have the added bonus of having to invent your own plot, which will almost certainly be more cogent than the one the filmmakers came up with. ALD
47. (1959)
Directed by Clyde Geronimi
Disney meets Nick Cave.
Everything about ‘’ is huge and grand, from its wildly kinky villain and wonderful score to the sweeping, colourful animation. The only quibble is that they are all put to the service of a story that doesn’t really actually get round to going anywhere. It might well have its roots firmly set in the elemental undertow of classic fairy tale, but any such tale needs to be adapted for its age, and while the basic premise is sound as a pound, there’s hardly enough going on in this Disney adaptation to get it over the finishing line. The design and animation remain a marvel, but the vague miasma of nightmares past that drip from every frame – added to the torpid plot – has dated the film rather badly. ALD'
46.
Directed by Satoshi Kon
Brain-bending pop-cultural noir from the pulp Miyazaki
Pushing through the fourth wall and throttling your brain into submission, '' posits the notion that the psyche unbound would be the most destructive force on earth as a therapeutic invention for making dreams come to life falls into the wrong hands. The scenario is home to an array of brash set-pieces which take place in both modern-day Japan and the noirish inner world of one police detective’s mind. They usually consist of a fantastical parade of childhood icons and Freudian nightmares that edge ever closer to the real world. It’s a playful, complex psychological disaster movie with dark sexual undertones that happens to have been animated in the eye-scorching style of early-morning kids' TV fodder. PF
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45. Transformers – The Movie (1986)
Directed by Nelson Shin
In space no-one can hear you, Starscream
The final film role of Scatman Crothers….and, yes, Orson Welles also snaffled up a madballs array of vocal talent that takes in Eric Idle, Casey Kasem and Leonard Nimoy for an adventure that somewhat desperately announced itself to be ‘Beyond Good. Beyond Evil. Beyond Your Wildest Imagination.’ Despite being loud, muddled and cheesy, it’s still a wonder that it failed to pull in audiences. But for those who did manage to mither their parents into taking them along, it was event cinema of Death Star proportions and the very zenith of the animator’s art. ALD
44. (2001) / (2006)
Directed by Richard Linklater
I think the technical term is ‘talky’?
Definitive take-‘em-or-leave-‘em entries, Richard Linklater’s pioneering philosophical doodle ‘Waking Life’ is known best as the film that brought the term Rotoscoping to the unwashed masses. In basic terms, it’s a process that involves animating live footage which gives the actions and movements a realist sheen, but also allows lots of room for experimentation when it comes to size, colour and context. The resultant film was essentially an animated version of the director’s meandering debut, ‘Slacker’, which pieced together a selection of tortuous conversations and monologues and threw a brilliant tango soundtrack over the top. ‘A Scanner Darkly’ saw a more refined and fluid use of the technique, this time roping in a host of A-listers (Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey Jr, Winona Ryder) to act out a Philip K Dick story about a mind-expanding drug that is sweeping the nation and the newly developed government software that allows one to enter the mind of another. While neither quite managed to attain the much-sought-after status of ‘mind-blowing’, they sure were real purty. DJ
43. (2006)
Directed by George Miller
It’s ‘March of the Penguins’ with tap.
Hard to believe the director responsible for the post-apocalyptic ‘Mad Max’ trio could have turned his hand to something as schmaltzy as an animated coming-of-age musical starring a dancing penguin. But mawkish moments aside, ‘’ is a joyous little toe-tapping extravaganza quite unlike any other animated film to date. Granted, the production team didn’t have to worry about creating complex, interactive backgrounds since the setting itself is a total whiteout, but the fluidity of the characters and some of the set pieces are exquisitely rendered. What impresses most, though, is the way the film switches, without warning, from a cute song-and-dance comedy – with some classic tunes – to a dark, stark and shocking ecology message about habitat destruction and animal incarceration. The result is a children’s film that engages the full gamut of emotions. Miller is currently working on follow-ups to both of his franchises: ‘ 2 in 3D’ and ‘Mad Max 4’. Hope they don’t muddle up the rushes in the editing suite. DA
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42. (1972)
Directed by Ralph Bakshi
Who’s the cat that won't cop out when there’s danger all about?
A hippy redneck cat boppin’ and scattin’ his way across Harlem in search of reefer, sex and shits ‘n’ giggles may seem perfectly reasonable subject matter for an animated film these days. But in 1972, things were a little different. Despite being unnecessarily crass in places and occasionally – albeit unconvincingly – veering off toward the right wing, Bakshi’s adaptation of cartoonist Robert Crumb’s feline funster comic strip made a mint at both the regular box-office and on the bongo circuit. A rash of sequels followed, including ‘The Nine Lives of ’, ‘Saigon Fritz’ and ‘Fritz's Adventures in Boobland’, but none had the swagger or groove of the original. ALD
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41. (1992)
Directed by Bill Kroyer
Charming kiddie flick for lentil-lovers everywhere.
With the recent release of satellite imagery depicting the continuing destruction of vast swathes of rainforest, this is a timely moment to revisit Bill Kroyer’s 1992 eco-flavoured, fantasy fable about a fairy charged with helping to protect her little pastel-coloured glade from the advancing ‘humans'. An unabashed dig at international logging and the destruction it causes to both flora and fauna, Kroyer’s ahead-of-its-time film wins no prizes for animation (despite a few inventive, near-psychedelic sequences) and the music sucks big time. But its message was always loud and clear – despite falling on deaf ears. DA
40. (1954)
Directed by John Halas & Joy Batchelor
All films are created equal, but...
This adaptation of George Orwell’s barnyard allegory of Stalinism was a notable affair even before the credits came up: It was the first worldwide release for a UK animated feature; there was rumoured CIA meddling; and it received an ‘X’-rating from the BBFC. An epic, sweeping tale of revolution, corruption and greed set against the backdrop of a small farm just outside Eastbourne, Orwell’s parable proves a perfect fit for the pen ’n’ paintpot process. Though the animation style echoes the Disney school, there’s a very British aesthetic at work here, and while the look of the film has not dated especially well, as a whole, it's still as chilling, charming and challenging as it was 50 years ago. Just make sure you turn it off before that allegedly CIA-sponsored ‘farmyard funnies’ epilogue… ALD
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39. Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theatres
Directed by Matt Maiellaro & Dave Willis
Number one in the hood, G
Those who like their humour deliciously surreal but can only ingest bite-sized chunks of sugar-concentrated comic entertainment in any one go, should find the curious misadventures of three animated fast-food aberrations: Meatwad, Master Shake and Frylock an addictive mirth fix, if something of an acquired taste. Known collectively as Aqua Teen Hunger Force (ATHF) the shape-shifting burger patty, acid-spitting milkshake and chip-chucking packet of French fries eschew trad hero antics for general lazing about in their New Jersey semi, occasionally goading their porno-obsessed hick neighbour Carl into some tirade or another. Hilariously ad-libbed voiceovers make up for a lack of any significant plotting although the spin-off movie of the cult series includes a world-conquering exercise machine (the ‘Insan-o-flex'), an idiotbot from the future, an alien watermelon and a fat German-accented Plutonian. But for the ATHF, that's just another day in Jersey. OW
38. (2007)
Directed by Brad Bird
The film that dares to ask, 'Can rats get Michelin Stars?'
For many, ‘’ represented a watershed for Pixar studios, not only in that it verified that they were able to salvage (the term seems inadequate) a film which, by their own Herculean standards, wasn’t quite working in its original incarnation, but that they could create a star out of one of earth’s lowest forms of life: the French... Only joking! A sewer rat.
Said furry vermin (named Remy) is the eponymous character of this piquant fairytale which aims to prove the simple theory that ‘anyone can cook’. Learning from a famous TV chef, he eventually wheedles his way under the hat of a bumbling sous-chef and controls him by pulling his hair. The film proved that big budget family animation didn’t have to have one eye on merchandising off-shoots, cultural referencing and appealing to specific age groups, offering an old school tongue-tingling a la carte menu of character, story and emotion. The highlight for many critics remains the draconian food columnist who receives a lost vision of childhood innocence when biting in to Remy’s world-beating ratatouille. Merveilleux! DJ
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37. A Soldier’s Tale (1984)
Directed by RO Blechman & Christian Blackwood
The Devil went down to Georgia
Stravinsky and Russian folklore – rather than stunning artwork – are the main attractions of this dreamlike story of temptation that follows a returning soldier's attempt to make his way home with his precious violin. An illiterate innocent, his way is dogged by the Prince of Lies, magnificently voiced by Max von Sydow, who is determined to bring this meandering soul beneath his domination. The line-drawings ripple with careless, shimmering energy, always threatening turn into something new, and the style perfectly evokes the thin veil between this world and the next that the Soldier increasingly finds himself pushing against on his lonely road. PF
36. (1978)
Directed by Ralph Bakshi
Middle Earth meltdown
Some will no doubt disagree with the inclusion of Bakshi’s half-formed tilt at Tolkein’s magnum opus: the animation is garish, the plot confusing and the tone is all over the place. But in the post-Peter Jackson realm in which Tolkein fans now luxuriate like sated cave trolls, it’s easy to forget that back in 1978, the outside chance of seeing any manifestation of LotR on the big screen meant that many were willing to look past the film’s many, and often bizarre, shortcomings and tag along for a slightly demented wander through a generally recognisable approximation of Middle Earth.
And though he may have ultimately lost the War of the Rings, Bakshi does win a few memorable battles along the way. The fighting is as gruesome as Tolkein’s descriptions, the pace is brisk and the Black Riders – especially when sniffing out Frodo on the Old Road (a scene that Jackson’s film copies beat for beat) and going postal in the back rooms of The Prancing Pony – are you're-sure-this-shit’s-for-kids? scary. The film remains a noble failure but the fact that these images stick in the mind even after repeated viewings of Jackson’s towering achievement is a testament to Bakshi’s imagination in bringing Middle Earth to life. ALD
Terry Gilliam says... ‘I hated it. Bakshi was a strange one who took some of my favourite material and never managed pull it off completely on screen, He always seemed to be more ambitious than the money allowed. And the end result was, to me, horrible.'
35. (1996)
Directed by Mike Judge and Yvette Kaplan
Huhuh. Huh. Huhuhuh. Huhuh. Huh
No one believed that the exploits of America’s favourite mentally challenged metalheads – previously confined to five-minute bursts on MTV – could possibly sustain a full-length feature. And admittedly, there are longueurs in ‘Beavis and Butthead Do America’, scenes in which the relentless cackling and scattershot parodies of stock American authority figures begin to grate. But these are strongly outweighed by the film’s scattered moments of comic brilliance: Beavis’s gradual realisation that their TV has been stolen, as he repeatedly looks from the empty table to the dirty footprints on the floor to the shattered window and back again; his frequent lapses into sugar-fuelled mania as crazed, Nixonian Latin American alter-ego Cornholio; the boys’ frequent run-ins with a berserker army sergeant bent on exploring their bodily orifices. Creator Mike Judge may have switched decisively to live action – with decidedly mixed results – but there’s no denying that the recent return of his finest creations as part of the marketing campaign for his new film ‘Extract’ provoked intense feelings of happy nostalgia. TH
34. (1995)
Directed by Mamoru Oshii
Because ‘The Matrix’ is for sissies…
This brain-basting cyberpunk android anime is often considered the ‘other’ Manga screen adaptation to be cherished by Western audiences (the first being ‘Akira’). Yet, there’s something about the impenetrability of ‘’ that perhaps makes it, if not the more interesting film, then certainly one with a more rewarding rewatch factor. Its shocking (and strangely alluring) poster image (see right) saw a naked humanoid robot with industrial cables jutting out of her body. She’s the special agent at the center of the film, a partially human woman with a robotic ‘shell’ whose job it is to take down particularly dangerous crims (think ‘Robocop’ with a PhD in neuroscience?). Taking in political assassinations, cyber terrorism and questions of the potentially destructive relationship between humans and technology, you get the sense that director Oshii is just as interested in the philosophical bent of his tale as he is in creating lush and memorable visuals, while the Phillip Glass-like soundtrack of tribal drumming and high-pitched chanting lends the film a chilling, apocalyptic edge. DJ
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33. (1992)
Directed by Ron Clements and John Musker
Swords, sandals and stand-up
Disney married the technical wizardry of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ (1991) to the exuberance of ‘The Little Mermaid’ (1989), stirred in a good deal of pacy action and harnessed Robin Williams’s hyperactive grandstanding for their most all-round satisfying animated feature of the modern era. It’s fair to say that without Williams as the boisterous genie - part dyspeptic carnival barker, part free-associating speedfreak – who comes to ’s aid, it might have been little more than a well-crafted ethnic romp (cf ‘Pocahontas’, ‘Mulan’ etc), but his breathless energy sends the film reeling from the bazaar to the bizarre. Despite a few especially dewy showtunes and an off-the-peg baddie, ‘’ remains an absolute hoot from start to finish. ALD
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32.
Directed by Michel Ocelot
Baby, it’s you
Rampantly independent French animation powerhouse Michel Ocelot has delivered four esoteric, but totally accessible features (and numerous prizewinning shorts) since he began filmmaking in the early eighties. Though his recent ‘Azur & Asmar’ and 2000’s ‘Princes and Princesses’ were sparkling and ornate modern updates on Lotte Reineger’s famous silhouette puppet technique, the films for which he is best known are his two featuring the scampish (and perpetually denuded) superpowered baby, Kirikou. Loosely based on West African folk tales, with this first Kirikou film Ocelot fashioned a ripping fable that combined a traditional battle of good (Kirikou) versus evil (a sorceress who has used her power to dry up the local spring and capture all the men of the village) and injected it with a subtle commentary on corruption, female empowerment and the progress of modern African society, no less. DJ
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31. (2008)
Directed by Andrew Stanton
Postcards from the post-apocalypse
Chaplin and Keaton were the two names that cropped up most often in the (mostly glowing) reviews of Andrew Stanton’s charming eco space ballet, ‘’. Yet, what of Jacques Tati, the French clown whose beguiling comedies carried with them a note of caution with regards to our unchecked desire for industrialisation and technological advancement? is basically one of those mechanised street-sweeping contraptions with cute human attributes, but like Tati in, say, ‘Play Time’, he is also ill-at-ease when it comes to dealing with the futuristic landscape, only really coming alive when fragments of the old world – whether that’s collecting trinkets from the debris or watching a battered VHS copy of Michael Crawford musical ‘Hello Dolly!’ – begin to surface. His romance with svelte fembot EVE sees the couple turning the garbage-strewn planet into a ballroom for their adorable robo love rituals. Stanton’s penetrating social message scorned a planet that looked to technology to deal with the past excesses but also delivered a pristine melodrama where the all-conquering power of love was even able to solve the existential crises of a pair of clanking robots. DJ
Terry Gilliam says... 'A stunning bit of work. The scenes on what was left of planet Earth are just so beautiful: one of the great silent movies. And the most stunning artwork! It says more about ecology and society than any live action film – all the people on their loungers floating around, brilliant stuff. Their social comment was so smart and right on the button.'
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30. (1992)
Directed by Hayao Miyazaki
Pigs might fly…
The thorny consequences of crossing the gods is a staple of myth and legend, but you can safely attribute the idea that the whole business might involve being turned into a flying pig to Miyazaki. ‘’ is a man-swine crossbreed fighter ace, doomed to fly around an off-kilter 1920s Mediterranean doing battle with air pirates and being generally enigmatic in the face of the kind of cave-mouthed, wild-eyed villains that only Japanese animation can produce. This is at once both Miyazaki’s most fully realised fantasy world and the closest the director has come to straight-up historical drama. World War I provides the catalyst for Rosso’s porcine transformation, but the ensuing change in the status of women and the rise of fascism background the purely fantastical, with the curly-tailed aviator piloting his biplane through a Med composed of tiny islands. Throw in a tragic, 'Beauty and the Beast'-style love interest, some ‘Casablanca’ references and a determinedly downbeat ending and you have a beguiling take on loss and porky heroics. PF
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29. (1982)
Directed by Don Bluth
Keeping it trad
Wholesome but not cloying, emotional but not sentimental, mystical but not nonsensical – the 1982 animation of children's book ‘Mrs Frisby and the Rats of Nimh’ offered the sort of traditional hand-drawn animation that director Don Bluth and his collaborators had mastered in their earlier days as animators for Disney films such as 'Robin Hood', ‘The Rescuers’ and ‘The Fox and the Hound’. This was Bluth's first attempt to go it alone and celebrate the old-fashioned values of the animation craft that he and his allies felt were being eroded by the studios. The characters are vivid, rounded and memorable, from wise old rat Nicodemus (voiced by Derek Jacobi) and scheming rodent Jenner, to clumsy, well-meaning crow Jeremy and fragile field mouse Mrs Brisby, whose house is threatened by the harvest and turns to the rats, who knew her late husband, for help. Fantasy meets family in a tale full of peril and wonder. DC
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28.
Directed Marjane Satrapi & Vincent Paronnaud
Children of the revolution
Could this be the first time someone has taken a warts-and-all diary and put it through the animation spinner? Marjane Statrapi wrote and co-directed this humorous and humane adaptation of the titular graphic novel which told of her life growing up in Tehran during the years of political strife in the ’70s and ’80s. Resilient, independent minded and not the sort of girl to let a militant fundamentalist regime prevent her from listening to thrash metal, the film initially details Satrapi’s irate attitude towards those social iniquities not only piled upon the liberal middle classes, but mainly on women. We then see how she fares when her parents send her to Europe to enjoy the freedoms that were never afforded them. Mimicking the minimalist, high contrast monochrome style of the source material, the film’s primary pleasure is how its makers are able to draw so much texture, insight and sentiment from what is essentially a jumble of carefully placed lines and dots. DJ
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27. '' v 'A Bug's Life' (both 1998)
Directed by Eric Darnell and Tim Johnson v John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton
There’s a world going on underground
At the end of the day, it boils down to what it is you’re looking for in an animated feature – a drab and hamfisted Marxist allegory rammed down your throat for two hours or a three-ringed circus of unbridled invention and winsome charm. ‘’ may boast a greater array of vocal talent, but it spends too much time pitching gags over the kiddies’ heads and flogging its adult credentials to ever get down to basics and actually entertain. Cartoons, of course, aren’t just for children, but ‘’, in falling back on kid-friendly by-the-numbers cartoon plotting, plunges between the stools of satire and slapstick.
‘A Bug’s Life’, though it contains a few smart quips that junior won’t catch, is a far more inclusive romp that follows a rag-tag bunch of losers, buffoons and bunglers in their ‘Seven Samurai’ – or ‘Bugnificent Seven’, if you prefer – style attempt to save their tiny town from a band of bastard grasshoppers. Colourful, idiosyncratic and full of heart, it’s the very opposite of ‘’s dreary whining. ALD
26. (1997)
Directed by Hayao Miyazaki
If you go down to the woods today… take a rifle.
The term ‘feral’ may be frowned upon these days, but it more than encapsulates the prickly persona of the eponymous heroine of Miyazaki’s 1997 stunner, the film which was responsible for bringing the awe-inspiring output of Studio Ghibli to a wider English-speaking audience. As with much of the director’s work, the ecological fall-out from unrestricted industrialisation is the underlying theme, played out as a violent pitch battle between a town of ironmongers who have been cutting down trees in the nearby forest and the incensed inhabitants (Mononoke and her beastly chums) of said copse. So dense is the story and so large the ensemble of characters that it is sometimes difficult to decipher what exactly is going on. Then again, being forced to coast on the back of the dazzling and innovative hand-drawn visuals is hardly a chore. DJ
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25. (1978)
Directed by Martin Rosen
Exodus on the Hampshire downs
There’s something of the biblical epic in Richard Adams’s neatly conceived tale, following as it does the journey of a bob-tailed Chosen One charged with leading his people out of a doomed society and into a promised land. And like its Old Testament inspiration, the story of Fiver, Hazel and their followers doesn’t pull any punches on the slaying and blood-letting front, with graphic depictions of mass killing, police brutality and the (again, horrible) consequences of worshipping false idols. In fact, the religious and folkloric background of the bunny society is one of the most engaging aspects of the film, which opens with a stunning primitivist sequence detailing the warren’s creation myth and the genesis of the tricksy, cunning nature of the rabbit. But while it’s easy to make any number of metaphorical and philosophical readings, Adams was also hugely interested in the real lives of his subjects, and much of the source novel’s factual detail makes the transition to film, producing a deep sense of inhabiting the perilous world of the floppy-eared exiles. PF
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24. (2004)
Directed by Brad Bird
'Watchmen', but, y’know, for kids.
A surprisingly formulaic plot is the only thing keeping this barnstorming superhero spoof from true classic status. A far more illuminating peek under the spandex of the masked hero than Zack Snyder’s moribund ‘Watchmen’ adaptation, it delves into the workaday concerns of a family of retired crimefighters who are called back into action by the evil shenanigans of an old foe. The superhero mythos is exploited with wit and verve, and the frenetic action sequences are expertly paced and madly ingenious all the way up to and including the bonkers final showdown. Director Bird is one of the most consistently excellent directors working in any form of cinema at moment, and we await his next outing like hungry, hungry hippos. ALD
’ blooper reel
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23. (1997)
Directed by Satoshi Kon
Animé with a hard, Hitchcockian edge
This disturbing noir-tinged stalk ‘n’ slash thriller set in the world of Japanese bubblegum pop was the debut movie from Studio Madhouse maverick, Satoshi Kon. Mina is the lynchpin of adored femme three-piece Cham!, but when she leaves the band to pursue a career in acting, the hardened superfans have got other plans for her. Roger Corman described the film as the imaginary product of Hitchcock making a film for Disney; not sure about the Disney part, but he hit the nail on the head with Hitch, as ‘’ offers a deep and analytical study of voyeurism, obsession, identity and fear and how they manifest themselves in the human psyche. The famous scene in ‘Psycho’ where Janet Leigh’s paranoid inner monologue is heard as she drives towards the Bates Motel is echoed on numerous occasions here, especially where Mina finds herself repeating the line ‘Excuse me, who are you?’ (her first line on her new soap opera) until it takes on a new and darker meaning. Kon is known for his love of American genre filmmaking, but ‘’ is not just a melange of references; it’s a jagged and extraordinary work, one which perfectly marshals the subtleties of the medium to combine fantasy and reality with bracing and original effect. DJ
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22. (1993) & (2009)
Directed by Henry Selick
No, they're not directed by Tim Burton!
The name Henry Selick may not have rung many bells prior to the release of his grotesque 3D delight, ‘Coraline’, earlier this year. To all who saw ‘’, it was widely believed to have been a Tim Burton joint through and through, despite the fact that it was Sellick who was the man who was really making the magic happen on screen. Both films deal with duel realities, the former taking in the travails of the dapper Jack Skeleton and his wonderful trip from his birthplace of ‘Halloween Town’ to ‘Christmas Town’, while the latter sees young Coraline seeking solace from her bickering parents in a strange, secluded portal in the wall of their new house. The stop-motion animation itself is jaw-dropping: fluid, detailed and expressive. What pushes the films to this high placing is their impeccable, timeless stories which examine and celebrate the fantastical but always through the prism of a scarily real world. ‘Nightmare’ is still so popular that it seems to get revived in cinemas on a yearly basis, plus Jack’s pumpkin noggin has been adopted as an emblem of solidarity by the emo/goth community. Now that’s cachet! DJ
21. Whisper of the Heart (1995)
Directed by Yoshifumi Kondo
John Denver is big in Japan, apparently
You could sit through ‘Whisper of the Heart’, one of Studio Ghibli’s lesser-known masterworks, and ponder: did this really need to be an animated movie? Eschewing the expressionist flights of fancy most associated with the medium, Kondo’s film is more of a muted family drama that takes place in a very basic and very real Japanese neighbourhood while adopting as its focus the growing pains of sprightly teenage heroine, Shizuku. It traces her persistent attempts to become an author, mainly of pop song lyrics, but takes a sweetly-realised romantic detour when she develops a crush on a fellow student who yearns to be a violin maker in Italy. A lavish dream sequence involving a statue of a Germanic cat in tails and a top hat is the only time we depart from reality, but here is a film that uses the gifts of the animated form to magnify the tiny magical minutiae of everyday life. Things like an ornamental grandfather clock that tells a story when it chimes, or a cat that jumps on a train and leads Shizuku to an antique shop… The realist backdrop in turn makes these small moments feel all the more pertinent, especially as the film works hard to convey the uplifting notion that inspiration can take many weird and wonderful forms – it’s just waiting for you to find it. How else could an ad-hoc chamber music rendition of John Denver’s ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’ bring a big, salty tear to your eye? A beautiful film. DJ
20. (1940)
Directed by Hamilton Luske & Ben Sharpsteen
Look ma, no strings!
A small, wooden puppet is brutalised en route to adulthood in this alternatively consoling and repellent retelling of Carlo Collodi's 1883 short story which was Uncle Walt's second full-length animation. Perhaps more so than ‘', ‘' represents one of Disney's more emotionally potent and deviant works as the eponymous scamp is put through the existential ringer in search of what it means to be human. His tortuous journey, which encompasses being inducted into a travelling circus, swallowed by a whale and put to work in a salt mine, represents the long and gruelling road to self-understanding, but he is thankfully helped along the way by a singing Cricket and a honey-voiced Blue Fairy. It's a startling and lovable film, but there is a rather unpleasant strain of moral hectoring in the famous scene where our hero and his Irish companion are turned into donkeys for the 'sin' of smoking and drinking.
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19. (1988)
Directed by Jimmy T Murakami
Winter fuel? More like nuclear winter fuel…
‘Threads’, lame live-action nuclear holocaust drama that it was, had to make do with Reece Dinsdale in the lead. Here, a shaven Father Christmas and his wife were the megaton-fodder in Raymond Briggs’s adaptation of his own heart-rending graphic novel. Peggy Ashcroft and John Mills are wholly convincing as the elderly couple attempting to follow the instructions of the very real Government survival handbook, ‘Protect and Survive’, unable to reconcile their own previous wartime experience with impending annihilation. Briggs’s organic, understated drawing style makes the horrors that befall them still more affecting and the prefiguring of mundane objects as artifacts from a lost civilization makes the End of the World feel very personal indeed. PF
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18. (1967)
Directed by Wolfgang Reitherman
No, not that kind of Jungle music…
The film in which all the technical expertise of Disney came together with the verve and optimism of mid-'60s California to create something approaching total animated filmmaking, and the last to be personally produced by Walt Disney himself. In terms of character depth, it was Disney’s most ambitious animation, with Shere Khan radiating genuine menace, while in blissed-out Baloo, the traditionally conservative studio even picks up on some of that whacked-out Laurel Canyon vibe.
Minor characters, such as the Beatles-esque vultures, who inexplicably perform barbershop ragga, stand as pop-cultural markers and it’s to one of the minor villains that the film belongs: King Louie, the scat-singing orangutan whose 'I Wanna Be Like You' is the movie’s stand-out number. It may be one of the most memorable and enjoyable scenes in animated film, but watching it today, it’s hard not to feel some apprehension. At the time, jazz was the soundtrack to the struggle for African-American liberation; how did that translate in the minds of the filmmakers to the need to make the movie’s single jazz number the one sung by apes attempting to become civilised – 'someone like you-oo-oo'? Whether a symptom of social anxiety or conscious comment, the scene – stealer that it is – leaves an increasingly sour taste as the years pass. PF'
17. (1987)
Directed by Jerry Rees
The film that spawned Pixar?
Released to little acclaim in 1987, Jerry Rees’s film – based on a book by Thomas M Disch – lists Disney Pixar’s John Lasseter as one of the animators. According to , ‘’ was the film he originally wanted to make using the then brand new (and untried) method of computer animation. Lasseter left Disney, but the animator bounced back eight years later (1995) with the seminal Pixar-produced ‘Toy Story’. Sometime during those eight wilderness years, Lasseter had helped out a few friends on a budget-priced two-dimensional version of his original idea and, lo, ‘’ was born.
Like ‘Toy Story’, the film’s concept is about inanimate objects that secretly spring to life when there are no humans in the vicinity. In ‘Toy Story’ it was toys; here, though, it’s a clutch of domestic appliances, and it’s testament to the endearing quality of the characters, the neat script and the touching storyline that the viewer is able to feel any empathy at all for what is ostensibly a pile of dated white goods. The premise is simple: a young boy and his parents decide to leave their countryside abode for a new life in the city, and in the process abandon their old kitchen toaster, vacuum cleaner, lamp, air-con unit, etc. But as soon as the family car’s out of sight, Toaster and his gaggle of endearing pals up sticks and head cross-country in a vain attempt to track their ‘masters’ down.
True, the animation itself is nothing to shout about – it only cost $2.3 million – yet pretty much every other aspect here is absolutely spot on, from the stupendous voiceovers – including Phil Hartman’s unbelievably accurate Jack Nicholson impersonation – to Van Dyke Parks’s quirky and outrageously tuneful score. Surely it is only a matter of time before Lasseter and his current Pixar team develop a 3D update of this heartwarming, engaging and hugely entertaining story. In the meantime, seek out this weird little unpolished gem on DVD and give your kids an undeniable treat. DA
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16. (1988)
Directed by Katsuhiro Ôtomo
Ever seen a tumour the size of an Olympic Stadium?
It’s difficult to gauge the cultural impact that Ôtomo’s canonical anime motherload, ‘’, had on those late ’80s cineastes looking for something ‘a bit different’. Notwithstanding numerous dubbed TV cartoons containing what must have looked like freakishly proportioned individuals with huge eyes and tiny mouths, the Manga style must have been something of an unknown quantity to Western eyes. ‘’ changed all that, not only as a transcendent feat of narrative and character intricacy, but as a film that was scarily in touch with the modern technological world and its potential to crumble in on itself at any moment. Indeed, the film opens in 1988 where Tokyo is levelled with a nuclear payload, explaining why the story is set in the place known as Neo Tokyo, a dilapidated and seedy replica of the deceased capital. Futuristic Hell’s Angels hog the elevated freeways, political factions have gun battles in busy streets and at the centre of it all, a nerdy teen is made to discover dormant superpowers which could change the course of humanity. Novelistic in breadth and potent in atmosphere, it’s a testament to Ôtomo’s dexterity as a filmmaker that he could so expertly channel the 2,182 pages of a Manga epic into such a relatively concise runtime. It’s now more than 20 years old, but hasn’t aged a second. DJ
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15. (1999)
Directed by Brad Bird
Metal man makes mild mayhem.
Adapted by the BBC for a ‘Jackanory’, into a surly metal workout by Black Sabbath for their 1972 hit single and into a rock opera by Pete Townshend, Ted Hughes’s 1968 novel, ‘The Iron Man’, had taken a few odd turns before director Brad Bird and screenwriter Tim McCanlies fashioned it into this elegant nuclear parable. The plot, about an all-powerful space tin man showing humanity the error of its ways, is nothing new, but the neatly rendered Cold War setting, utter lack of sentimentality and slick, stylised animation make for a minor classic. ALD
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14. Gandahar (1988)
Directed by René Laloux
You’re twisting my melons, man!
Laloux’s ‘The Fantastic Planet’ (1973) may be his best-known work, but in terms of quality of animation, the depth of the themes it explores and sheer mind-melting, mommy-make-it-stop! lunacy, ‘Gandahar’ knocks it for six. A French/North Korean-produced sci-fi wig-out, ‘Gandahar’ is an enigma wrapped in a Möbius strip that follows a lithe hero’s quest to confront the uncomprehending Godhead allowing his civilization to be destroyed by an army of marauding metal men. Existing on extremely fluid terms with the past and future while revelling in a wilfully elliptical narrative, it’s difficult to pin down what’s going on at any given point, but the film’s undeniable scope and sheer bombast make it hard to deny as a whole. ALD
13. (1941)
Directed by Ben Sharpsteen
Booze, glorious booze…
Earning his feature-length spurs as supervising director on ‘’ the year before, Ben Sharpsteen flew solo at the helm of this occasionally terrifying travelling circus fantasia that was probably the first children’s animation that you could have watched as a double bill with Tod Browning’s ‘Freaks’. At the centre of the tale is a cherubic baby elephant, born in a sweltering boxcar with comically over-sized ears and duly ostracised by all but his loving mother. He goes on a journey of self-discovery with a silver-tongued circus mouse which involves getting bladdered on Dom Perignon and ending up stuck in a tree and, miraculously, learning how to fly with his freakish lug-holes. As films about learning to harness your emotional and physical potential go, ‘’ contains insights that make if far more than mere single-note kiddie fare. That it also asks us to ingest and experience some of life’s darker pleasures in order to build character, makes it a doe-eyed weepie with a real sting in its tail. DJ
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12. Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
Directed by Isao Takahata
Life during wartime
We’ve already covered ‘Grave of the Fireflies’ in both our ‘50 Greatest World War II Movies’ list and our ‘Classic Film Club’ strand, but its place in this list is amply deserved, if only as proof that animation can cover painful adult topics as bravely and powerfully as any live-action movie. A study of the effects of war on children through the eyes of a pair of stranded Japanese kids under American bombardment, its position as the bleakest, most unrelenting animated film is challenged only by ‘When the Wind Blows’. TH
11. (1942)
Directed by David Hand
'Did you just cough or was that a shotgun cocking?'
Having your tear-ducts surgically removed or being stiff in a box: these are probably the only states where one would manage to get to the end of ‘’ without weeping like a baby. Adapted from Austrian author Felix Salten’s novel, ‘, a Life in the Woods’, the film offered an adorable depiction of woodland life as a young fawn grows up in the company of a friendly rabbit (Thumper) and, er, skunk (Flower). At a critical time in his upbringing, he is given a brutal lesson in mortality when his loving mother wanders on to the business end of a loaded 12-gauge while off foraging for food after the gruelling winter months. The subsequent journey of self-improvement and understanding takes the form of anger, sadness and ultimately redemption, making this (still) one of the most empathetic yet coldly direct screen portrayals of death in the history of cinema. Remade in 1994 as ‘The Lion King’. DJ
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10. (1973)
Directed by Wolfgang Reitherman
Rootin’ tootin’ medieval Western
Disney’s '' in a list of greatest animated films? It rarely even makes the list of greatest Disney films, lacking the polish (and budget) of the studio’s ’60s features and coming way before the renaissance kicked off by ‘The Little Mermaid’ in 1989. Yet the rough look of the film is in keeping with the beat-up cowpoke narration of Roger Miller’s Alan-a-Dale, who links the well-worn vignettes of outlaw life with steel guitar and Johnny Cash burr. Director Wolfgang Reitherman also helmed ‘The Jungle Book’, which may explain why, in the hard times of the early ’70s, so many sequences appear snaffled from the cutting room floor of that film and given the Lincoln Green treatment. Big, lovable Little John in particular is recognisable as ‘The Jungle Book’s’ Baloo, crayoned brown and given a pointy hat, and is again warmly voiced by Mr Bear Necessity himself, Phil Harris. The charm of this take on deeply rooted English folklore is in its complementary overlay of an American equivalent – western references like chain-gangs and sheriff’s stars abound and, in the boy Skippy’s blind adoration for Robin, there is an echo of the mythic themes explored in the lodestone of western lore, ‘Shane’. PF
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9. South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999)
Directed by Trey Parker
The tender tale of four best friends and one quiet mountain town
After their first two seasons, ‘South Park’ creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone were already beginning to flounder: they’d run the gamut of juvenile fart gags and alien invasions, and the show was beginning to run out of steam. ‘Bigger, Longer & Uncut’ changed all that, allowing Parker and Stone to not only cram in all the R-rated language they’d been denied on TV, but to add a whole new layer of pointed political and cultural commentary that would transform ‘South Park’ into the savage satirical juggernaut we know and love today.
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--><!--[endif]--> It also revealed the hitherto guarded truth that Trey Parker is the finest (perhaps even the only decent) comic songwriter of his generation, unleashing the Oscar-nominated Sousa march ‘Blame Canada’, the glorious, celebratory ‘Oklahoma’ parody ‘Mountain Town’, and of course the dizzying, expletive-packed, MTV award-winning rant ‘Uncle Fucka’, which single-handedly transformed playgrounds the world over from centres of learning into putrid, pottymouthed centres of unashamed cursing.
In addition, the movie provides the final and inescapable verdict on that age-old question: which is better, ‘The Simpsons’ or ‘South Park’? When the producers of the former belatedly brought their creations to the big screen they produced a neutered romp crowded with lame in-jokes and tired slapstick. When Parker and Stone took a shot, they produced a musical masterpiece. Nuff said. TH
Terry Gilliam says... ‘These are my children! They're brilliant. With the film, I was convinced they couldn't pull it off because I just didn't think it would sustain for 90 minutes. But of course it does, and it's just brilliant. They've been able to maintain their outrageousness, their awfulness. They're uncompromising, that's why I love them.'
8. Belleville Rendez-vouz (2003)
Directed by Sylvain Chomet
Drop-handlebar lunacy from the surrender monkeys
French animation has always tottered between the sublime and the downright strange. For every ‘Persepolis’ (2007, see number 28) there’s a bad-acid sandwich like ‘Dougal and the Blue Cat’ (1972); for every ‘Piano Tuner of Earthquakes’ (2005) there lurks the gormless sex-comedy of ‘Tarzoon: Shame of the Jungle’ (1975). Both ends of the spectrum collide in this delightfully retro cycling yarn that switches effortlessly back and forth through the gears from weary Gallic insouciance to frantic, jabbering mayhem (the French do, lest we forget, have that ongoing Jerry Lewis obsession). Taking in such outwardly disparate subjects as Hi-NRG music-hall stomping, movie-mad Mafia henchmen and a daring Tour de France kidnap plot, it’s fair to say a lot of bases are covered in a film that rattles along with Gallic flair and charm. ALD
Terry Gilliam says...'Only the French could make that. There's a whimsy, a French whimsy, that's absolutely unique and "The Triplets of Belleville" has that. It's a very specific kind of whimsy and I can't quite pin it down.'
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7. (1968)
Directed by George Dunning
Hey, Ringo, I just had the strangest dream...
No movie on this – or perhaps any other – list is so completely off the chain as the Beatles’s wonderfully skewed journey through the pop-art mayhem of Pepperland. But despite the last-day-of-school feel that runs through the film, one of the true qualities of ‘’ is the restraint that informs it’s every frame. Released during the height of the psychedelic movement and with the Fab Four voiced by impersonators, it could have easily have become a hippy-dippy cash-in, but the film takes great care to stay true to the spirit of the Beatles and never drifts off into weirdo-beardo pyrotechnics or mello-yellow flower-power noodlings. All this plus a great cast of oddballs including Robin the Butterfly Stomper, Jeremy Hilary Boob PhD and the Apple Bonkers and a soundtrack that pounds to some of the Beatles’ best late-'60s tunes adds up to a truly seminal film that’s drunk on everything wild about animation. ALD
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6. (2001)
Directed by Hayao Miyazaki
And the Oscar goes to… Hay what?
We all remember the recent period when Time Out adopted the star rating system and so memorably opted to score things out of six instead of the traditional five (what, you don’t? For shame…). Well, there was an occasion before all that where the critic at the Financial Times also decided to break with the rules back in good ‘ol 2001 when he awarded six stars (out of five) to Miyazaki’s Oscar-winning cornucopia of Caroll-esque delights, ‘’. And he was right to: it’s a brilliant movie. And a bold one, too, a work that defies easy description while at the same time being utterly approachable and easy to enjoy. All the Miyazki staples are all in place, from the pre-teen heroine, Chihiro, who has to come to terms with the responsibilities of growing up, to the troubled male companion who must struggle to lift the dreadful curse that been dogging him for so long. A subtle environmental subtext is ever present, and there’s also a pointed commentary on the death of tradition in Japanese society (indeed, the lovingly decored backdrops and exhaustive character designs come across as a celebration the country’s sumptuous cultural and artistic heritage). What nudges the movie into the realms of genius is the utter faith in its own imagery – it never tries to short change the viewer by resorting to flashy edits, brash camera movements or conceited emotions, it simply allows each frame to hum with poignancy, wit and drama. DJ
Terry Gilliam says... ‘' is amazing. It's disturbing the way Miyazaki shifts scale the whole time, the creatures don't sit comfortably. Whereas in a Disney world the proportions all sit comfortably, in ‘' you've got the witch creature with her huge head, and that strange black creature that moves in and starts devouring everything. Only a Japanese mind could've done that. And that's the thing I like about it because the Japanese mind is still something I haven't got to grips with, it fascinates me the way they can perceive the world.'
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5. (1995)
Directed by John Lasseter
Cowboys v Astronauts. Go!
The first and best full-length CGI feature film, Pixar’s crown jewel is so close to perfect that it feels almost cynically exploitative. It is, of course, nothing of the sort, but when a film can pull together a story, setting, cast and script as tight and well-judged as this, it makes you wonder if those lab boys aren’t getting busy with some kind of electro-juju or CPU voodoo that no-one else can log on to. Shoe-slappingly funny and box-fresh original, this hearty tale of a gaggle of toys - including Tom Hanks’s prissy cowboy doll Woody and Tim Allen’s quixotic die-cast space-jock Buzz Lightyear - and their jaunty suburban odyssey back to their tow-headed owner’s toybox is an outright delight. The fact that, unlike so many of the films that followed it, it doesn’t segregate the script into fart gags for the nippers and clever-clever po-mo asides for their parents also gives ‘’ a universal, timeless appeal that will see it rammed into the DVD player every time Dad’s got one of his ‘Saturday morning headaches’ for years to come. ALD
Terry Gilliam says... 'It's a work of genius. It got people to understand what toys are about. They're true to their own character. And that's just brilliant. It's got a shot that's always stuck with me, when Buzz Lightyear discovers he's a toy. He's sitting on this landing at the top of the staircase and the camera pulls back and he's this tiny little figure. He was this guy with a massive ego two seconds before... and it's stunning. I'd put that as one of my top ten films, period.'
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4. (1940)
Each segment directed by a different Disney doodler
Uncle Walt does Wagner
Viewed as a stone cold classic these days, Disney’s high-falutin’ frolic was such a commercial dud at the time of it’s release that it put the future of the entire studio in jeopardy. A landmark achievement known chiefly for Mickey Mouse's breathlessly hubristic turn as the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, ‘’ sets a selection of classical music pieces to delirious, avant garde animation with astounding results. Everyone will have their favourite segment – and, despite its familiarity, Mickey’s magical antics have lost none of their appeal – but ours will always be the nightmarish Mordor brainwrong that accompanies Modest Mussorgsky’s clamorous ‘A Night on Bald Mountain’, which, as you can see from the link below, is haunting, surreal and proper scary. ALD
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3. The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie (1979)
Directed by Chuck Jones and Phil Monroe
The word ‘inspired’ doesn’t begin to cover it…
Okay, so it may not be a feature film per se, but this theatrically released compilation of Looney Tunes’ greatest hits still deserves a place on this list: hell, it even has the word ‘movie’ in the title. Introduced – by Bugs, of course – as a scholarly investigation into the appeal of chase movies (it’s original US title was ‘The Great American Chase’), it crams in all of the best Bugs and Daffy Duck cartoons from the post-war period, plus a dizzying 15-minute compilation of Roadrunner sketches.
Kicking off with the relatively simplistic ‘Rabbit Fire’ (‘Duck season!’, ‘Wabbit season!’), things become progressively more bizarre, complex and intellectually lofty, reaching a zenith with Wagner adaptation ‘What’s Opera, Doc?’ and spectacular metaphysical mindblower ‘Duck Amuck’, in which Daffy famously starts an argument with his animator. In between there are appearances from Porky Pig (most memorably as Friar Tuck in ‘ Daffy’), Marvin the Martian in ‘Duck Dodgers in the 24th Century’ and the inimitable Elmer Fudd. There’s more originality and inspiration in five minutes of ‘The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie’ than in ten other films on this list combined. TH
2. (1937)
Directed by David Hand
The masterpiece that started it all
‘Snow White’, known at the time as ‘Disney’s folly’ for its lengthy production schedule and vast budget, may not have been the first feature cartoon (that honour goes to Argentinian animator Quirino Cristiani’s ‘El Apóstol’), but it’s undoubtedly the most influential: the fact that a huge number of animated movies are still packed with cutely anthropomorphic animals, winsome love songs, plucky heroines and handsome princes isn’t proof of how little the medium has developed, but how much Disney and his team got right their first time out. <!--[endif]-->
And while the story and the music may have dated, the quality and detail of the animation still astounds, as the animators embrace their medium’s ability to explore visual concepts live-action cinema would take decades to achieve. As an example, check out the ‘I’m Wishing’ scene (see below) which is ‘shot’ from beneath the water in the bottom of a well, as Snow White’s voice seems to cause ripples on the surface of the screen itself, or her headlong dash through the dark woods, the trees rearing up like horned beasts to block her path. Animation may have progressed since 1937, but it’s hard to argue that it’s improved: proof, perhaps, that perfection is timeless. TH