PEEL's Top 50 Animated Movies

[on:]

UPDATE - The submissions are finished. Please do not send any more lists to me.

PEEL's Top 50 Animated Movies

50   Chicken Run
49   The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn
48   Kung Fu Panda
47   Cars
46   Yellow Submarine
45   The Lego Movie
44   My Neighbour Totoro
43   Pokemon: The First Movie - Mewtwo Strikes Back
42   Bolt
41   The Little Mermaid
40   Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
39   Comet in Moominland
38   Toy Story 2
37   Barefoot Gen
36   Rango
35   Coraline
34   Fantastic Mr. Fox
33   Corpse Bride
32   Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
31   Grave of the Fireflies
30   Megamind
29   Fantasia
28   The Brave Little Toaster
27   Princess Mononoke
26   Alice in Wonderland
25   Beauty and the Beast
24   Ice Age
23   Who Framed Roger Rabbit
22   Finding Nemo
21   Frozen
20   Akira
19   Mulan
18   Aladdin
17   ParaNorman
16   The Emperor's New Groove
15   Shrek
14   How to Train Your Dragon
13   Wreck-It Ralph
12   Monsters, Inc.
11   Toy Story
10   The Incredibles
09   The Simpsons Movie
08   Toy Story 3
07   The Nightmare Before Christmas
06   WALL-E
05   Spirited Away
04   Up
03   The Lion King
02   South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut
01   The Iron Giant

I saw this on a few other message boards, but I thought it would be interesting to see what the PEEL community considers their favourite animated movies.

To participate, simply Private Message (PM) me your top 10 animated movies list on PEEL and I'll start adding up the scores to post a final top 50 list.

Live-action animated hybrids (Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Space Jam etc.) are allowed in the list. However, Short films (The Wrong Trousers, How the Grinch Stole Christmas etc.) are not allowed in the list. Check IMDb to see whenever you are unsure if it counts as a Short.

Update - No Direct-To-Video movies are allowed in lists.
Theatrical releases only.

Update - The Futurama movies are not allowed in lists, as they were always intended to be Direct-To-Video movies, but were designed as four TV episodes. However, I fear they might add a significant bias to the final list, so that's why I'm choosing not to allow them in lists.

Update - Puppet movies (Team America: World Police, The Dark Crystal etc.) will not count towards the final list. Ignore any of my posts below saying they are allowed.

[Reply #1 on:]

Interesting idea. Glad you're only asking for top tens as I don't even think I've seen 50 animated films.

I imagine Pixar will dominate the list (and rightly so).

[Reply #2 on:]

Interesting concept.

To be clear, each of us private messages you our personal top ten lists numbered in order from 1-10 with 1 being the best, 2 being the second best, and 10 being the lowest-rated of the ten, right?

[Reply #3 on:]

Interesting concept.

To be clear, each of us private messages you our personal top ten lists numbered in order from 1-10 with 1 being the best, 2 being the second best, and 10 being the lowest-rated of the ten, right?

Yep. 1 to 10. First place gets most points, then second etc.

[Reply #4 on:]

Would Team America count as an animated movie? Puppetry is technically a form of animation.

[Reply #5 on:]

Would Team America count as an animated movie? Puppetry is technically a form of animation.

Yeah, I'll count it.

EDIT - Team America is a bit of an iffy one. Sometimes it's credited on websites as Animated, sometimes it's not.

[Reply #6 on:]

Puppetry is not a form of animation. Let's nip that in the bud.

That is unless you're taking "animation" to mean giving anything the illusion of life, in which case animatronics and people wearing costumes also count as animation (which, obviously, they don't).

Anyway, I'll bite.

[Reply #7 on:]

I like the idea of listing in no particular order my personal top 50 animated films, and don't really like the idea of playing the consensus game. I also really dislike the idea of playing it via PM, as half the fun would seem to come from looking at what other people have enjoyed and either recognising your own beloved favourites or finding new things to track down and watch for yourself.

I think that people should be posting their lists within the thread, and that if there is any concern these will influence the lists of the next poster, that lists be spoilered so they can be read before or after posting one's own list as desired. Also, I find a "top ten" to be rather limiting, myself.

So, here are fifty fantastic animated movies I've seen and enjoyed, organised by studio rather than any attempt having been made to rank them overall. If you haven't seen one or more of them, I'd say that you've missed something in life, and should do your best to track down a copy and watch it. Immediately. Some of them are partially animated (some of that's using puppets), but most of them are what you'd traditionally think of as "animation". It's been a very long time since I've seen some of these, so I'm thinking I might try working my way through the list over the course of a few months.

My personal favourite if more than one is listed for a studio, is in italics (it should be noted that my personal favourite for some of the lists here will change depending on my mood). Sequels are generally ignored - I could probably list fifty of the best animated sequels all by themselves.

Show spoiler

Ralph Bakshi:
Wizards
Fire and Ice
Cool World

Walt Disney:
The Little Mermaid
The Black Cauldron
The Incredibles
Tangled
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Wall-E
The Lion King
Aladdin
Up
Lilo and Stitch
Atlantis: The Lost Empire
The Emperor's New Groove
Treasure Planet
Frankenweenie
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
The Rescuers
Toy Story
Return to Oz
Duck Tales The Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp

Dreamworks:
MegaMind
How to Train Your Dragon
Shrek
The Prince of Egypt
The Road to El Dorado
Kung-Fu Panda

Universal Pictures:
Despicable Me

Don Bluth:
An American Tail
Anastasia

Studio Ghibli:
Castle in the Sky
Spirited Away

Paramount Pictures:
South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut

Warner Brothers:
Watership Down
The Last Unicorn (originally owned by Rankin/Bass)

Hyperion Animation:
The Brave Little Toaster

United Artists:
The Plague Dogs

20th Century Fox:
Ice Age
Titan A.E.

Focus Features:
ParaNorman

MGM:
The Adventures of Milo in the Phantom Tollbooth

Columbia Pictures:
Heavy Metal
Surf's Up
The Dark Crystal

Sony Pictures:
Ghost in the Shell
Cowboy Bebop: The Movie

Recorded Releasing:
When the Wind Blows

Nick Park:
The Wallace and Gromit shorts. As opposed to the theatrical release, which was just terrible.

A. Film Production:
Felidae (okay, this is one not to watch if you are sensitive to the idea of cats being shown graphically murdering one another in a semi-realistic animation style. If that sounds like you're not going to enjoy it, skip this one. But if you liked rabbits and weren't traumatised by Watership Down, then you should be able to cope with this film).

Puppetry is not a form of animation. Let's nip that in the bud.

Since both real-time marionette films and stop-motion puppet films are often included in lists of animated films, I think you're a little late to nip anything in the anything else.

I don't even think I've seen 50 animated films.

Wow. I think that actually counts as a significant accomplishment, managing to avoid animated films to such a degree, if you're under forty. Especially given the sheer number of animated films in Disney's back catalogue alone.

I imagine Pixar will dominate the list (and rightly so).

The list I've given represents far less than the total number of animated films I've seen, and I've mainly cut out bland, generic, forgettable, films. Quite a few Pixar features were culled for being pretty much copies of other works, and quite a few Disney films were culled for being good enough to watch but not great enough to displace some of the underrated gems that made the final cut. Of the fifty I've listed, five are Pixar films (and I've lumped them in with the Disney stuff, too).

I don't doubt that Pixar will dominate the top end of the list, but I question that it should be considered "rightly so", when you look a little further afield than Pixar and start to account for a few lesser-known animation studios who have produced some absolutely brilliant pieces of work (in most cases, years before a computer was considered an animator's tool).

[Reply #8 on:]

I like the idea of listing in no particular order my personal top 50 animated films, and don't really like the idea of playing the consensus game. I also really dislike the idea of playing it via PM, as half the fun would seem to come from looking at what other people have enjoyed and either recognising your own beloved favourites or finding new things to track down and watch for yourself.

I think that people should be posting their lists within the thread, and that if there is any concern these will influence the lists of the next poster, that lists be spoilered so they can be read before or after posting one's own list as desired. Also, I find a "top ten" to be rather limiting, myself.

I basically did it like that to make it more of a surprise. Besides, that's how I've seen other websites do it. I think pullling off a top 50 list would be too daunting for most people IMO. I had considered it, though.

[Reply #9 on:]

My list, pre-culling, has 20 films in it. I'm not sure how many more I would even be able to list. So AdrenalinDragon's system works for me. Besides, I quite like the surprise element.

[Reply #10 on:]

I basically did it like that to make it more of a surprise.

Personally, I dislike surprises.

Besides, that's how I've seen other websites do it.

I've seen other people solve all their worldly problems with a heroin overdose. It doesn't mean that it's a good solution or one that I'll ever consider though.

I think pullling off a top 50 list would be too daunting for most people IMO. I had considered it, though.

Allow people the option, and a few of them might surprise you. Although, I suppose that many of the people who would have enjoyed putting in the effort to make a top fifty list are now gone from PEEL.

[Reply #11 on:]

Puppetry is not a form of animation. Let's nip that in the bud.

Since both real-time marionette films and stop-motion puppet films are often included in lists of animated films, I think you're a little late to nip anything in the anything else.

Fair point - though my point stands. For the record, I was referring to both real-time marionettes and real-time hand-puppets. Stop-start animation is undoubtedly animation regardless of what's being animated, but I don't think I've heard anybody actually refer to that as puppetry (though, I suppose, it technically is). [/quote]

[Reply #12 on:]

Stop-start animation is undoubtedly animation regardless of what's being animated, but I don't think I've heard anybody actually refer to that as puppetry (though, I suppose, it technically is).

The people I've heard refer to it most consistently as puppetry are the ILM effects artists who worked on Star Wars and did several thousand hours of interviews for the Special Edition DVDs about doing it and why it's no longer something that people do for films like Star Wars.

But I've also heard Wallace and Gromit referred to as "stop-motion puppetry" before. Aardman also seem to have recorded more hours of interview footage than they've released as films.

The stop-motion scenes from Jason and the Argonauts, on the other hand, I've never heard referred to as puppetry and can't find more than a few minutes of interview footage about.

From this, I can only conclude that whether or not you refer to stop-motion as puppetry is dependant on the ratio of film-to-interview that you record.

[Reply #13 on:]

"Stop-motion puppetry" is fair enough if you include the qualifier.

Basically, any sort of puppetry that is shot in live-action (e.g. marionettes and hand-puppets) are not animation in any shape or form.

[Reply #14 on:]

I realise the disctinction is debatable, hence why I asked in the first place. You both have valid points and it all really comes down to where one draws the line, but at the end of the day, it's AdrenalinDragon's call as to whether or not he allows it in the list. I'm happy to respect his decision in either scenario.

And, come to think of it, I probably have seen at least 50 animated movies, but a lot of them would've been during my childhood, and I don't feel I could rightfully include something in this list if I didn't properly remember it (ie. Apparently I had a VHS of Dumbo that I watched on a daily basis between the ages of 1 and 5, but I haven't gone back to watch the film again since and honestly can't recall anything about it).

Though I don't really watch many films in general, to be honest.

[Reply #15 on:]

[unsolicited clarification]
My viewing experience seems quite similar to that of Beamer. Though I seldom watch movies, I know I have definitely seen more than fifty animated films. My aforementioned list of twenty are just the ones I hold in high regard.
[/unsolicited clarification]

[Reply #16 on:]

I realise the disctinction is debatable, hence why I asked in the first place. You both have valid points and it all really comes down to where one draws the line, but at the end of the day, it's AdrenalinDragon's call as to whether or not he allows it in the list. I'm happy to respect his decision in either scenario.

Team America: World Police was always considered "Animated" to me and my friends. However, IMDb lists it as Animated, where as Rotten Tomatoes doesn't. I'll make it an exception, or put it in brackets on the final list as a questionable entry.

I've noticed Short films are coming up on some lists. I forgot to mention about them in my first post. They aren't allowed in my eyes. If I did, The Wrong Trousers would have made my top 10 list. Just PM me your replacements for those entries, not an issue.

[Reply #17 on:]

I realise the disctinction is debatable...

I'm sorry but this isn't debatable. It simply isn't animation. Animation is tangible and fairly easy to define and the line only begins to blur when you start animating photographs of real-life human beings or when you feature loads of animated techniques for the special effects in an otherwise live-action film. Technically, Avatar is full of CGI animation, but obviously, it's not really in the genre of animated films in the same way that stuff like Roger Rabbit is.

Animation is the process of creating multiple still images that, when shown in quick succession, give the illusion of movement.

If you draw lots of pictures and show them all together, you've created animation.
If you use a computer to generate multiple images then show them all together, you've created animated.
If you take individual photographs of you moving an armature or piece of clay and play them all together, that is animation.
If you film yourself moving a puppet around, that is not animation. It's live-action footage of a puppet being manipulated.

I'm not saying you can't count it in this list if you want to. I get why films like Team America are frequently miscategorised and I don't really care if you want it on the list. It undoubtedly shares a lot of tropes with animation in that they employ voice-actors to do silly voices (many of whom voice multiple roles), there are musical numbers and the sets and props were built in an almost identical way to that of a stop-start animated film. However, the point remains that it isn't animation. This is black and white.

Also, for the record, if you're including Team America, then all of the Muppet movies also qualify along with things like Labyrinth. 

[Reply #18 on:]

It's about 50/50 whether people consider Team America: World Police an Animated movie or not. Here's an article I found about Team America on it:

Still, it’s worth noting that “Team America” isn’t technically animated, so it might not deserve a place in the festival. The main characters may be marionettes, but they’re shot live action style with actual pyrotechnic explosions and effects. But puppeteer Steve Chiodo had an explanation for that.

“At first we wondered if ‘Team America’ really qualified as an animated film, but, as a company, we animate a lot of things,” he explained. “In its broadest sense, puppets need animation, otherwise it’s sort of hanging there. So we bring inanimate objects to life, no matter what the technique, so we think marionettes cover that.”

Another movie that popped up in the list like Team America was "The Dark Crystal". I'm unsure whether to include these movies in the final list now, as it's obviously caused a heated argument. Maybe you guys should PM me a replacement for them, just in case.

Update - I've made a final decision on this. Puppet movies will not count towards the list now. Beamer, could you give me a replacement list for Team America? Thanks!

[Reply #19 on:]

I really don't have a problem with puppety films being included, for the list - I just want to make sure that people understand what animation is because I'm a nerd and animation is something I'm pretty interested in.

[Reply #20 on:]

I didn't think anyone was so oblivious as to need several paragraphs explaining the difference. Given that we're on a forum for an animated tv series, I think it's safe to say a significant portion of the members here possess a fair amount of interest and knowledge on the subject (hell, I make my own Flash series and have had a decent amount of experience with stop-motion animation, too). I chose my words pretty carefully, highlighting that the distinction was debatable, not the method itself, and it "comes down to where one draws the line." Some categorise puppetry as animation, some don't - I understand the difference and was happy either way, I just wanted to confirm whether or not it was being included in the list. Your response just seemed excessive in comparison.

AdrenalinDragon - I'll send a new list now.

[Reply #21 on:]

AdrenalinDragon - I'll send a new list now.

Thanks Beamer! I currently have 23 movies and 4 lists added up so far. Tedward just needs to replace the Short films on his list to be counted onto the spreadsheet.

[Reply #22 on:]

Do you think we will produce enough data to have a meaningful list of that length? Is there a minimum number of participants you have in mind?

Post Script
I shall direct to you my list forthwith!

[Reply #23 on:]

Do you think we will produce enough data to have a meaningful list of that length? Is there a minimum number of participants you have in mind?

If we don't get enough participants (or a large enough variety of movies submitted), I'd imagine the ultimate list could always be reduced to 30 or 40.

[Reply #24 on:]

it's obviously caused a heated argument

You could say the dispute quickly became...animated.

I currently have 23 movies and 4 lists added up so far. Tedward just needs to replace the Short films on his list to be counted onto the spreadsheet.

Done.

[Reply #25 on:]

Do you think we will produce enough data to have a meaningful list of that length? Is there a minimum number of participants you have in mind?

If we don't get enough participants (or a large enough variety of movies submitted), I'd imagine the ultimate list could always be reduced to 30 or 40.

I will probably take the deadline off. I was hoping for at least 20 lists. I currently have 5 but need more to make it worthwhile.

[Reply #26 on:]

I chose my words pretty carefully, highlighting that the distinction was debatable, not the method itself

I'd say you ought to pick your words more carefully in the future as that still reads like you're questioning whether or not the film's medium counts as a form of animation to me.

Your response just seemed excessive in comparison.

I'm not trying to have a go at anybody; your response just read like you didn't understand the difference so I was trying to explain it. As I've said several times, I honestly couldn't care less if it's included on the list or not; I just want people to understand what animation is. Sorry if you read my post as some sort of personal attack; it certainly wasn't intended that way.

[Reply #27 on:]

Guys, can we please just drop it? Cyber_turnip is correct on puppets not being animation. I wikipedia'd it myself and chose not to include them for the lists. End of story.

Anyway, we currently have 31 Animated movies nominated on the list so far. We should be able to get to 50 in no time.

[Reply #28 on:]

Are the Futurama movies included?

[Reply #29 on:]

Are the Futurama movies included?

As I didn't allow South Park's Imaginationland on my top 10 list, I'm going to say no.

[Reply #30 on:]

So they have to be theatrical releases.

[Reply #31 on:]

So they have to be theatrical releases.

Not necessarily. I'd allow Direct-To-Video Disney movies.

[Reply #32 on:]

No Futurama movies? That shortens my list...

[Reply #33 on:]

I think direct to video should count as long as it's not an actual episode of the show just rereleased like imaginationland

[Reply #34 on:]

I think direct to video should count as long as it's not an actual episode of the show just rereleased like imaginationland

I agree, that's important distinction between them.

It'd make my list 4/10 of Futurama and less interesting, though, but I have only come up with 8 besides them anyway.

[Reply #35 on:]

^^ I also agree with both of the things to be agreed with in that post.

[Reply #36 on:]

I think I'll abstain from this because I don't think I've even seen that many animated movies, let alone ones that I liked.

[Reply #37 on:]

I think direct to video should count as long as it's not an actual episode of the show just rereleased like imaginationland

Doing my research, as the original intention of the Futurama movies were actually Direct-To-Video movies that were later split into four TV episodes, I'll allow them in lists.

[Reply #38 on:]

That's definitely more consistent.

Heh, I should just mess with the list by submitting a top ten of just straight-to-DVD Barbie movies or something. Just kidding of course. I'm thinking about my list and will try to submit it soonish.

[Reply #39 on:]

I think direct to video should count as long as it's not an actual episode of the show just rereleased like imaginationland

Doing my research, as the original intention of the Futurama movies were actually Direct-To-Video movies that were later split into four TV episodes, I'll allow them in lists.

Siskel Ebert gived this post five thumbs up.