A few of my friends have recently gotten into animation! But there’s so much dreck in the animated world that it’s difficult to know what to watch. With that in mind I put together a quick guide of some of my favorite non-Pixar animated movies. Maybe you’ll like it too?
Princess Mononoke (Mononoke Hime, 1997)
Let’s start with the obvious: Studio Ghibli. Since the late 70s director Hayao Miyazaki has created gorgeous animated movies with an incredible eye for action and detail. Miyazaki’s movies often depict the struggle to remain pacifist in war-torn worlds. Such is the case in Princess Mononoke, where a young prince of a dying people is caught up in a war between the engines of progress and the forces of nature.
While Ghibli is considered an arthouse studio in the USA in Japan it’s known as a broad-appeal blockbuster maker. Princess Mononoke (Mononoke means “monster” btw) was Ghibli’s first mainstream overseas hit, and actually sparked a very brief infatuation with anime cinema in the US (which was destroyed within months by X: The Movie).
Ernest & Celestine (Ernest et Celestine, 2012)
France has an amazing animation industry that, unfortunately, is largely ignored in the US. A handful of French animated films, primarily the films of Sylvain Chomet, have a small following stateside, but far more go ignored. It’s really to our detriment, as France makes some gorgeous movies.
Ernest & Celestine is the story of an unlikely friendship blossoming between two very different people. The animation style is especially striking, every frame of Ernest & Celestine looks like a beautiful watercolor out of a children’s book.
The Adventures of Prince Achmed (Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed, 1926)
Aww yiss, let’s get cultured all up in this bitch! The Adventures of Prince Achmed is the oldest surviving (possibly first!) feature-length animated movie, and it’s good! A retelling of several of the stories in 1001 Arabian Nights, the most striking thing about APA is its distinctive silhouette style, done entirely by hand.
The movie was written, directed, and painstakingly animated over 3 years by Lotte Reineger (a straight-up pioneer-innovator in animation), and features a gorgeous accompanying score by Wolfgang Zeller (remember, this was the silent movie era). You will be stunned when you see the level of expression and communication Reineger gets out of paper cut-outs.
Mary and Max (2009)
Ernest & Celestine’s gloomier, more depressing cousin, Mary and Max also depicts the blossoming of an unlikely friendship, this time between an awkward little Australian girl and an obese autistic American man. The humor is black, the movie gets bleak, and the ending will make you smile through your tears.
It’s also entirely done with claymation, contrasting lumpy, exaggerated human figures with intricate sets. Almost like a Tim Burton movie, only much better.
Akira (1988)
Akira! Everybody knows about Akira, it was one of the three anime movies that were advertised by those sketchy mail-order businesses in the 90s. What you might not know about Akira is that it’s better known for its visual innovations than its story (which, with the exception of a few iconic scenes, is actually very slow and dull). Come for the gorgeous visuals, some of which we now take for granted, and feel free to pause when it gets boring.
Oh! The story: A delinquent biker gang becomes entangled in a dangerous military operation, and in the process brings about the end of the world. It’s the last days of a dystopian future, and it doesn’t end well for anyone.
Persepolis (2007)
Have you ever seen a photo from pre-revolution Iran? You might mistake it for America, with all the giant lapels and floppy hairstyles. While Persepolis is technically the autobiography of Iranian/French cartoonist Marjane Satrapi, it also tells the story of the Iranian cultural revolution. See it through the eyes of someone who grew up with it, and slowly saw her rights eroded as her government devolved into a theocracy.
Equal parts funny, sad, wince-inducing, and inspiring (the way every honest biopic should be).
Porco Rosso (Kurenai no buta, 1992)
You didn’t think you were getting away with just one Ghibli movie, did you? Porco Rosso is one of the lesser-known but no less stunning Studio Ghibli films, having the bad luck to premiere in the early 90s (after the big anime boom of the 80s, but before its resurgence in the late 90s).
Smaller in scope than your average Ghibli film, the world doesn’t hang in the balance in Porco Rosso. Instead you get to see an often forgotten place and time, the Adriatic Sea between WWI and WWII, a region that briefly became notorious for its abundance of aircraft and veteran pilots.
The titular Porco is one of the more notorious WWI flying aces now working on the adrianic, cursed with a pig-form as penance for his role in the war. While Porco is content to live out the rest of his life in obscurity the world around him conspires to shove him into the limelight.
A frequent joke during the film’s release was that Porco Rosso was an excuse for director Miyazaki to display a lot of his intricate aircraft designs, one of his passions. You can really tell, PR has some of the most gorgeous aircraft ever shown on screen.
Watership Down (1978)
Something was in the water in Britain in the late-70s. Something that made for incredibly dark, unsettling cartoons. The animated Lord of the Rings is just the tip of the iceberg, let’s talk about one of the scariest animated movies of all time: Watership Down.
Based on the acclaimed book of the same name, Watership Down is about bunnies… and their terrifying, brutal lives as they desperately seek refuge from human encroachment. Do not approach WD lightly, it gave an entire generation of children nightmares.
Stripped of its artifice Watership Down is a fascinating look at what happens when a primitive culture encounters an more advanced one, with equal parts heart-rending realism and fascinating mysticism.
Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers (1993)
Almost as if they were making up for the 70s, the 90s featured a lot of charming and hilarious British cartoons. At the top of the pile, the inimitable Wallace and Gromit.
This is the one with the criminal penguin. You know the one. It’s fantastic.
Claymation as a medium has always had a hard time breaking into the mainstream. It was the original bearer of the uncanny valley burden, and unfortunately the simplicity and flexibility of design required to animate a figure (at this time, at least) made for very exaggerated, often ugly character designs. What makes Wallace & Gromit so special is creator Nick Park’s ability to hurdle both of these problems and really define his creations as a cute, charming cartoon.
Treat yo’self.
The Garden of Words (Kotonoha no Niwa, 2013)
If it seems like there’s a lot of anime on this list, it’s because Japan is one of countries where animation has been a respected medium for decades. Collectively they’ve got a huge body of work to draw from.
My personal favorite movie by Makoto Shinkai, the Garden of Words is about two people finding comfort and refuge from the wider world with each other, in an ephemeral and gorgeously-rendered setting. Shinkai writes stories about people falling in love and then realizing they can never be together, so prepare your body (for tears).
There’s a healthy dose of melodrama to this movie, but it doesn’t take away from the gorgeous visuals and the tone this movie sets. You can almost smell the ozone.
