10 Jaw Dropping Animation Films of 2017 You wont Believe Exist
For nearly 100 years, the animated movie as we know it has existed – an artform that, like live-action cinema, sprung from shorts and grew into a major medium in its own right. If the biggest landmark was the arrival of 1937’s Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs – which marked the start of feature-length output from Walt Disney Animation Studios – from there the animated film flourished and evolved, spawning brand new pioneering technologies, new narrative possibilities, new studios, and new visual styles. Today, that gives us a field that encompasses nearly a century of Disney favourites, other major studios like the game-changing Pixar, British claymation titans Aardman, and Japan’s legendary Ghibli, and styles that range from traditional hand-drawn 2D features, to lavish computer-generation confections, painstakingly-produced stop-motion, and everything in between. Team Empire got together to vote for the 50 greatest animated movies ever made – and since animation is a medium rather than a genre, the full list comprises a banquet of tastes and tones. We have traditional family adventures, black-and-white coming-of-age stories, self-referential meta-features, superhero stories, devastating war films, and imaginative flights of fantasy – all showing that animation can be far more than just cartoons for kids (though we do, of course, love those deeply too). Read the full list below, and delve into the endless possibilities that the animated medium allows for. READ MORE: Every Studio Ghibli Movie Ranked READ MORE: Every Pixar Movie Ranked
, French animator Sylvain Chomet's astonishing debut. For starters there's the practically dialogue-free plot (a club-footed grandmother mounts a rescue mission to save her grandson from the Mafia during the Tour de France), the set-pieces (the opening musical number, a pedalo chase, a last reel getaway), a great supporting cast (sad-faced cyclists, larger-than-life mobsters) and the titular ageing music hall stars who steal the show. It spices up a silent movie look with surrealism but thrives on daring to go to a place most animation doesn't dare: it flits between sadness and satire (Belleville is a thinly-veiled America) and nostalgia to become a paean to times gone by. Somehow it also manages to be funny as hell.Read the Empire review.
It's not exactly an easy-watching favourite, but Disney's third animated feature is a blockbuster in so many senses. Marrying the Mouse House's signature sweeping animation to a series of beloved classical music suites (the 'playlist', as it were, includes bangers from Bach to Beethoven) results in something largely spectacular. The best-remembered sequence is the escalating broom nightmare of 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice' (a rare appearance from Mickey Mouse himself in a mainline Disney movie), but there are astonishing apocalyptic visions to be found in the Big Bang-centric 'Rite Of Spring' (aka, the dinosaur one), and the sturm-and-dranging 'Night On Bald Mountain', featuring the spectral devil Chernabog. The presentation is playful too, with sequences showing the talents of conductor Leopold Stokowski in silhouette and a bit dedicated to the 'soundtrack' itself. A two-hour feast for the eyes and ears – but maybe skip past the weird centaur bit.Read the Empire review.
Ladybug & Cat Noir: The Movie
Is film as flicker book. A feature version of indie cartoonist Don Hertzfeldt's short film trilogy, it follows stick-and-circle figure Bill – round head, oval body, dots for eyes, cool hat – through his life in short vignettes, all filtered through a blurrily-framed iris. For such a thin character, Bill has a surprisingly rich inner life. As Hertzfeldt provides wall to wall narration, the story zeroes in seemingly random small details —
Slippers, leaf blowers — that coalesce into a huge exploration of our place in the universe. The animation is the scratchiest black and white imagery imaginable, so the effect is hand-crafted, charming and, somehow, strangely moving. A 62-minute doodle to savour, it just makes you wish you'd done more with those absent-minded scribblings you did during Double Maths.
Are off the hook. Over a period of six years, a team of 125 painters from 20 countries painted over 65, 000 frames of film in the style of Vincent Van Gogh (you know, the sunflowers guy). Employing a rotoscope technique favoured by Richard Linklater in
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, directors Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman create a living breathing tribute to Van Gogh's art wrapped in a detective story to discover the true nature of the painter's death. It has its oddities — you get to see what the likes of Saoirse Ronan and Chris O'Dowd would look like if they posed for VVG — but it's intricately designed as a tribute to Van Gogh's craft, both in overview (the gentle pastels, the inky blacks) and the details (the end credits point out the exact paintings that have been homaged). It begins with Van Gogh's quote – We cannot speak other than by our paintings – and by the end
After reverting to anthology-style package films through the Second World War, Disney bounced back with a bibbidi-bobbidi-banger – their second princess movie, which evolved and redefined the archetype they began with their very first feature. It's a classic tale of misery, magic and mice, as the pure-hearted Cinderella is treated like dirt by her evil step-family – until her Fairy Godmother (finally) intervenes and sends her to the ball. For all its wonky pacing (the open 20 minutes consist of mouse antics in the kitchen), it's a pure Disney fairytale through-and-through – with spritely songs, an iconic dress, and an underrated villain in Eleanor Audley's formidable Lady Tremaine. If the animation itself isn't Disney's most daring, it still boasts some gorgeous flourishes from legendary concept artist Mary Blair – and finds the studio's signature charm in full flow.Read the Empire review.
While DreamWorks Animation has been criticised for chasing the franchise dragon (pun entirely intended), this trilogy is a soaring example that the company can point to as to why it's not always the enemy of creativity and charm. Originated by Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders (with the two subsequent films mostly on DeBlois' watch),
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Boils down to a boy and his dog story – where the boy is a nerdy, gawkward Viking, and the dog is a powerful Night Fury dragon that has natural camouflage and can shoot plasma blasts from his mouth. Rather than letting the characters run (or fly) in place, the series (and its small-screen spin-offs) make the smart choice to evolve the story and deepen the emotion, and the look of the movies is a painterly, often spectacular use of CGI.Read the Empire review.
No other movie on this list might even exist – it's that simple. The first American feature-length animated film set the template for, well, everything that followed – Walt's team of animators using pioneering multiplane camera techniques to take audiences inside an old German fairytale with all the usual elements (an innocent young princess, a jealous old queen, cute forest creatures, the looming spectre of death). If it's narratively episodic, stitching together several sequences that were devised like the Silly Symphonies shorts the studio was long known for, it still plays like a contemporary animated feature – not bad for a film that's nearly 100 years old. With its distinctive characters (each Dwarf has its own flair), brilliant design (the dripping poisoned apple is iconic), and ear-worms like 'Heigh Ho', there's no wonder it caught audiences' imaginations and changed the course of Hollywood forever.Read the Empire review.
Twenty years on, Dreamworks' side-swipe at Disney's dominance of the animated landscape might not feel as fresh as it once did – but if it ain't the sharpest tool in the shed anymore, it's still a raucous, colourful blast. Right from its opening moments,
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Rips up the fairytale rulebook and quite literally wipes its arse with it – centering a giant green ogre as our hero, making the princess a monster at heart, and depicting the villain as an oppressive ruler of Disneyland-alike kingdom Duloc. If Mike Myers' Scottish (emphasis on the 'ish') accent is an inspired touch, it's Eddie Murphy's Donkey who enlivens the whole film – the legendary comedian in full freewheeling form. As a buddy-comedy that liberally swipes at an entire Magic Kingdom's worth of tropes and characters, and that (for better or worse) ushered in a new era of pop-culture references galore, it remains game-changing, and very, very funny.Read the Empire review.
The Midas touch of producers Lord and Miller continued with Mike Rianda's adventure about a dysfunctional family battling an AI-assistant uprising – a sci-fi-infused action-comedy that feels faster, funnier, and more freewheeling than the work of any other current animation house.
Is a film buff's delight – central hero Katie (Abbi Jacobson) is a budding moviemaker whose deep-cuts references (there are Celine Sciamma and Agnes Varda in-jokes) and bountiful imagination spills onto the screen in the form of cartoonish scrawls, a distinctive maximalist visual identity bolstered by the 2D-3D hybrid textures pioneered by
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. It's relentlessly witty, boasts eye-popping action beats, and in its best moments – a raucous mall set-piece complete with kaiju-sized sentient Furby – manages both simultaneously. Best of all, its central father-daughter relationship packs real emotional punch, hitting the feels
Boils down to a boy and his dog story – where the boy is a nerdy, gawkward Viking, and the dog is a powerful Night Fury dragon that has natural camouflage and can shoot plasma blasts from his mouth. Rather than letting the characters run (or fly) in place, the series (and its small-screen spin-offs) make the smart choice to evolve the story and deepen the emotion, and the look of the movies is a painterly, often spectacular use of CGI.Read the Empire review.
No other movie on this list might even exist – it's that simple. The first American feature-length animated film set the template for, well, everything that followed – Walt's team of animators using pioneering multiplane camera techniques to take audiences inside an old German fairytale with all the usual elements (an innocent young princess, a jealous old queen, cute forest creatures, the looming spectre of death). If it's narratively episodic, stitching together several sequences that were devised like the Silly Symphonies shorts the studio was long known for, it still plays like a contemporary animated feature – not bad for a film that's nearly 100 years old. With its distinctive characters (each Dwarf has its own flair), brilliant design (the dripping poisoned apple is iconic), and ear-worms like 'Heigh Ho', there's no wonder it caught audiences' imaginations and changed the course of Hollywood forever.Read the Empire review.
Twenty years on, Dreamworks' side-swipe at Disney's dominance of the animated landscape might not feel as fresh as it once did – but if it ain't the sharpest tool in the shed anymore, it's still a raucous, colourful blast. Right from its opening moments,
Animated Films 2017 And 2018
Rips up the fairytale rulebook and quite literally wipes its arse with it – centering a giant green ogre as our hero, making the princess a monster at heart, and depicting the villain as an oppressive ruler of Disneyland-alike kingdom Duloc. If Mike Myers' Scottish (emphasis on the 'ish') accent is an inspired touch, it's Eddie Murphy's Donkey who enlivens the whole film – the legendary comedian in full freewheeling form. As a buddy-comedy that liberally swipes at an entire Magic Kingdom's worth of tropes and characters, and that (for better or worse) ushered in a new era of pop-culture references galore, it remains game-changing, and very, very funny.Read the Empire review.
The Midas touch of producers Lord and Miller continued with Mike Rianda's adventure about a dysfunctional family battling an AI-assistant uprising – a sci-fi-infused action-comedy that feels faster, funnier, and more freewheeling than the work of any other current animation house.
Is a film buff's delight – central hero Katie (Abbi Jacobson) is a budding moviemaker whose deep-cuts references (there are Celine Sciamma and Agnes Varda in-jokes) and bountiful imagination spills onto the screen in the form of cartoonish scrawls, a distinctive maximalist visual identity bolstered by the 2D-3D hybrid textures pioneered by
The 31 Best Horror Comedy Movies Of The 21st Century
. It's relentlessly witty, boasts eye-popping action beats, and in its best moments – a raucous mall set-piece complete with kaiju-sized sentient Furby – manages both simultaneously. Best of all, its central father-daughter relationship packs real emotional punch, hitting the feels
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