The first two animated features were made in 1917 and 1918 by Quirino Cristiani in Argentina, but are lost. When Lotte Reiniger made The Adventures of Prince Achmed in Germany with cardboard cutouts in 1926, she assumed she was making the first animated feature and her efforts remain the oldest surviving one. Walt Disney had probably heard of neither Cristiani nor Reiniger when he oversaw his first animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (see A-list). Disney’s success with that film and others, as well as his monopolistic business practices, would assure that very, very few non-Disney-affiliated creators or companies could afford to complete animated features before about 1980, and that is why this collection – the best and most influential animation beyond the canon – tilts so heavily toward the last few decades. Though animation is not a genre in the same way as horror, the considerable efforts and imaginations of feature-film animators deserve a collective place of appreciation.
L1. The Adventures of Prince Achmed (Reiniger, 1926)
L2. Dumbo (Armstrong, Kinney, Ferguson, Jackson, 1941)
L3. Bambi (Hand, Heid, Pearce, Satterfield, 1942)
L4. Cinderella (Luske, Geronimi, Jackson, 1950)
L5. Alice in Wonderland (Luske, Geronimi, Jackson, 1951)
L6. The King and the Mockingbird (Grimault, 1952, released 1980)
L7. Peter Pan (Luske, Geronimi, Jackson, 1953)
L8. Lady and the Tramp (Luske, Geronimi, Jackson, 1955)
L9. Sleeping Beauty (Clark, Larson, Geronimi, Reitherman, 1959)
L10. One Hundred and One Dalmatians (Luske, Geronimi, Reitherman, 1961)
L11. The Jungle Book (Reitherman, 1967)
L12. Yellow Submarine (Dunning, 1968)
L13. The Aristocats (Reitherman, 1970)
L14. Fritz the Cat (Bakshi, 1972)
L15. Fantastic Planet (Laloux, 1973)
L16. Belladonna of Sadness (Yamamoto, 1973)
L17. Allegro Non Troppo (Bozzetoo, 1976)
L18. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (Lounsbery, Reitherman, 1977)
L19. Watership Down (Rosen, 1978)
L20. Heavy Metal (Potterton, 1981)
L21. The Secret of NIMH (Bluth, 1982)
L22. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (Miyazaki, 1984)
L23. Vampire Hunter D (Ashida, 1985)
L24. Castle in the Sky (Miyazaki, 1986)
L25. An American Tail (Bluth, 1986)
L26. Grave of the Fireflies (Takahata, 1988)
L27. Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (Zemeckis, 1988)
L28. Akira (Otomo, 1988)
L29. Kiki’s Delivery Service (Miyazaki, 1989)
L30. The Little Mermaid (Musker, Clements, 1989)
L31. Only Yesterday (Takahata, 1991)
L32. Beauty and the Beast (Trousdale, 1991)
L33. Porco Rosso (Miyazaki, 1992)
L34. Aladdin (Musker, Clements, 1992)
L35. Ninja Scroll (Seymour, Kawajiri, 1993)
L36. The Nightmare Before Christmas (Selick, 1993)
L37. Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (Radomski, Timm, 1993)
L38. Whisper of the Heart (Kondo, 1995)
L39. Ghost in the Shell (Oshii, 1995)
L40. James and the Giant Peach (Selick, 1996)
L41. Perfect Blue (Kon, Hamazumm, Shirai, 1997)
L42. Princess Mononoke (Miyazaki, 1997)
L43. The End of Evangelion (Anno, Lee, 1997)
L44. Cowboy Bebop (Watanabe, 1998)
L45. Mulan (Cook, Bancroft, 1998)
L46. Antz (Darnell, Johnson, 1998)
L47. Kirikou and the Sorceress (Ocelot, 1998)
L48. South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut (Parker, Stone, 1999)
L49. The Iron Giant (Bird, 1999)
L50. Toy Story 2 (Lasseter, 1999)
L51. Fantasia 2000 (various directors, 1999)
L52. Chicken Run (Park, Lord, 2000)
L53. Waking Life (Linklater, 2001)
L54. Shrek (Jenson, Adamson, 2001)
L55. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (Sakaguchi, 2001)
L56. Millennium Actress (Kon, 2001)
L57. Monsters, Inc. (Docter, Silverman, Unkrich, 2001)
L58. Lilo & Stitch (DeBois, Sanders, 2002)
L59. The Triplets of Belleville (Chomet, 2003)
L60. Tokyo Godfathers (Kon, 2003)
L61. Team America: World Police (Parker, Stone, 2004)
L62. The Polar Express (Zemeckis, 2004)
L63. The Incredibles (Bird, 2004)
L64. Howl’s Moving Castle (Miyazaki, 2004)
L65. Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (Park, Box, 2005)
L66. A Scanner Darkly (Linklater, 2006)
L67. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (Hosoda, 2006)
L68. Paprika (Kon, 2006)
L69. 5 Centimeters Per Second (Shinkai, 2007)
L70. Ratatouille (Bird, 2007)
L71. The Simpsons Movie (Silverman, 2007)
L72. Sita Sings the Blues (Paley, 2008)
L73. Kung Fu Panda (Stevenson, Osborne, 2008)
L74. WALL-E (Stanton, 2008)
L75. Mary and Max (Elliot, 2009)
L76. Coraline (Selick, 2009)
L77. The Secret of Kells (T. Moore, 2009)
L78. Up (Docter, Peterson, 2009)
L79. Summer Wars (Hosoda, 2009)
L80. Fantastic Mr. Fox (Anderson, 2009)
L81. How to Train Your Dragon (DeBlois, Sanders, 2010)
L82. Toy Story 3 (Unkrich, 2010)
L83. Despicable Me (Coffin, Renaud, 2010)
L84. The Secret World of Arrietty (Yonebayashi, 2010)
L85. Tangled (Greno, Howard, 2010)
L86. Rango (Verbinski, 2011)
L87. ParaNorman (Butler, Fell, 2012)
L88. It’s Such a Beautiful Day (Hertzfeldt, 2012)
L89. Wreck-It Ralph (Moore, 2012)
L90. Ernest & Celestine (Auber, Patar, Renner, 2012)
L91. The Wind Rises (Miyazaki, 2013)
L92. Boy and the World (Abreu, 2013)
L93. The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (Takahata, 2013)
L94. The LEGO Movie (Lord and Miller, 2014)
L95. Rocks in My Pockets (Baumane, 2014)
L96. Song of the Sea (Moore, 2014)
L97. The Boxtrolls (Annable, Stacchi, 2014)
L98. Big Hero 6 (Hall, Williams, 2014)
L99. Shaun the Sheep Movie (Burton, Starzak, 2015)
L100. Anomalisa (Kaufman, 2015)
BEST LOVED FILMS 