Grave of the Fireflies
1988 · Isao Takahata
The most devastating war film ever animated, told through two starving siblings.
Find it on Amazon →My Neighbor Totoro
1988 · Hayao Miyazaki
Pure childhood wonder distilled into a forest spirit and a very patient cat-bus.
Find it on Amazon →Toy Story
1995 · John Lasseter
Pixar's first feature reinvented animation and told a perfect story about growing up.
Find it on Amazon →Spirited Away
2001 · Hayao Miyazaki
Miyazaki's bathhouse of spirits is a boundless feast of imagination and wonder.
Find it on Amazon →Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
2018 · Bob Persichetti
A comic-book explosion that reinvented the medium's look in one dazzling leap.
Find it on Amazon →Fantasia
1940 · James Algar
Disney's audacious marriage of classical music and pure animated abstraction.
Find it on Amazon →Pinocchio
1940 · Ben Sharpsteen
Disney's darkest fairy tale, animated with a craft that has never been surpassed.
Find it on Amazon →Watership Down
1978 · Martin Rosen
A rabbit's odyssey of startling beauty and unflinching darkness for all ages.
Find it on Amazon →The Nightmare Before Christmas
1993 · Henry Selick
Stop-motion gothic whimsy that owns two holidays and every misfit's heart.
Find it on Amazon →The Lion King
1994 · Roger Allers
Disney's Hamlet on the savanna, its Serengeti splendor as majestic as ever.
Find it on Amazon →Princess Mononoke
1997 · Hayao Miyazaki
An epic eco-fable where gods, humans, and forests wage gorgeous, ambiguous war.
Find it on Amazon →Perfect Blue
1997 · Satoshi Kon
Kon's psychological thriller blurs pop idol and reality into paranoid dread.
Find it on Amazon →The Iron Giant
1999 · Brad Bird
A boy and his gentle war machine in the sweetest anti-war story Warner ever made.
Find it on Amazon →The Triplets of Belleville
2003 · Sylvain Chomet
A nearly wordless, jazz-soaked caper drawn with gloriously eccentric caricature.
Find it on Amazon →Persepolis
2007 · Marjane Satrapi
A stark black-and-white memoir of growing up amid Iran's revolution and exile.
Find it on Amazon →Wall-E
2008 · Andrew Stanton
Pixar's near-silent robot romance is a dazzling ballad for a discarded Earth.
Find it on Amazon →Fantastic Mr. Fox
2009 · Wes Anderson
Anderson's handcrafted stop-motion is a witty, autumn-hued heist of pure charm.
Find it on Amazon →Coraline
2009 · Henry Selick
A button-eyed other-world where handcrafted wonder curdles into perfect nightmare.
Find it on Amazon →