Animation is my favorite visual medium, and I have watched an incredible amount of it in my life, but these five movies are without any doubt ones that each represent a major turning point in the art form. One could easily do a top 100 list too, given the near-century of animation to choose from, but for my money, these are the key titles.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Still unsurpassed
This isn’t just the movie that put Disney on the map; it’s also the movie that showed the world that animation could be more than silly little cartoons. Animation could be high art. It could be beautiful and haunting. This is the first feature-length animation project in history, and Walt Disney bet the farm on it.
This movie established animation as a viable industry, not just in America but across the globe. It kicked off decades of Disney dominance and pushed the technical envelope with techniques like rotoscoping (an early manual form of motion capture) and the multiplane animation capture method.
But what about the movie itself? Despite being the first of its kind, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is still worth watching today. It’s a handcrafted masterpiece, and the story is perfectly presented. It might “only” be a retelling of a well-known fairy tale, but it’s absolutely iconic.
Akira
A generational film writ large in neon
Akira is one of the key films that helped popularize Japanese animation (anime) in the West. Adapted from the manga of the same name, this was one of the first things I bought on DVD alongside The Matrix, and for much the same reason. It’s an incredible, boundary-pushing cyberpunk story that’s worth reading the original material for, but the animation and sound design still haven’t been surpassed.
It is insane what the creators of this film were able to pull off with little or no computer graphics. Watching Akira on a modern OLED TV is still one of my favorite things to do; with the crisp and detailed art and glowing neon lights, it’s a visual feast. The soundtrack, too, is peerless. You want the system cranked for this one.
Spirited Away
It sure spirited me away
Spirited Away is the first anime to win an Oscar, nabbing the 2003 prize for best animated feature. It was also the first-ever anime I saw in theaters and a film that introduced millions of people across the world to the incredible filmography of Studio Ghibli. My wife has a tattoo of a character from the film, so you can tell it had quite an impact.
The movie is like lightning in a bottle, perfectly balanced to appeal to both young and adult viewers. It’s visually arresting, and the quality of the art and animation is something you just don’t see from animated features in the West these days either, especially since Disney seems to be largely uninterested in making anything other than live-action movies nowadays.
Spirited Away is Studio Ghibli’s most successful film both critically and financially, so it should be on any animation fan’s list of movies to watch. However, in my opinion, it’s nowhere near being Ghibli’s best movie. However, if it helps more people discover Japan’s answer to the House of Mouse, then I won’t complain.
The Lion King
Still the king despite the pretenders
If you weren’t around in 1994, you can never know how absolutely nuts the whole world went with Lion King fever. This was the animated blockbuster to end all blockbusters. Yes, the following year’s Toy Story would give it a run for its money in terms of hype, but The Lion King has aged far better than Toy Story for sure.
This is another movie I love to rewatch on Blu-ray using modern TV technology, but even back in the ’90s on home VHS, this colorful and expertly animated movie shone through. The plot of the movie is basically a retelling of Shakespeare’s Hamlet but with wild animals, yet I’d go as far as saying it’s the superior version.
The animation is so good that anyone would still stop in their tracks to watch today, and even Disney’s terrible and misguided attempt at a “realistic” CG remake can’t take any shine off the original.
Princess Mononoke
Dark and delightful
I said before that Spirited Away wasn’t Ghibli’s best work, and I stand by that. After all, who could agree with that after seeing Princess Mononoke? Years before the studio would snag an Oscar, this dark fantasy film showed Western audiences that an animated film didn’t need a plot with simple morals that shied away from violence or being philosophical.
Visually, it’s every bit as beautiful as later Ghibli movies without leaning on CGI. Thematically, the mix of Eastern supernatural lore and Western industrial and environmental elements makes it fresh to this day.
Despite the rise of pure 3D CG animation, I feel like 2D animation (or at least something that looks like it these days) will never lose its spot in the pantheon of media. These are, to my mind, some of the biggest landmark animated films in history, but I don’t think they’ll be the last.
