Empire's The 50 Best Animated Movies

Empire's The 50 Best Animated Movies's icon

Created by Fergenaprido.

Favorited 1 time, disliked 0 times, added to 1 watchlist.

By Ben Travis, James White, Ian Freer, Beth Webb | Posted On 14 09 2021

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.

Remove ads

Pssst, want to check out the Empire's The 50 Best Animated Movies list in our new look?

Filter

  1. 1 new

    Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

    2018, in 21 top lists Check
  2. 2 new

    Toy Story

    1995, in 25 top lists Check
  3. 3 new

    Mononoke-hime

    1997 — a.k.a. Princess Mononoke, in 18 top lists Check
  4. 4 new

    WALL·E

    2008, in 26 top lists Check
  5. 5 new

    Tonari no Totoro

    1988 — a.k.a. My Neighbor Totoro, in 23 top lists Check
  6. 6 new

    Inside Out

    2015, in 18 top lists Check
  7. 7 new

    Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi

    2001 — a.k.a. Spirited Away, in 39 top lists Check
  8. 8 new

    Akira

    1988, in 22 top lists Check
  9. 9 new

    The Iron Giant

    1999, in 14 top lists Check
  10. 10 new

    Kubo and the Two Strings

    2016, in 0 top lists Check
  11. 11 new

    The Lion King

    1994, in 24 top lists Check
  12. 12 new

    Up

    2009, in 16 top lists Check
  13. 13 new

    The Incredibles

    2004, in 13 top lists Check
  14. 14 new

    Ratatouille

    2007, in 14 top lists Check
  15. 15 new

    Persepolis

    2007, in 9 top lists Check
  16. 16 new

    Toy Story 3

    2010, in 16 top lists Check
  17. 17 new

    The Nightmare Before Christmas

    1993, in 16 top lists Check
  18. 18 new

    Monsters, Inc.

    2001, in 14 top lists Check
  19. 19 new

    Sleeping Beauty

    1959, in 5 top lists Check
  20. 20 new

    Beauty and the Beast

    1991, in 19 top lists Check
  21. 21 new

    The Jungle Book

    1967, in 11 top lists Check
  22. 22 new

    Coco

    2017, in 14 top lists Check
  23. 23 new

    Pinocchio

    1940, in 15 top lists Check
  24. 24 new

    Aladdin

    1992, in 14 top lists Check
  25. 25 new

    WolfWalkers

    2020 — a.k.a. Wolfwalkers, in 3 top lists
    Check
  26. 26 new

    The Prince of Egypt

    1998, in 3 top lists Check
  27. 27 new

    Kimi no na wa.

    2016 — a.k.a. Your Name., in 12 top lists Check
  28. 28 new

    Song of the Sea

    2014, in 7 top lists Check
  29. 29 new

    The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

    2005 — a.k.a. Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, in 4 top lists Check
  30. 30 new

    Bambi

    1942, in 13 top lists Check
  31. 31 new

    One Hundred and One Dalmatians

    1961, in 8 top lists Check
  32. 32 new

    Toy Story 2

    1999, in 12 top lists Check
  33. 33 new

    Hercules

    1997, in 4 top lists Check
  34. 34 new

    Dumbo

    1941, in 9 top lists Check
  35. 35 new

    Ma vie de Courgette

    2016 — a.k.a. My Life as a Zucchini, in 0 top lists Check
  36. 36 new

    Moana

    2016, in 4 top lists Check
  37. 37 new

    Anomalisa

    2015, in 2 top lists Check
  38. 38 new

    Tangled

    2010, in 3 top lists Check
  39. 39 new

    The Lego Movie

    2014, in 5 top lists Check
  40. 40 new

    Vals Im Bashir

    2008 — a.k.a. Waltz with Bashir, in 11 top lists Check
  41. 41 new

    Hotaru no haka

    1988 — a.k.a. Grave of the Fireflies, in 21 top lists Check
  42. 42 new

    The Mitchells vs the Machines

    2021, in 2 top lists
    Check
  43. 43 new

    Shrek

    2001, in 14 top lists Check
  44. 44 new

    Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

    1937, in 25 top lists Check
  45. 45 new

    How to Train Your Dragon

    2010, in 11 top lists Check
  46. 46 new

    Cinderella

    1950, in 6 top lists Check
  47. 47 new

    Loving Vincent

    2017, in 0 top lists Check
  48. 48 new

    It's Such a Beautiful Day

    2012, in 6 top lists Check
  49. 49 new

    Fantasia

    1940, in 20 top lists Check
  50. 50 new

    Les triplettes de Belleville

    2003 — a.k.a. The Triplets of Belleville, in 11 top lists Check
Remove ads

Last updated on Nov 26, 2021; source