Following on from the rich world of my live action fantasy list, I here present my top 10 animated fantasy films. But first, a couple of honorable mentions that just didn't quite make the list proper:
Mickey and the Beanstalk
Sleeping Beauty
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
And now the list itself!
10. The Adventures of Prince Achmed
The oldest surviving animated feature film (there were apparently at least two made previously to this 1926 movie by Argentinian filmmaker Quirino Cristiani but neither has a surviving copy and are considered lost), this stop motion cardboard cutout fairy tale is a visual marvel, even now, more than 90 years after it was released. German director/animator Lotte Reiniger developed her silhouette animation technique much in the style of Asian Wayang shadow puppets, but rather than being manipulated in real time as Wayang puppets are, Reiniger animated hers frame by frame, as stop motion clay animators would do. Greatly based on One Thousand and One Nights, specifically "The Story of Prince Ahmed and the Fairy Paribanou", its story is pretty episodic, and often it doesn't even matter, just sit back and watch the amazing visuals. Reiniger's technique was later used to great effect in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1, in the Story of the Three Brothers. Reiniger used the technique throughout her career and much of her work can be seen on YouTube. It all has that same entrancing quality that Prince Achmed has, so be prepared to go down a rabbit hole if you check it out. You'll thank me.
9. Song of the Sea
Like writer/director Tomm Moore's previous movie, 2009’s The Secret of Kells, Song of the Sea is a visually gorgeous movie to look at, is steeped in Irish folklore, has a terrific voice cast, and wonderful music as well. Both were nominated for Oscars for Best Animated Film, and I think Song of the Sea should’ve won (Kells, sadly, was up against tougher competition). It’s gentle, not full of the manic energy many filmmakers think a children’s movie needs, and ultimately tackles the deep themes of grieving, sibling rivalry, family love, and much more wrapped up in a wonderful adventure tale with lovingly created 2D animation.
What kept bringing me into this movie was the relative silence of it. I really just mean free of needless dialog. It’s not silent, it’s gorgeously scored by Bruno Coulais, collaborating with Irish band Kila, with multiple songs sung by the achingly beautiful voice of Lisa Hannigan, who plays the mother, Bronagh. She’s long been one of my favorite musical artists, from her days singing with Damien Rice, to when she truly blossomed into something special with her own albums Sea Sew (2008), Passenger (2011), and At Swim (2016). She’s got the voice of an angel, and perfectly fits what Tomm Moore is doing here. Her music is gentle, but never boring. It’s fascinating and feels handmade (indeed she even did a run of hand sewn album art for her first record). The 2D animation here is so perfectly crafted, so wonderful in conjunction with the music and story. 2D gives the movie the same handmade feeling of Hannigan’s music, it’s almost like you could reach out and touch this storybook being told to us.
8. Coraline
One that grows on me a lot each time I watch it, Henry Selick's dark fantasy Coraline is a wonderfully creepy and effective adaptation of Neil Gaiman's novella. It has the brilliant mix of humor and macabre that Selick pulled off with The Nightmare Before Christmas, but I found myself much more involved with this one, perhaps because of my distaste for the Tim Burton (who wrote and produced but didn't direct)-ness of the other movie as I get older. Here, Selick is both writer and director, and takes us on a crazy journey to an alternate universe where Coraline (Dakota Fanning) learns about appreciating the family and life she has rather than focus on the mundane things she hates about her life. The movie has a certain amount of the magical feeling I remember from childhood books like The Secret Garden, but it goes in a much different, darker, and weirder direction thanks to Selick.
7. My Neighbor Totoro
My Neighbor Totoro is one of the great animated movies that your average moviegoer hasn't seen. It was a wonderful gift given to us by Oscar-winning animation legend Hayao Miyazaki in 1988. It follows two young girls who move with their loving father into an old house near a forest in rural Japan, where they encounters mystical creatures, including Totoro, the King of the forest. What's wonderful about the movie is that it's just as engrossing when dealing with the magical Totoro and his friends as it is when we're simply watching the girls and their father clean up the house, or visit their sick mother in the hospital. It's a magnificent visual experience, something I have always loved Miyazaki for, with evocative renderings of the small village in which the family lives as well as the surrounding forest. In particular the animation on the sisters is brilliantly expressive, using the exaggerated tradition of anime to get us to recall the feelings of childhood. And like Song of the Sea, it's not afraid of having some silences. The silence makes us sit up and look closer, pay more attention, rather than lose interest. American animation needs to learn this lesson.
My Neighbor Totoro introduced Miyazaki to a much wider audience when it was released and has since become somewhat of a signature film for Studio Ghibli. The character of Totoro appears in the Studio Ghibli logo, and I've read that he is as known and beloved by the Japanese people as Mickey Mouse is to all of us in the US. It's not hard to understand why, once you've seen the movie. Totoro looks after the girls, finds them when they get lost, and uses his powers to speed up the growing of some trees the girls planted. I don't see how someone couldn't love Totoro.
6. The Toy Story Franchise
Okay, my list, my rules, and I'm including all the Toy Story movies. Now, I'm not a huge fan of the second, which I have found mostly unengaging every time I've watched it. Thematically, I think it also doesn't do anything that number three doesn't do better. Still, it felt weird to list 1 and 3 but not 2, so I'm just doing all of them. The fantasy of your toys coming to life when you're not around is such a universal one that it almost doesn't even register as being a fantasy anymore. But these movies are some of the great explorations of childhood attachments, the nostalgia of that, and the bittersweet feeling of growing up. I'm not sure where the next installment will go, but I have faith in Pixar and will be seeing it in theaters just like I've seen the first three.
5. The How to Train Your Dragon movies
Dreamworks animation has had a spotty career. It started out decently with Antz in 1998, which was overshadowed by Pixar's vastly superior A Bug's Life, they found huge success with the Shrek series, then again with Madagascar, again with Over the Hedge (which I actually liked), but didn't really hit a home run artistically, I think, until 2008's Kung Fu Panda. Then came '09's delightful Monsters vs. Aliens, and 2010 gives us their magnum opus, How to Train Your Dragon. It's a wonderful movie with astounding animation, terrific characters, and a good (if predictable) story. They create a world of Vikings and dragons and ships and battles, and imbue it with heart, artistry, and the kind of soul we're used to seeing from Pixar or Studio Ghibli.
The second movie came out and deepened the emotions, the back story, the mystery, and actually bettered the first movie. They've said they'll only do a trilogy, so the forthcoming third installment should tie everything up. I can't wait to see what they do with the final chapter. I'll say that although I love these movies, I like Toy Story 1 and 3 even more. However, How to Train Your Dragon just feels more "fantasy" to me, whatever that means, so I put it higher on the list. Maybe that's stupid, I don't care.
Even if I can't quite figure out why the Vikings have Scottish accents, I still love these movies.
4. Spirited Away
Spirited Away is one of the most wonderfully inventive movies ever made, with Miyazaki's imagination running wild in one of the best movies of the 2000's. As usual, there's the young female lead, 10-year-old heroine Chihiro, who falls into a magical world and ends up in a fantasy of mind boggling invention. After Chihiro's parents turn into pigs, Chihiro meets the mysterious Haku, who puts her on the run from the villainous Yubaba, then sends her to the four armed Kamajii, boiler master for Yubaba's bath house of the gods. Chihiro ends up working for the bath house, serving the various spirits who come to relax and wash there. And I think that only covers about the first 20 minutes or so of this 2 hour animation joyride.
Like many of Miyazaki's movies, Spirited Away is about the coming of age of the central female character. Chihiro begins the movie as meek and almost cowardly, she doesn't even want to accompany her parents into the dark tunnel leading to the amusement park that acts as the gateway to the bathhouse. But by the end, she is fighting to save the lives of her friends and defeat Yubaba's powerful spells and her hold on the citizens of this strange place. She begins on her journey from childhood into being a young woman, learning courage and purpose and the power of love.
3. Fantasia
A movie that I always wanted to see as a kid but was told I wouldn't like it, it was just animation with classical music and not a standard Disney story or anything. I thought that sounded great but I still wasn't able to see it until a few years ago, at the age of 32. It was even better than I could've imagined. It's like the best ballet you could ever dream up. The animation tied to the music so much that they become of a single piece. I could actually do without the introductions by the music conductor. Each section needs some sort of break between them, but I would've been fine with a fade to black, moment of blank screen, and fade up into a new section. Regardless, the movie is gorgeous to look at and, like The Wizard of Oz, a transportational viewing experience. Except the places we're taken in Fantasia are even more fantastical and amazing than Oz.
2. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
I watched Nausicaa not really knowing what to expect. It's not Hayao Miyazaki's most acclaimed movie (even if it's his third on this list!), and I watched it because I was on a Miyazaki quest and it was simply the next one I got my hands on. But what I got was among the best post-apocalyptic movies ever made. The world building in this movie (based on Miyazaki's manga of the same name) is really extraordinary, and serves as the best representation of all of Miyazaki's favorite themes: ecology, flight, and a strong young heroine. Nausicaa's impassioned adventure through the unforgiving and toxic landscape, looking for answers on how to make the world a better place, is also Miyazaki's greatest action/adventure story. Joe Hisaishi's score, when it doesn't sound like a Nintendo game, might be the most beautiful score I've heard to go with Miyazaki's best imagery. There's not enough I can say about this movie (it also inspired one of my favorite video games, the NES's Crystalis), I enjoy certain anime, but for me this is the big daddy of them all.
1. Beauty and the Beast
I know it's not the first movie I saw in the theaters, but Beauty and the Beast is the first one I have vivid memories of seeing. I was enthralled from the first second to the last. I had a huge crush on Belle, and knew all the songs by heart. Now, I'm older, more cynical, have a general distaste for musicals and still, I love this movie with all my heart. Belle is the best and most interesting of all the Disney heroines, smart, funny, kind, and fiercely intelligent. And the Beast is the most interesting of the Disney Princes, probably because he has his own fascinating personal journey. He goes from arrogance and self hatred to both learning to love himself and someone else. Meanwhile, the movie teaches us that we should be falling for the soul of a person, looks be damned. That's a pretty great lesson to be put on top of the impeccable animation, tremendous songs, and flawless voice cast.
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