5 Best Animated Films Of The 21st Century
The last fifteen years have seen the animation films industry undergo huge upheavals; from the titanic union of old-school giant Disney with beloved game-changer Pixar to the rise to international and Oscar-winning glory of the extraordinary Studio Ghibli (and its imminent dissolution); to the massive leap in quality made by the likes of DreamWorks and other up-and-comers. I have gathered some of the best animated movies of 21 century which are as follows.
5. “Wall-E” (2008)
Fifthly, Perhaps some of the vitriol poured on “Chappie” came because we already have a lovable (and critically approved) robot-with-a-personality in our cinematic lexicon (not talking about Johnny Five). Pixar’s “Wall-E;” a fairly scathing environmental message wrapped up in the tale of a lonely trash robot and the fragments of a neglected civilization that only he cherishes; was an audacious undertaking. With much less dialogue than the wisecracker of previous outings and a near-mute protagonist; it remains one of the studio’s most formally austere and outright satirical films.
4. Hayao Miyazaki
Fourthly, The movie has retired before (he’d suggested he was done with filmmaking as early as a decade ago); but with Studio Ghibli supposedly winding down; “The Wind Rises” definitely seems like it could be the anime master’s swan song. The film certainly seems like a defining statement: a (mostly) fantasy-free melodrama about real-life airplane designer Jiro Horikoshi, it’s a moving portrait of the end of an era in Japan; an examination of the way that progress, technology, and even art can be corrupted; a love-letter to the director’s beloved aviation; and more than anything else an autobiographical portrait of the artist as an obsessed young man.
3. “Waltz with Bashir” (2008)
Thirdly, A strong case for just how dexterous animation can be; Ari Folman‘s film masterfully hybridizes personal essay, documentary; and hallucinatory imagery, all in service of a bold examination of one soldier’s experience of the 1982 Lebanon War that’s just the right amount of stylized cool to hook you into its harrowing insights. Human rights and issue films are unfortunately a dime a dozen these days, so it’s no small feat that Folman was able to transcend those narrow confines by making ‘Waltz’ utterly cinematic.
2. “Fantastic Mr. Fox” (2009)
Secondly, Stop motion animation and Wes Anderson proved to be a peanut-butter-and-jelly-like combination in this sweet yet acidic adaptation of Roald Dahl‘s book. We wouldn’t argue it’s the auteur’s best film, but in many ways, it’s more representative of his reputation as a capital A “artist.” After all; aren’t all his hyper-controlled cinematic dioramas a form of live-action animation? Beyond just appreciating its place in Anderson’s legacy; ‘Fox’ is beautiful to look at and one of his funniest films to date.
1. “The Tale Of Princess Kaguya” (2013)
It didn’t get as much attention as “The Wind Rises,” but “The Tale Of Princess Kaguya,” the swan song for Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli co-founder and “Grave Of The Fireflies” director Isao Takahata; is an even more elegiac, beautifully bittersweet goodbye from one of the medium’s masters. A fable based loosely on the traditional tale of the Bamboo Cutter and animated in a stunning; painterly fashion, the film sees the discovery of the title character inside a bamboo shoot by her humble parents. Furthermore, She’s elevated to wealth and courted by endless suitors, but nothing can change the sense that her time on Earth will be brief.
