But Disney’s hand-animated “Winnie the Pooh” from directors Don Hall and Stephen J Anderson evokes simpler times with charm and wit and even -gasp!- suggests the pleasures of reading, with the characters interacting with text on the page in a continually inventive way. And if you want more of the best films since 2000, you can check out our feature on the best horror movies of the 21st century here.Įvery generation feels a sense that the children of today are missing out on some vital part of childhood due to the technological advancements of modern life (right back to the first Neolithic Dad who shook his head sadly at his son’s use of those new-fangled bronze tools). But like many of the films listed below have taught us, we’re going to be brave, follow our dreams and find inner reserves of strength and goodness to face whatever life and the commenters throw at us, as we take you on this trip through our 25 favorite animated features of the 21st century. The sheer breadth of choice we have, and the extremely subjective nature of the beast (one viewer’s pretty is another viewer’s twee) means that we’re fully confident that this ranking will inspire its fair share of rage/accusations of bias as well. All these factors combine to provide a mainstream and arthouse filmmaking landscape that’s friendlier toward a more diverse range of animation styles and subjects than ever before. The last fifteen years have seen the animation 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. So here is that list: the time frame is extended this time to include any animated film in any style (bar rotoscoping, which we excluded because of its reliance on live-action filming first) from 2000 till now. We were a touch disappointed, to be honest, as we had a snappy comeback at the ready: we were already in the planning stages of an all-animation feature, so we felt justified in separating the live action picks from their hand-drawn, computer generated, stop motion and claymation brethren.
Surprisingly, of all the many, many names we were called over our ranking of The 50 Best Films Of The Decade So Far, “anti-animation, hegemonic live-action crypto-fascists” wasn’t one, despite the fact we didn’t feature any animated movies on that list.