A little late getting to this one but real quickly, these are my top 10 animated movies of the decade, a lot of these I’ve already talked about in the past so you’re definitely going to see a lot of me repeating myself.
With that out of the way, on to the list…
10. Winnie The Pooh (2011)
It’s a really great film. The animation is top-notch, the voice cast does a nice job especially Jim Cummings, who is one of the greatest voice actors we have living today, and Craig Ferguson, and the music is nicely scored and the songs by Zooey Deschanel are very well done, Deschanel is somebody who’s really underappreciated in terms of acting and as a singer and she does a great rendition of the Winnie The Pooh theme song too.
Winnie The Pooh has stayed the same way and I give credit to Disney for not trying to change the characters for a new generation like what Fox did with Alvin & The Chipmunks, even though I don’t hate those movies, those aren’t the same Alvin & The Chipmunks I grew up with as a kid. It’s a sweet and overall enjoyable movie and despite the short running time, the movie is a lot of fun and it’s just great to see the same old Winnie The Pooh we’ve come to love back on the big screen.
9. Coco (2017)
From an animation standpoint, the movie looks absolutely gorgeous, when you visit the land of the dead for the first time, it looks beautiful and you can see how much effort went in to make this world stand out and how closely Pixar pays attention to the detailing of the worlds they create, this is one of the most gorgeous looking animated films I have seen in a while. The film also does a really good job celebrating Mexican culture as well.
The characters in this are great to watch, the voice cast does a really good job of bringing these characters to life and you do end up really getting invested with these characters because they are so likeable and relatable.
Michael Giacchino delivers yet another really great musical score to prove that he’s one of the best composers working in the business right now and the songs are really good here, written by the same team behind the songs from Frozen, and they deliver more great songs to add to their roster with the studio dating back to the 2011 Winnie The Pooh movie.
The best aspect of the movie to me in the story, they did a really good job of establishing a difference between this movie and The Book Of Life to make it stand out better and created a unique universe that Pixar hasn’t given us before and even throwing in some nice little twists and turns like something I would expect to see from a film by Laika, specifically Paranorman and Kubo & The Two Strings, or even Hayao Miyazaki, specifically Spirited Away.
The movie also does what Pixar does best, get you to feel emotions, there are a lot of great moments in this where you can’t help but at least shed some tears over the events that transpire in the film especially when it has something to do with the main song of the film, Remember Me.
While not a perfect movie, Coco is still another winner for Pixar on nearly every front, great animation, a great respect to Mexican culture, likeable characters, an excellent score, great songs, great story, and it knows how to get to your heartstrings. It’s Pixar doing what Pixar does best, creating great quality family entertainment and continuing their long standing reputation as one of the definitive animation studios out there. This is definitely a movie that is well worth remembering.
While we’re at it, we should talk about the Frozen short at the beginning of the film:
8. The Peanuts Movie (2015)
The Peanuts Movie had a lot of baggage on its’ hands, having to keep the spirit of the classic characters and the universe and not going into the modernization abortion that other franchises have done under Fox’s wing but thanks to the Schulz family having creative control and Blue Sky’s ambition to take the Peanuts franchise into CG the right way, you have a movie that not only pays tribute to the Peanuts in the best way possible but exceeds on a level that only Pixar has topped. And because of this, The Peanuts Movie is one of the best movies of the years and the second best animated film of the year after Inside Out.
7. Inside Out (2015)
This movie really is damn good, I don’t know what more I could say about it than everybody else have said.
I mean, honestly, there really isn’t a whole lot that’s wrong with the movie. I guess one of the small complaints I had with the film was that the way they kind of treat Sadness in the beginning but even then, that’s kind of the point, nobody wants to be sad and you can understand why the other emotions are like that but it was still kind of too harsh the way they treat Sadness at first. That’s the only really big complaint I had with the film.
Everything else, I really loved. This is probably Pixar’s most perfect movie they’ve made since Wall-E.
The story works so perfectly, combining a lot of great comedy, great elements of drama, and great character traits. It’s interesting that the film doesn’t have a villain to the plot, I think the last animated movie that doesn’t have a villain to it was Hotel Transylvania, another great animated movie. One of the writers for this is Meg LeFauve, who’s going to be writing Captain Marvel next, so this is a welcoming sign ahead for that.
The characters are all very likeable and their voice actors perfectly fit their parts easily. Amy Poehler, Bill Hader, Mindy Kaling, Lewis Black, & Phyllis Smith each fill their parts out as the emotions so very well, it’s hard to choose which one I liked the best of the bunch. It’s like The Lego Movie again, so many great characters in that, it’s hard to choose the best one. Even characters who could’ve been obnoxious like Richard Kind as Bing Bong, even he was really enjoyable and a lot of fun and when he’s written out of the film, it’s very similar to Dexter’s Laboratory when Dee-Dee’s imaginary friend disappears forever.
The emotional moments in here perfectly fit into what Pixar movies can usually bring us, there’s a lot of great moments where the emotional levels peak very high but the ending is what got to me and the way the story wraps up, I thought that was brilliant and didn’t feel forced at all.
Lastly, the animation is spectacular in this, not only is this Pixar at its’ best but there’s also a great scene where Joy, Sadness, and Bing Bong end up entering abstract thought and it allows them to create some pretty impressive forms of animation, both 3D & 2D.
I mean, what more can I say about Inside Out at this point? It’s friggin’ awesome, it’s one of the best movies of the year so far. There’s so much about it that works, it’s a lot of fun, it’s very funny, it’s got a lot of great characters, and it packs on a lot of emotions. It’s Pixar back at the point we’ve been waiting for them to return to since Toy Story 3. This is Pixar at its’ finest.
6. Isle Of Dogs (2018)
Isle Of Dogs is a cinematic masterpiece and one of the best animated movies ever made, visually gorgeous, well-acted, written, and directed, and not afraid to break boundaries to get its’ message and point across, Wes Anderson creates another classic to add to his impressive list with this film, one of the great cinematic achievements of 2018.
5. Toy Story 3 (2010)
It was hard to top the previous Toy Story movies but Toy Story 3 not only does it but does it so well, it’s hard not to love this movie as they find a great story to tell in this one.
4. Zootopia (2016)
Disney had topped themselves once again, Zootopia was one of the most hilarious and fun animated movies I’ve seen in a long time, probably since The LEGO Movie. This movie has everything, gorgeous animation, very likeable characters, a really strong voice cast, hilarious comedy, a great story, great music, a strong message that plays a lot into today’s world, it’s everything you could ask for and more. You’re doing yourself a huge disservice by missing out on Zootopia.
3. Kubo & The Two Strings (2016)
The animation is breathtaking, the story is great, the voice acting is amazing, the music is great, everything about this movie just works. We should all be thankful that a studio like Laika exists out there who are making these not only beautiful movies but also profound movies, films that make you think a lot and be enjoyable for both kids and adults, outside of Pixar, this studio has done a fantastic job of creating great animation and Kubo is easily the best one they’ve done so far. This is one you need to rush out and see ASAP, you will not be disappointed.
2. The Lego Movie (2014)
What can I say about this movie that hasn’t been said already? This movie is absolutely 100% perfect. This is one of the most perfect movies I have ever seen.
Don’t ever deny the power and brilliance of Phil Lord & Christopher Miller because they can take the stupidest ideas ever and make a badass movie in the process.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with anything in this movie, everything about this movie is just great.
The voice cast is great, Chris Pratt is great as Emmett, Elizabeth Banks does a great job as Wyldstyle, Morgan Freeman’s awesome as Vitruvious, Will Arnett’s hilarious as Batman, Alison Brie’s Uni-Kitty is so much fun to watch, kind of a mix between Pinkie Pie and Edward from Cowboy Bebop rolled into one, Charlie Day’s Benny is hilarious as hell to watch, Nick Offerman’s Metal Beard was great and is completely unrecognizable from what we’re used to hearing from Offerman, Liam Neeson’s Good Cop/Bad Cop is so hilariously done, and Will Ferrell’s the best he’s ever been as Lord Business.
But on top of that, we get Jonah Hill as Green Lantern, Channing Tatum as Superman, Cobie Smulders as Wonder Woman, Will Forte as Abraham Lincoln, Shaquille O’Neal playing himself, and even Billy Dee Williams returns as Lando Calrissian. God, that cast alone should bring you to the movie right now.
But on top of that, the animation works really well mixing both computer animation, which is possibly some of the best animation I’ve seen in a long time, and even throwing in some stop motion animation in the process as well. And both are blended into the animation very well and the 3D is also impressively well done.
But the story is where the film really becomes awesome, especially in the third act where we find out what it’s all about. Again, won’t spoil it but it’s pretty impressive.
That one scene is what makes this film go from great to perfect. The scene is very reminiscent of another movie produced by Animal Logic, who is one of the main animation companies on this, Happy Feet. If you remember in Happy Feet, there’s a scene at the start of the third act where Mumble finally finds the “mystic beings” and gets put into an penguin exhibit at a theme park and after being stuck in there for a long time, he nearly succumbs to madness only until a little girl manages to connect with him and thus, leads them back to his home and prompting worldwide debate on overfishing.
That scene in Happy Feet is very similar to what they do in The Lego Movie because both scenes may seem out of place but they are trying to teach lessons about life. In Happy Feet, it was about overfishing in Antarctica but in The Lego Movie, it’s about not forcing creativity out by separating everything and also appreciating the creative things that can come from legos while in the real world, the dad soon appreciates his son’s creativity and decides not to glue them together anymore.
This movie is such a love letter to the LEGO name and on top of that, it’s very funny, it’s clever, the animation is beautiful to look at, the voice cast is great, and it has possibly one of the best twists in any movie that I’ve seen. Phil Lord & Christopher Miller have set themselves up as the premiere comedy directors out there with this movie, having already directed Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs and 21 Jump Street, as they really do care about what project they are given and realize that if there’s something great that can be done with it, it’s worth making a movie out of.
and the #1 best animated movie of the decade is…
Spider-Man: Into The Spiderverse
Once in a while, a movie comes along that is just perfect on nearly all levels from its’ visual style to great storytelling to great characters to just continuing to show why going to the movies can still be so special.
This is one of those movies, I love this movie so much, I haven’t seen a movie this perfect on all fronts in a long, long time. There are absolutely no flaws to this movie whatsoever, this is a perfect, perfect movie on so many fronts.
Where do I even start? Well, let’s start with the animation. I mean, right from the marketing that started last year, I was hooked, the animation looks so gorgeous from the get-go and I had no idea that as each new trailer came out, it would get better and better with how many unique animation styles they throw in here. This movie breaks new grounds in how many forms of animation they manage to cram in here and it works incredibly well, there are scenes that I was surprised at how well they blended CG animation with 2D, it reminded me of the animation styles in both The Peanuts Movie and The Little Prince, both equally as good movies. You can tell that there was a lot of animators on board with this movie and their work showed big time.
The visuals are impressive as they do a great job of bringing a comic book to life on the big screen in a unique and really creative way that I haven’t seen done before.
The voice cast and their characters are spectacular, I haven’t seen a movie like this where I wanted to see more of these characters in spinoff properties. Shameik Moore from one of my favorite movies of the decade, Dope, is excellent as Miles Morales, Jake Johnson is great as Peter Parker, Hailee Steinfeld is great as Gwen Stacy, Nicolas Cage is perfect as Spider-Man Noir, John Mulaney is great as Spider-Ham, Kimiko Glenn is great as Peni, you’ve also got Lily Tomlin as Aunt May, Liev Schrieber as Kingpin, Mahershala Ali, Brian Tyree Henry, Luna Lauren Velez, Chris Pine, Oscar Issac, Kathryn Hahn, Zoe Kravitz, Lake Bell, Jorma Taccone, just this exceptional cast giving these strong performances all around and making it work on all fronts. I want to see spinoffs for many of these characters.
The script is written really well, with so much going on, they cram in a lot of stuff but there’s never any point where it feels like there’s too much going on and it feels cluttered, everything feels legitimate and well done.
The film does an excellent job balancing itself out when it comes to the comedic and dramatic portions of the film, they balance it out to where it never feels forced or goes on for too long and they do a great job of avoiding going into clichés that you would expect from this type of story, every moment feels genuine and not forced. Even the end credits scene is fantastic, stay for that at the end if you want one of the film’s biggest laughs.
Sony Pictures Animation is right up there with Warner Animation Group as one of the most underrated animation studios out there, they’ve made a ton of great stuff from Surf’s Up to Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs to Arthur Christmas to Hotel Transylvania and rarely make bad stuff (with the exception of the Smurfs films and The Emoji Movie), and honestly, this is their best work to date.
Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse is not only the best animated movie of the year, not only the best movie of the year, but it’s one of the best movies I’ve seen in years, I can’t remember another movie, maybe since The Lego Movie, where I’ve been so in love with it as I have with this one, this just hits all the right cylinders and is a masterpiece on so many levels. This is a movie you need to see like right now, go see this movie and you will not be disappointed.
Those are the best animated movies of the decade and now, the honorable mentions:
HONORABLE MENTIONS
The How To Train Your Dragon Trilogy (2010 – 2019)
Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011)
Rango (2011)
Arthur Christmas (2011)
Happy Feet Two (2011)
The Pirates! Band Of Misfits (2012)
Paranorman (2012)
Frozen (2013)
Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016)
Moana (2016)
The Little Prince (2016)
The Lego Batman Movie (2017)
Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (2017)
The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (2019)
Toy Story 4 (2019)
Missing Link (2019)
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