My (Other) Favorite Animated Films of 2023
Remember when I first published my “Top Ten Animated Films list of 2023,” and I complained about all the films I couldn’t see because they were indie or still in theaters? Well, here’s where I correct that error. Here are all the films I didn’t include on the first list because I either hadn’t had a chance to see them or, in some cases, didn’t even know they even existed when I was writing the first list (Mars Express, Sirocco and the Kingdom of Winds, Kensuke’s Kingdom, etc.).
I should probably note before we start that my criteria for including films on this list is based solely on their first premiere date. The film has to have been first shown to the public between January 1st and December 31st, 2023. Sorry to all the Suzume fans out there, but that film first premiered in November 2022, so you’ll have to wait until I make a “best animated films of 2022” list to hear my thoughts on that one.
Before I get into the (other) greatest hits of the year, though, allow me to vent about one that was not so good:
Dishonorable Mention
Distributor: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Production company: Walt Disney Animation Studios
Directors: Chris Buck, Fawn Veerasunthorn
Producers: Peter del Vecho, Juan Pablo Reyes Lancaster-Jones
Writers: Jennifer Lee, Chris Buck, Fawn Veerasunthorn, Allion Moore (story); Jennifer Lee, Allison Moore (screenplay)
Music: Dave Metzger (score); Julia Michaels and Benjamin Rice (songs)
Really, Disney? This is the best you could come up with to celebrate your 100th anniversary? A film so stuffed with references to your back catalog that it barely has any time to tell its own story?
The story on its own sounds interesting. Set in the fictional Mediterranean kingdom of Rosas, it follows a teenager named Asha (Ariana DeBose) who becomes an apprentice to the sorcerer (get it?) King Magnifico (Chris Pine) who collects the wishes of his subjects and only grants them if he thinks it beneficial to the kingdom. Thinking this system unfair (especially after Magnifico refuses to grant her 100-year-old grandfather Sabino’s (Victor Garber) wish), she wishes upon a star, which descends to Earth, gives her pet goat Valentino (Alan Tudyk) the gift of speech and grants her an opportunity to overthrow Magnifico’s corrupt kingdom.
Unfortunately, the story often gets buried under a mountain of over one hundred references to past Disney works, from Asha’s posse of friends (who only exist as a reference to the Seven Dwarves from Snow White and contribute very little to the story) to Asha’s Fairy Godmother cloak to the Star’s Mickey Mouse-inspired facial expressions.
The characters that are important to the story aren’t much better. Asha is a pale imitation of other upbeat and quirky female Disney protagonists like Rapunzel, Moana, and Mirabel, with none of the depth and character development that made those characters so beloved. Valentino loses much of his charm once he starts talking and quickly becomes annoying. Grandpa Sabino is practically a non-entity in the story despite his wish being the inciting incident. And much of King Magnifico’s potential as a villain is undermined by all the poor filmmaking decisions surrounding him (also, am I the only one who thinks Magnifico is a stupid name for a Disney villain? It sounds more suited to a stage magician you’d hire for your kindergartener’s birthday party).
The animation is nothing to write home about, either. It’s clearly going for a painted GCI look similar to Spider-verse or The Mitchells vs. the Machines, but it feels like the animators aren’t committing very hard to the artistic potential of the style, which just makes it feel like regular GC animation with an Instagram filter slapped over it. This isn’t helped by the color palette, which feels far too dull and subdued compared to all the other Disney films that have come out since Tangled.
And finally, there are the songs, which are not only nowhere near as memorable as previous hits like “Let It Go,” “You’re Welcome,” or “When You Wish Upon a Star,” but also have such poorly-written lyrics that several viewers have seriously wondered if Chat GPT wrote them. Particularly egregious examples include “I let you live here for free and don’t charge you rent” from “The Thanks I Get” (redundant much redundant?), “So I make this wish to have something more for us than this” from “This Wish,” and worst of all, “Watch out, world, here I are,” from “I’m a Star.” Yes, seriously. Not even DeBose and Pine’s incredible singing voices can make lines as bad as that any more listenable.
The final result, as AV Club critic Ray Greene humorously puts it, “plays more like a corporate anxiety attack than a 100th-anniversary celebration.” He also compares Magnifico’s wish-hoarding to Disney’s current predicament in this insightful paragraph:
Nobody on this project seems to realize how Magnifico, in his mad quest to harvest, draw power from, and selectively regurgitate the dreams of his followers, stands in for The Walt Disney Company more ably than heroine Asha ever could. Disney's entire growth strategy over the last 20 years has been to absorb fantasies made by others—the Muppets, Pixar Animation, Marvel Entertainment, The Simpsons, Lucasfilm. While there's no doubt the makers of Wish see themselves as dream liberators and not dream takers, Disney is like Magnifico—a monopolist, besieged by an audience increasingly empowered to seek its pleasures in a world of unlimited choice.
What I’m basically saying is that if you want a proper 100th-anniversary celebration, you’re better off watching the Once Upon a Studio short film. That packs more heart and charm into nine minutes than Wish can offer us in 95.
At best, Wish is a disappointment. At worst, it’s an argument against Disney’s continued existence as an entertainment company, at least in the state in which it currently exists.
Honorable Mentions
Rally Road Racers: Man, if I had a nickel for every time Jimmy O. Yang voiced a primate in a 2023 animated film, I’d have two nickels. Which I know isn’t much, but it’s weird that it happened twice, you know?
In all seriousness, though, this is a fun (if somewhat generic) racing film with likable characters, clever action sequences, and colorful art direction (including a scene that makes much better use of “Take On Me” than Super Mario Bros.). Granted, John Cleese is in this film, so I don’t blame those still mad at him for giving this a miss. But it also has J.K. Simmons as a Russian goat. That kind of makes up for it, right?
Batman: The Doom that Came to Gotham: Batman vs. Cthulhu! Based on a comic written by the same guy who created Hellboy. Need I say more?
A Greyhound of a Girl: This charming tale, based on the novel of the same name by Roddy Doyle, follows a 12-year-old Irish girl named Mary, whose world is thrown into turmoil when her beloved grandmother, who taught her granddaughter everything she knows about cooking, winds up in the hospital with a terminal illness. As Mary struggles to come to grips with both that and her best friend moving to England, she starts receiving visits from Tansey, a strange but kindly young woman wearing old-fashioned clothes who has a stronger connection to her family history than she first realizes…
This film offers an honest portrayal of a youngster coming to terms with a loved one’s death and all the family drama that ensues without being too dark and alienating younger viewers. The animation strikes me as more TV quality than film quality, but it’s still pleasant to look at, especially the panning shots over the beautiful Irish landscapes.
It’s overall a heartwarming tale that plays out like a Studio Ghibli adaptation of a Raymond Briggs storybook.
Four Souls of Coyote: You have no idea how excited I was when I first heard about this movie, as I was under the impression that this was a group of Native American creators telling a story involving their creation myths. Native American culture and mythology is another one of autistic special interests, so the prospect was very enthusiastic.
You can imagine my disappointment, then, when I found out that it was actually being helmed by a predominantly white team from Hungary. Indigenous talent was involved in the film, including musicians (like Oneida composer Joanne Shenandoah) and a few voice actors, like renowned Cree actor Lorne Cardinal, who provides the English voice for Old Man Creator. No one else on the production team seems to be native, though, which is a bit of a problem when dealing with the culture of a people that has lost so much under the grinding wheel of colonialism.
I still think it’s worth watching for the animation and the undeniable ambition of its storytelling. Still, its questionable authenticity makes me uncomfortable placing it anywhere besides the honorable mentions.
Blue Giant: This slice-of-life musical adventure follows a trio of twenty-something jazz musicians trying to make it to the big-time playing jazz even as its popularity wanes in modern-day Tokyo. It’s a story following likable characters bursting with passion, with musical performances greatly enhanced by beautifully surreal psychedelic animation to go along with it. It’s a story for music lovers of any genre.
Scarygirl: Those expecting a Tim Burton-style Halloween adventure based on the main character’s design might be disappointed, but the film we get instead is far from a let-down. It follows Arkie (Jillian Nguyen), our titular goth octopus-human hybrid, as she journeys to the City of Light to rescue her octopus father, Blister (Rob Collins), from the clutches of the mad scientist Dr. Maybee (Sam Neil) and stop Maybee from draining the sun of all its light.
It’s clearly aimed at a younger audience, with its bright colors, quirky characters, and somewhat underdeveloped environmentalist message. Still, it has plenty of heart and comedy to make the journey worthwhile for adults, and its CG animation style clearly tries to mimic the look of stop-motion.
The Concierge at Hokkyuku Department Store: In a story that takes place in a universe similar to Bojack Horseman, where regular humans exist alongside anthropomorphic animals, we follow Akino (Natsumi Kawaida) as she learns the ropes at her new job at a department store that serves said anthros, with special treatment being given to Very Important Animals, representing species that are extinct in our universe. With the help of the store’s great auk president, Eruru (Takeo Otsuka), and its persnickety manager, Todo (Nobuo Tobita), Akino quickly finds her niche at this demanding job as business ramps up during the Christmas season.
Probably the biggest issue with this film is its short runtime of only 70 minutes, which doesn’t give us as much time to get to know the characters as well as we would like. Still, it’s a fun ride full of whacky hijinks and misunderstandings as Akino scrambles to fulfill her guest’s wishes. It’s got clever comedy, especially in the increasingly ridiculous hiding spots Todo uses to check on Akino’s progress (even showing up in a boiling pot of soup at one point). It also has heartfelt emotion in dealing with the tragedy inherent to the VIAs, especially the subplots involving the Japanese wolves and Wolly, the mammoth ice sculptor.
Overall, it’s a fun time for all ages and maybe a new hidden gem for the Christmas season.
Migration: Many critics have referred to this movie as Illumination’s best. Although it still suffers from Illumination’s general lack of ambition (even the film’s director, Benjamin Renner of Ernest & Celestine fame, described the film as emotionless crap that was only saved by John Powell’s score), it still has more to offer than the typical Minion romp.
The story, following a family of mallard ducks migrating to Jamaica for the winter despite the overprotective father Mack’s (Kumail Nanjiani) apprehensions, offers us entertaining character dynamics between the neurotic Mack and his more level-leaded wife Pam (Elizabeth Banks). Several of the side characters are also entertaining to watch, like Mack's elderly uncle Dan (Danny DeVito), a crotchety and street-smart pigeon named Chump (Awkwafina) that the family meets in New York City, and the scarlet macaw Delroy (Keegan-Michael Key) that the family rescues from a cruel celebrity chef. Its animation is also leagues above what Illumination has previously achieved, rendering its environments (urban and natural) with beautifully detailed realism.
Unfortunately, the story itself is still cliche-ridden and predictable. Pretty much everything you’d expect to happen in a story like this happens (the overprotective parent loosens up, the bratty teenage son learns to appreciate his family, the evil chef tries to capture and cook them, etc.), and several of the characters are lacking in depth (we never learn why Mack is so overprotective, for instance). I think IGN reviewer Ryan Gaur sums it up best: “Migration feels torn between the sincerity of the story Renner wanted to tell and the cynicism of what executives think kids want from movies.”
It’s definitely a step in the right direction for a studio that has often been mocked for its perceived mediocrity and lowest-common-denominator pandering, but it still has a long way to go before it can make something that most critics can agree is a true artistic accomplishment.
Alright, now let’s get to the actual list. It’s safe to say that if I had seen any of these films before making the first list, it would look very different. Indeed, any of these movies would easily blow the Super Mario Bros. movie out of the water, as would most of the honorable mentions. But which films are they? Let us examine them one by one, starting with:
Number Ten
Production companies: October Media, Coloroom Pictures
Director/writer: Tian Xiaopeng
Producer: Qiao Yi
Music: Mao Buyi, Tang Hanxiao, MIUMIU
This wild and psychedelic Chinese feature feels like what would happen if you had slipped LSD into Hayao Miyazaki’s drink before he wrote the plot for Spirited Away.
Our Chihiro for this adventure is Shenxiu (Wang Tingwen), a girl abandoned by her mother after a divorce and feeling neglected as her father and stepmother dote upon their youngest. While on a family trip on a cruise ship, she is lured over to the railing when she hears a hum that sounds like a song that her mother used to sing. She falls overboard and ends up in the Deep Sea Restaurant, a fantastical eatery that caters to humanoid fish. While the eccentric proprietor Nanhe (Su Xin) initially wants nothing to do with her, he gradually warms up to the lost and scared little girl and tries to help her by promising to help her find her mother once his restaurant gains five stars.
This film is so weird and hyperactive that it’s difficult to know who to recommend it to. Several creature designs would surely be frightening for younger kids, and unlike Sprited Away, where the charming 2D style blunts the uncanny effect, the animation here is hyperrealistic CGI, which isn’t quite as good at sanding off the edges. The rubbery way Nanhe is animated could also come off rather creepy, especially the way his jaw often seems like it’s trying to tear itself off his face. Finally, the whole story deals with a young girl who is severely depressed, possibly to a suicidal degree, which is a weighty theme to put in a film ostensibly aimed at kids, especially when said depression is personified by the eldritch “red phantom.”
Even so, it’s hard not to appreciate the sheer ambition of the animation, which combines hyperrealistic CGI with impressionistic painting techniques inspired by traditional Chinese art. The result is often overwhelming and often comes at the expense of the story it’s trying to tell, yet it’s still a marvel to behold. Nevertheless, the story is not without its effective emotional beats, especially the heartbreaking twist when Nanhe’s true identity is revealed. The ultimate payoff of Shenxiu’s arc might divide viewers somewhat. While the filmmakers likely intended the message to be perseverance in the face of the challenging moments in life (which is how Common Sense Media interprets it), some critics have come away with the impression that the film is blaming Shenxiu for her own isolation rather than the adults who have neglected her.
As this review may demonstrate, this film is clearly not for everybody. Its animation style can be visually exhausting, and some critics have been offended by its handling of child neglect. However, I recommend that you watch it at least once and come to your own conclusions because, for all its faults, it’s definitely a triumph of GC animation.
Number Nine
Distributor: Haut et Court, GKIDS
Director: Benoit Chieux
Writers: Benoit Chieux, Alain Gagnol
Producers: Ron Dyens, Cilvy Aupen, Greogory Zalcman
Music: Pablo Pico
This French feature gives us an old-fashioned storybook adventure in the vein of Moebius meets Hayao Miyazaki in a story just as enjoyable to kids as it is to arthouse animation enthusiasts.
The story begins with a pair of sisters, five-year-old Juliette (Loise Carpenter) and eight-year-old Carmen (Maryne Bertieaux), who are left at their aunt Agnes’ (Geraldine Asselin) house on Juliette’s birthday. When Agnes goes off for a nap, the sisters look through her storybooks and are surprised when one of the characters pops out and inadvertently leads them into the world of Anges’ storybooks. The girls, transformed into anthropomorphic cats, have to overcome numerous obstacles, including Carmen having to be rescued from a shotgun wedding by Juliette and the songbird opera singer Selma (Aurelie Konate), to reach the temperamental wizard Sirocco (Pierre Lognay), who is the only one who can send the sisters home.
The film wears its many influences on its sleeve. In addition to Moebius and Miyazaki, critics have compared it to Alice in Wonderland, Yellow Submarine, Fantastic Planet, and The Wizard of Oz. I also wonder if there might be a little Dr. Seuss in there as well, especially in the architecture of the alligator-frog-goblin…things’ building block city. Despite all this, the film still manages to forge its own identity and stand on its own as an original story, especially the heartrending twist when it reveals Selma’s surprising relationship with Agnes.
Of course, the animation is the real highlight of the film, which introduces the psychedelic head-trip stylings of Yellow Submarine and Fantastic Planet to a younger audience and populates its world with fantastic beasts and breathtaking vistas. The voice acting is excellent (Carpenter sounded like she was having a lot of fun making angry cat noises), and Selma’s singing voice (Celia Kameni) is good enough to almost make one wish this was a musical.
Sirocco has visuals that are mind-bending enough for adults while still keeping a cozy atmosphere for kids with plenty of imagination and well-developed themes of empathy, discovery, and familial love. What’s not to love?
Number Eight
Distributor: Gebeka Films
Production companies: Dolce Vita Films, Miyu Productions, Palosanto Films, France 3 Cinema
Directors/writers: Chiara Malta, Sebastien Laudenbach
Producers: Marc Irmer, Emmanuel-Alain Raynal, Pierre Baussaron
Music: Clement Ducol
The second French entry on this list examines a screwball slice-of-life comedy situation through a childlike abstract lens.
We meet a widowed single mother named Paulette (Clotilde Hesme), who punishes her eight-year-old daughter Linda (Melinee LeClerc) for allegedly stealing a green ring of great sentimental value to her. But then her cat throws it up, and Paulette feels guilty and tries to make amends by cooking chicken and peppers for Linda, a dish that reminds the child of her long-deceased father. It seems like a reasonable request, except Paulette doesn’t know how to cook, and all the shops are closed due to a general strike. Paulette’s decision to steal a live chicken from a countryside coop leads to a chain reaction that involves police chases, kitchen mishaps, and even a full-blown riot at Paulette and Linda’s apartment block! Whoops.
The film’s unique animation style is likely the first thing that catches most viewers’ attention. The characters look like they walked straight out of a children’s drawing, being mostly solid blocks of color loosely contained by sketchy outlines (Linda is yellow, Paulette is orange, their cat is purple, the chicken is blue, etc.). Despite such simplicity, the animation is positively brimming with energy, especially during the driving sequences and the characters’ hijinks trying to catch the chicken.
The characters are equally lively, from the rambunctious Linda and her exasperated mother to Paulette’s crabby estranged sister Astrid (Laetitia Dosch), the beleaguered rookie police officer Serge (Esteban), and the kindy watermelon truck driver Jean-Michel (Patrick Pineau). These characters add weight to the film’s surprisingly deep themes of coping with loss and creating new connections.
The stakes may be lower than Sirocco’s shotgun wedding isekai plot. Still, it’s undoubtedly more down-to-earth and relatable, offering characters that children and adults can latch onto and yet another inventive animation style for the arthouse crowd to appreciate. This heartwarming tale really has something for everybody.
Number Seven
Distributors: Modern Films, Le Pacte, Tarantula Distribution
Production companies: Lupus Films, Luxembourg Film Fund, Ffilm Cymru Whales, Bumpybox, BFI, Align, Mesuline Productions, Jigsaw Films, Le Pacte
Directors: Neil Boyle, Kirk Hendry
Writer: Frank Cottrell-Boyce (based on the novel by Michael Morpurgo)
Producers: Camilla Deakin, Ruth Fielding, Stephen Roellants
Music: Stuart Hancock
There are generally two ways to tell a deserted island story: a slow descent into violence and insanity, like Lord of the Flies, or a testament to humanity’s resilience and camaraderie, like Castaway or the so-called “real Lord of the Flies” incident of 1966. This film chooses the latter route, telling a heartwarming tale (originally written by the same author who wrote War Horse) of unlikely friendship and living in harmony with nature.
The story begins with a family who decides to go on a worldwide sailing trip after the parents (Cillian Murphy and Sally Hawkins) lose their jobs. The older sister, Becky (Raffey Cassidy), seems more enthusiastic than the restless Michael (Aaron MacGregor), who sneaks his beloved Border Collie Stella aboard despite the sailboat not having enough room for her. Things take a harrowing turn when Michael and Stella are washed overboard during a storm and end up marooned on a deserted island. They soon discover that they aren’t alone, as an elderly man who only speaks Japanese (Ken Watanabe) is also stranded with them. The man initially wants nothing to do with Michael beyond leaving him water and sushi to sustain him. However, several incidents, including unfortunate encounters with stinging jellyfish and tranquilizer-wielding poachers, soon lead the two into a close friendship as they band together to keep the island safe for its wild inhabitants, especially the troop of orangutans that Kensuke has formed a bond with.
One of the best aspects of this film is how quiet it is. Michael and Kensuke don’t talk to one another much because neither knows the other’s language, but they manage to communicate well through nonverbal signals. What little voice acting there is is wonderfully executed, especially MacGregor, as he portrays Michael’s growth from a scared and lost little boy to a much more confident right-hand-man to Kensuke. Watanabe’s laconic and weary performance as Kensuke is also very well done, especially the dramatic weight he adds to a single word: “Nagasaki.”
Such subtlety also allows the film’s environmentalist message to land in a much less preachy way than many of its peers thanks to its reliance on show-don’t-tell. Seeing the devastating consequences of the poachers’ raid is more than enough to get the message across. Show-don’t-tell is also used to great effect when revealing Kensuke’s backstory, especially the large inkblot that swallows up a drawing of his wife and child. It’s easy to read an anti-war message into that sequence, especially given Morporgo’s experiences as a childhood evacuee from the London Blitz.
This beautifully animated film is a stirring tribute to friendship and found families in the face of nature’s fury and environmental destruction. It might be a bit slow for younger kids to appreciate (and some of its more tense scenes a little too violent), but the wonderful central characters make it all worthwhile.
Number Six
Distributor: Gebeka Films
Production companies: Everybody on Deck, Je Suis Ben Content, EV.L Prod, Plume Finance, France 3 Cinema, Shine Conseils, Amopix
Director/co-writer: Jeremie Perin
Co-writer: Laurent Sarfati
Producer: Didier Creste
Music: Fred Avril, Phillippe Monthaye
If you were worried that all French animation this year focused on heartwarming stories of familial bonding, then let this neo-noir cyberpunk thriller, which has been described as France’s answer to Ghost in the Shell, set your mind at ease.
We follow hardboiled detective Aline Ruby (Lea Drucker/Morla Gorrondona) and her android partner Carlos Rivera (Daniel Njo Lobe/Josh Keaton). Their former army buddy, Chris Royjacker (Mathieu Amalric/Kiff VandenHeuvel), now a wealthy businessman, has hired them to track down a slippery hacker and robot liberation activist, Roberta Williams (Marie Bouvet/Sarah Hollis). Their investigation quickly yields more than they bargained for, however, as they uncover a rabbit hole involving missing college students (one of them being fellow robot-liberating hacker Jun Chow (Genevive Doang/Jenapher Zhang)), corporate corruption, and a descent into the dark criminal underbelly of Noctis, the capital of the Mars colony where humans and robots coexist in harmony…for now.
Reading this synopsis might give you the impression that this is just another standard cyberpunk detective story similar to Ghost in the Shell or Blade Runner, with only a sprinkling of Isaac Asimov to give it a thin veneer or originality. It wouldn’t be a good detective story without a few twists and turns, however, and the second half of this film has them in spades, from Aline’s ultimate fate to the actual nature of the robot uprising that eventually occurs. I won’t spoil it here, but director Jeremie Perin summarizes what he was going for in this interview with Polygon:
We knew we didn’t want to do a revolution with violence, like in Terminator when the robots just go ‘Let’s kill all humans.’ We were like, it’s been done already, so let’s try something else.
Said uprising is also linked to a commentary on planned obsolescence and newly created organic technology.
Of course, the characters alone are interesting enough to sustain attention through the more conventional first half of the film, especially with the human drama that anchors their arcs. Aline is already interesting as a rare female example of the hardboiled detective archetype, but her struggles with alcoholism add depth, especially when she falls off the wagon as the case spirals out of her control. Carlos is a fascinating look into the thin line between robots and humans in this universe, as he is an android replica of a friend Aline lost on the battlefield. He tries to reconnect with his family but is rebuffed due to being abusive in his previous life. His arc involves him realizing that part of his life is never coming back and that he’s “trying to hold on to a life that’s moved on without him,” to quote the Polygon interview again.
Tie it all together with brilliant anime-inspired 2D animation and timely commentary on contemporary issues involving AI, and you’ve got a worthy successor to the sci-fi classics of Perin’s childhood that still manages to carve out a place of its own as a bona-fide science fiction classic in its own right.
Number Five
Distributors: BTeam Pictures, Dulac Distribution
Production companies: Fernando Trueba PC, Gao Shan Pictures, Les Films D’ici, Prima Linea, Submarine Animanostra, Tondero Producciones
Director/writer: Fernando Trueba
Co-director: Javier Mariscal
Producers: Cristina Huete, Serge Lalou, Sophie Cabon, Bruno Felix, Janneke Van Der Kerkhof, Femke Wolting, Humberto Santana
This musical Latin American docudrama, brought to us by the same team behind Chico and Rita, details the rise of bossa nova music between the 1950s and 1970s in Brazil and how one of its most promising rising stars had his career cut unfairly short by the rise of Operation Condor.
Our central character is fictional music journalist Jeff Harris (voiced by Jeff Goldblum), who becomes enraptured by the music of pianist Francisco Tenorio Jr., only to become perplexed when he suddenly vanishes from the historical record in March 1976. Through a series of interviews with several significant figures in the Brazilian popular music scene, Harris pieces together what happened to Tenario Jr.; he had the incredible misfortune of being on tour in Buenos Aires in the same month that the CIA-backed Argentinian military dictatorship took power and was “disappeared” by the secret police when he broke a curfew he didn’t know about while going out to get cigarettes.
Harris’s journey in the film mirrors that of Trueba in real life. He had wanted to make a documentary about Tenario Jr. for over twenty years but couldn’t find enough real-life footage or photographs to make something feature-length. Nevertheless, he gathered interviews with various Brazilian musicians (Joao Gilberto, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Paulo Moura, Milton Nascimento, etc.). When the time came, he partnered with Chico and Rita co-director Javier Mariscal to fill in the gaps with the stylized rotoscope animation they used in that film.
The result is a vibrant and colorful story depicting the highs of bossa nova’s golden age (including collaborations with American greats like Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and Bill Evans) and the darkest lows heralded by Tenario Jr’s disappearance. Suitably, the most emotional scenes are when Harris interviews Tenario Jr.’s surviving family. We see how his kids barely even remember him and how his wife refuses to call herself a widow until she actually sees Tenario’s body. It really puts the psychological effects of Latin American dictatorships’ “disappearances” on full display. As RogerEbert.com critic Matt Zoller Seitz puts it:
As more than one interviewee points out, “disappearing” a person leaves their fate in limbo and inflicts a different sort of distress than other atrocities. The refusal to provide answers or even verify that something happened is the ultimate assertion of state authority over citizens. It’s an escalation of the kinds of power trips envisioned in moments where the film’s interviewees recount how the secret police in Argentina used to intimidate people by barging into their homes unannounced to point guns and casually destroy their possessions, with or without charges being threatened or arrests being made.
If there is one thing the film could be criticized for, it’s having the story center on the fictional Jeff Harris, who is likely a stand-in for Trueba but seems to exist as a way to insert a popular movie star like Jeff Goldblum to increase its appeal for American audiences. As IndieWire critic Christian Blauvelt argues, this could give viewers the false impression that the story is either exaggerated for propaganda purposes or even made up entirely, which is not something you want in a movie that is trying to educate its American audience on the horrors our government inflicted on the Global South in its obsessive efforts to stamp out communism.
Even if it blurs the line between fact and fiction a little too much for some viewer’s comfort, this film still presents us with a wide-ranging tale of the joys of artistic creation and the terrors of political machinations outside of the artists’ control swooping in to take away their freedom. It makes a convincing case for using Tenario Jr. as a stand-in for the vast amounts of collateral damage Western civilization wrought in its quest to rid the world of communist influence.
Oh, and speaking of rotoscoped historical dramas…
Number Four
Distributors: Next Film, MegaCom Film, Kino Pavasaris Distribution
Production companies: BreakThru Films, DigitalKraft, Art Shot
Directors/writers: DK and Hugh Welchman (based on the novel by Wladyslaw Reymont)
Producers: Hugh Welchman, Sean M. Bobbitt
Music: Lukasz “L.U.C.” Rostkowski
The duo behind Loving Vincent returns in this dark tale of misogynist small-town violence in early 20th-century Poland.
The story centers on Jagna (Kamila Urzedowska), a spirited but naive young woman living in the small village of Lipce. She is engaged to marry the old farmer Maciej Boryna (Miroslaw Baka), but her heart is set on Maciej’s son, Antek (Robert Galaczyk), even though he’s already married. Her rebellious attitude soon stirs the ire of the highly traditionalist and patriarchal village against her, leading to a downward spiral of deception, betrayal, and violence.
As one might be able to tell from the premise, this is not a story for everyone, especially those sensitive to onscreen depictions of violence against women. It’s a well-told story, if grimly unsubtle, with strong performances to help bring it to life. Still, given that it revolves around violence against women, I can understand people being turned off by it.
The animation doesn’t feel as artistically necessary here as it did in Loving Vincent, which doesn’t help. In contrast to that film, which used Vincent van Gogh’s distinctive impressionistic style to give it a unique visual flair, the filmmakers here tried combining influences from several Polish painters (Jozef Chelmonski, Ferdynand Ruszczyc, Leon Wyczolkowski, etc.). The result feels more like live-action with an Instagram filter slapped on top of it. I know that’s probably an unfair comparison since the animators still spent just as much (if not more) time painstakingly painting over the live-action footage here as they did with Loving Vincent. It’s especially unfair to the Ukrainian studio MOREFILM, who had to contend with the Russian invasion of their country while still working on the film. But I’m sorry, I just didn’t see how animation was necessary to tell this story, especially with how bland the art direction is.
Despite my problems, I recommend checking it out at least once. But remember that this story revolves around violence against women, and adjust your expectations accordingly.
Number Three
Distributor: Toho
Production company: Studio Ponoc
Director: Yoshiyuki Momose
Producer/writer: Yoshiaki Nishimura (based on the novel by A.F. Harrold)
Music: Kenji Tamai, Agehasprings
The second feature film from Studio Ponoc (formed by former Studio Ghibli producer Yoshiaki Nishimura amid the latter’s financial downturn in the mid-2010s) is a heartwarming tribute to the power of imagination and the unfortunate but necessary changes we make when we grow up.
The story follows Rudger (Kokoro Terada/Louie Rudge-Buchanan), an imaginary friend conjured by an imaginative young girl named Amanda Shuffleup (Rio Suzuki/Evie Kiszel), who loves to get lost in imaginary adventures involving yetis, giants, and other beasts of legend, much to her mother Lizzie’s (Sakura Ando/Hayley Atwell) chagrin. But Rudger’s world is thrown into turmoil when a strange man named Mr. Bunting (Issey Ogata/Jeremy Swift), who hunts and eats imaginaries, chases the duo into the path of an oncoming car. With Amanda barely clinging to life in the hospital, Rudger follows a talking cat named Zinzan (Takayuki Yamada/Kal Penn) to a library that serves as a refuge for imaginaries. Their spirited leader, Emily (Riisa Naka/Sky Katz), offers him jobs as a temporary friend to other young children, but he becomes preoccupied with finding his way back to Amanda and with stopping Mr. Bunting’s reign of terror against the imaginaries.
In a year with several films centered on imaginary friends (the others being IF, Imaginary, and Harold and the Purple Crayon), this film clearly stands out as the best. As may be expected, given the Studio Ghibli alums involved, the animation is fantastic. The backgrounds deserve special attention, as they are so packed with so much detail that they can sometimes resemble an I Spy book illustration translated into watercolor. The real-world British bookshop the Shuffleups call home is rendered with just as much love and care as the fantasy worlds Rudger stumbles through in his quest to reach Amanda’s side again.
The animation is just as good at visualizing the childhood whimsy of Amanda’s mind as it is at portraying the scarier moments involving Mr. Bunting’s eldritch vampirism and his imaginary friend, which resembles Sadako Yamamura as interpreted by Junji Ito.
What really makes this film stand out above the other imaginary friend films I mentioned above, though, is the emotional core of the film, which revolves around loss. Whether it’s through Amanda losing her father (which spurred her to create Rudger in the first place), the friends Rudger loses to Mr. Bunting (I won’t spoil who), or the fact that one way or another, Rudger will inevitably have to part ways with Amanda one day, the film reminds its younger viewers that we all lose things and people that we love as we grow up, and that’s okay.
Add to that a fantastic voice cast in the English dub (which, in addition to all the others I mentioned, also includes LeVar Burton as Lizzy’s old imaginary Fridge), and you get a wonderfully bittersweet fantasy adventure that can be equally enjoyed by the young and the young-at-heart.
Number Two
Distributors: BTeam Pictures, Wild Bunch
Production companies: Arcadia Motion Pictures, Noodles Production, Les Films du Worso, RTVE, Movistar Plus+
Director/writer/co-producer: Pablo Berger (based on the comic by Sara Varon)
Producers: Ibon Cormenzana, Ignasi Estapé, Sandra Tapia Díaz, Jérôme Vidal
Music: Alfonso de Vilallonga
The last European feature on this list is an urban slice-of-life tale with a sci-fi twist. It explores the lasting effects of friendship and proves that robots do not, in fact, just dream of electric sheep.
Set in a version of mid-1980s New York City populated entirely by anthropomorphic animals, the story homes in on Dog, a lonely canine who hangs out at his apartment playing video games and is visibly jealous of the romantic couples he sees walking by on the street. Upon seeing a TV advert for robot companions, he immediately buys one for himself. The robot and Dog become close friends as they explore Manhattan and the surrounding area throughout the summer. But then tragedy strikes when the robot gets a bad case of rust at the beach that paralyzes him, and Dog is forced to leave him there until June, as the beach is closed and the police won’t let him retrieve his friend. Will Dog and the robot be reunited and continue making memories together? Or will the passage of time eventually lead them onto new paths that lead away from each other?
One of the most significant selling points of this film is that it is told entirely without dialogue. One might think this would present problems for a movie running in excess of 100 minutes, especially given that most of the music outside the robot’s dream sequences is presented diegetically. Here, however, the experiment pays off and simply adds to the charm of the whole affair. The closest thing we do get to dialogue is the licensed soundtrack, most notably “September” by Earth, Wind & Fire, which practically becomes a theme song for the duo after the roller-skate dance scene in Central Park.
One element that helps the story get by without dialogue is how vibrant and animated 80s New York City is (complete with a fully intact World Trade Center). Even the various background characters that show up are bursting with so much energy and contribute so many funny background moments that it can’t help but induce a sense of sonder in the viewer. Their designs are creative and full of personality, with the robot being a standout with his adorably large bug eyes. The animation in general has a Sunday comic strip feel to it (which is appropriate, given the source material).
Be warned, though; for such a seemingly simple premise, the story is a surprisingly potent rollercoaster of emotions, especially what the robot goes through when he finally leaves the beach, and not with Dog. The climax, while mostly giving a happy ending to our protagonists, is also heavily bittersweet. Parents thinking of showing this to their kids might want to keep these story elements in mind (as well as an early scene where the naive robot learns a certain gesture from a group of punk rockers).
I think TIME magazine critic Stephanie Zacharek put it best: “This is a movie that feels, in the best way, like the last day of summer: radiant, bittersweet, redolent of memories in the making.” It’s like a somewhat more realistic version of The Imaginary in that way: it reminds us that sometimes we drift apart from the people we love the most, and that’s okay.
Number One
Distributor: Toho
Production company: Studio Ghibli
Director/writer: Hayao Miyazaki (loosely inspired by the novel How Do You Live? by Genzaboro Yoshino)
Producer: Toshio Suzuki
Music: Joe Hisaishi
Hayao Miyazaki’s ostensible swan song is by far the most personal film he’s ever made. It’s also his most esoteric, although far from indecipherable when one looks at it through the lens of autobiography and legacy.
The story centers on Mahito Maki (Soma Santoki/Luca Padovan), a young boy living WWII-era Tokyo who loses his mother after her hospital gets firebombed. His father, an air munitions factory owner named Shoichi (Takuya Kimura/Christian Bale), marries her younger sister Natsuko (Yoshino Kimura/Gemma Chan) and moves the family to her rural estate, which leaves the boy feeling resentful. However, things take a turn for the fantastical when a grey heron (Masaki Suda/Robert Pattinson) speaks to Mahito, promising to bring him to his mother in the enigmatic sealed-off tower hidden away on the property. He decides to heed the bird’s request when he sees Natsuko sneak into the building, despite the elderly maid Kiriko’s (Ko Shibasaki/Florence Pugh) desperately pleading for him not to go. What he finds there is a surreal fantasy world filled with spirits, talking animals, and magical wonder. Among the characters he meets are a strange girl named Himi (Aimyon/Karen Fukuhara) with fire powers, a kingdom of flesh-eating parakeets and their fanatical king (Jun Kunimura/Dave Bautista), a younger and tougher version of Kiriko who works as a fisherwoman, and the Tower Master (Shohei Hino/Mark Hamill), who has a special purpose for Mahito…
It’s hard to know where to start when discussing what this film does right. The animation is the obvious place to start, and given who’s in the director’s chair, it’s no surprise that it’s absolutely god-tier. While it excels at portraying the fantasy elements, as one would expect given Miyazaki’s filmography, it also sneaks several interesting artistic choices into the more mundane real-world scenes. One notable example is the old maids walking alongside Mahito and Natsuko during the tour of the manor at the beginning, as not only does each one have their own unique walk cycle, but the sequence is animated “on ones,” meaning 24 frames per second (for those not in the know, the standard 2D Disney film is mostly animated “on twos” (12 fps) while most anime is animated “on threes” (8 fps)).
The voice acting has also received a lot of praise, especially for some interesting choices in the English dub. While many of the English actors were fans of Ghibli (or Ghibli dub alums like Hamill and Bale) and thus brought their A-game to their respective roles (Karen Fukuhara was even offered her part while she was on her way to attend a Joe Hisaishi concert), Robert Pattinson’s performance as the heron gets all the good press, and for good reason. He voices the heron with a guttural rasp that makes him sound twice as old as he actually is. It almost sounds like he’s trying to out-Willem Dafoe Willem Dafoe (who, incidentally, also has a role as the wounded pelican who explains his species’ plight to Mahito on Kiriko’s houseboat).
Speaking of Kiriko, though, I don’t think Florence Pugh gets enough credit for her work with that character. She voices Kiriko as both her older and younger versions, and is shockingly convincing in the former role as a twenty-something whose only other voice role was in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (as for Pattinson, this is his voice acting debut, which makes his performance all the more impressive).
It’s difficult to be succinct in summarizing the thematically dense story Miyazaki is trying to tell here, but I think Toshio Suzuki cut to the beating heart of the director’s goal with this quote: “Miyazaki is making the new film for his grandson. It’s his way of saying, ‘Grandpa is moving on to the next world, but he’s leaving behind this film.” The film has clear autobiographical undertones, with Mahito representing Miyazaki in his youth and the Tower Master representing him in his old age. This sense of finality permeating the story also carries over into several call-backs to previous Ghibli works (TV Tropes counts 61!). Unlike Disney’s Wish, where the call-backs were so numerous and loudly telegraphed that they often made the film feel like it had no identity of its own, here the references are presented with much more subtlety and don’t get in the way of the story. It appropriately plays out like an old artist looking back on his body of work and contemplating what he’s leaving behind for the next generation of artists.
I could go on about what this might mean for a post-Miyazaki animation landscape, but I think IGN critic Rafael Motomayor put it a lot more eloquently than I ever could, so I’d suggest reading his article instead. He even goes as far as to call the film “a swan song for the animation industry as a whole,” which is probably not far off given the actions of Bob Iger and David Zaslav as of late.
Is it better than Ninoma? I don’t know. I suppose on a technical level it’s the better of the two, but I ultimately think Nimona wins out for me personally due to its more vibrant characters and timely queer themes. Still, there’s no denying that one of the greatest animators of our time has given us one hell of a grand finale…even if he is back to working on his next feature already, with Toshio Suzuki even proclaiming that “I can no longer stop him,” much to the light-hearted derision of many on social media (myself included).
Finally, we come to the end of my 2023 animation retrospective. It took a bit longer than I expected, probably due to the sheer number of series and films I had to watch. Fortunately, 2024 isn’t quite so overloaded, probably because of the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes in 2023. Indeed, I’ve already seen most of the films I wanted to talk about for that year, although some foreign films like The Glassworker have eluded me so far, so it may still be a while before I’m ready to start that list.
I should clarify that while I am interested in creating a list of the best animated films for 2022, I won’t be doing the same for TV series in 2022. It’s incredibly time-consuming to watch all these shows, and doing this for every year going backward would probably kill me. However, I’d like to share another more personal bit of animation news with you guys.
You know all those books in the vein of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die or 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die? What if I told you I have compiled my own personal Word document of 1001 Animations You Must See Before You Die? Yes, 1001 of the most significant and essential pieces of animated artistry ever created, from 1892’s Pauvre Pierrot to 2023’s Blue-Eye Samurai. Granted, I’m just some random jackass on the Internet who is probably not in the least bit qualified to create such a list, but I’ve got something a lot of other jackasses on the Internet don’t have: autistic hyperfixation.
In all seriousness, though, I’m thinking of starting a new series based on that Word document where I randomly choose ten titles from the list and give my thoughts on them. I figured it would be the best way not to get bogged down in the present with the yearly retrospectives, and would give me a chance to look at several historically important pieces of animation that I probably wouldn’t otherwise get to otherwise. Granted, there are some long-running series on the list that I’m a bit intimidated to dig into, including The Simpsons, Pokemon, and *gulp* One Piece. But I’ll worry about those when I get to them.
I can’t say when I’ll start the 1001 trek. I’ll probably do the first part of the 2024 series list first. There is also the other unfinished retrospective on Jurassic Park that I still have yet to finish. I want to get the review of Dominion out sometime this month or early April. For now, though, I think I’ll make my next article the “Cryptids of North America” entry on Maryland. Cryptids are a little less taxing for me to research and talk about.
That’s all for now. Until next time, my fellow animaniacs!
