Here are Cinephile Corner’s picks for the 32 best animated movies of the 2020s so far, ranked:
32. Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget
31. The Sea Beast
30. Leo
Leo is a reptilian romp that surprises with its unexpected humor and heart, carried by Adam Sandler, Bill Burr, and a fun voice acting cast. While it may not be a genre-defining masterpiece, Leo succeeds in delivering a singular story and surpasses many animated movie releases in 2023.
29. The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie
28. Luca
27. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
The glorious animation in the newest Shrek installment Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is enough to drive you to the theater by itself. Led by a star-studded cast and a script with enough heart, The Last Wish is one of the better animated movies of 2022.
Read our review of Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
26. Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
25. The Bad Guys
24. The Bob’s Burgers Movie
23. Inside Out 2
I found the overall package of Inside Out 2 enjoyable, with Sadness (Phyllis Smith) and Joy (Amy Poehler) as captivating and cartoonishly real in the sequel as they were in the original. It’s a new entry worthy of the title, despite enough material here to expand on over the course of multiple movies.
Read our review of Inside Out 2
22. Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
21. Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
Guillermo del Toro and Mark Gustafson’s Pinocchio is a beautiful and marvelous return for the ancient story after the dark places it went to in 2022. The stop-motion is clean and stoic, and the story breaths new life into the wooden child. Guillermo del Toro rarely misses, and this is another example of his gothic stories hitting just the right notes.
Read our review of Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
20. Soul
19. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem does just enough to get by, relying on innocent jokes and beautiful art style to win viewers over. While maybe not the overwhelming achievement like the Spider-Verse movies or The Mitchells vs. The Machines (two Sony properties that feel like huge inspirations for this picture), Mutant Mayhem finds its own space by delivering to fans longing for a reimagining of this universe.
Read our review of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
18. Elemental
Elemental acts as a surprising return to the roots of Pixar. It’s a movie with a host of relevant themes and messages rolled into a sincere and effective love story. It’s been a a minute since Pixar landed an original story with such a clear balance of narrative and comedy.
17. Memoir of a Snail
Family is inseparable. No matter how fractured and disjointed it can be at times, family is who you rely on to get you through the rough patches in life. Adam Elliot‘s 2024 animated movie Memoir of a Snail, in which a young girl Grace experiences nearly every form of trauma and loss imaginable, displays this in perhaps the clearest, most emotional gut punch you’ll see all year. It’s crafted with such a precise thumb on its own pulse in terms of tone and imagery that you’d be hard-pressed to find another director capable colliding this style with this material.
Read our review of Memoir of a Snail
16. ME
As reflexive, personal, and ambiguous as any animated movie made this decade, Don Hertzfeldt‘s 22-minute short film, titled ME, is an exploration into the ways society tries to shield ourselves from the atrocities that happen on a global scale, as well as a more personally mining tale of living for others as much as you live for yourself. Or at least that’s how I see it.
15. The Boy and the Heron
Hayao Miyazaki creates worlds where grief dances with wonder, where loss paves the way for discovery, and imagination reigns supreme. His latest movie The Boy and the Heron continues those trends to great lengths; it’s a symphony of animation, storytelling, and profound emotions that transports you to a realm of breathtaking beauty and exploration.
Read our review of The Boy and the Heron
14. The First Slam Dunk
13. Chicken for Linda!
12. Ron’s Gone Wrong
11. Onward
10. Look Back
9. Flow
Flow attempts to push the boundaries of visual storytelling in the animated genre, and in many ways, it succeeds. Created entirely using Blender rendering software, typically reserved for 3D video game sprites, the film builds a nearly 90-minute animated feature filled with an abundance of visual ideas and thematic density. It’s a technical marvel that redefines the potential of its medium through its innovative use of technology.
8. The Wild Robot
The overall package of The Wild Robot is ultimately quite honorable and noteworthy. The animated genre offers just a few great movies a year, and The Wild Robot falls into that category. It’s probably the frontrunner for Best Animated Picture at the Academy Awards, and I’d add that we’ve had much worse winners should this take home the prize. It’s sweet and effortlessly likeable, even if you can see the mechanisms of it working behind the scenes.
Read our review of The Wild Robot
7. Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood
6. Robot Dreams
Suitable for children while also extremely relatable for adults, Robot Dreams is one of the most uncomplicatedly pleasant experiences I’ve had with a movie in 2024. It’s nice to relive an animation style that once was the norm, while also seeing it adapted in prescient and timely ways. Robot Dreams, while small scale and innocent, feels like the much needed break from convention.
Read our review of Robot Dreams
5. Entergalactic
4. Mad God
3. Turning Red
Despite feeling a bit like Pixar is borrowing heavily from their contemporaries, Turning Red is the first movie from the studio to actually move the needle in a while. It’s a story for generations to enjoy, and I always prefer when Pixar aims to appeal to older audiences in conjunction with the usual kids demographic.
Read our review of Turning Red
2. The Mitchells vs. The Machines
1. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse continues what the first film did so well – feel like something you’ve never seen before. An intense thrill ride that explores carving your own path and not staying constrained to the expectations set before you.
Read our review of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
READ MORE: Best Horror Movies of the 2020s, Best Directorial Debuts of the 2020s, Best A24 Horror Movies