Here are Cinephile Corner’s 10 recommendations for animated movies like Forgotten Island:
Hoppers
Hoppers feels like coked-out Pixar. A zany great time, an original story with the perfect amount of heft and weight, loaded with more jokes and gonzo energy than the studio has mustered in years. One moment in particular (spoiler: the squishing of a certain insect) had my significant other audibly gasp in the theater, which has to be a first for the studio, or close to it. Hopefully, Pixar is finding a couple of new voices to bank on going forward, because Hoppers is genuinely refreshing to see.
In Your Dreams
In Your Dreams wants to hit the jugular and the funny bone at the same time, and it rarely connects with either. The voice cast does what it can, Craig Robinson most of all, but the film’s tonal split and unfinished look turn a promising idea into an inert watch.
Minions & Monsters
A mile a minute just like its two predecessors, Illumination’s latest Minions spin-off, Minions & Monsters, has two things separating it from everything we’ve seen in this corner of the Despicable Me universe thus far: a handful of new monsters, and an almost overwhelming love for film history.
Little Amélie or the Character of Rain
Little Amélie or the Character of Rain might set a record for the youngest protagonist to figure out how the world works. Your tolerance for its perspective will decide how much you connect with it. The new French animated feature from Maïlys Vallade and Liane-Cho Han Jin Kuang adapts Amélie Nothomb’s novel The Character of Rain, condensing big ideas about identity, belonging, love, and death into a brisk 75 minutes seen through the eyes of a two year old.
Read our full review of Little Amélie or the Character of Rain
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.
Orion and the Dark
There’s enough to like in Orion and the Dark to recommend it as a worthwhile family movie. Charlie Kaufman is able to mold his signature style just enough to fit within the constraints of a movie targeted for children. Jacob Tremblay and Paul Walter Hauser headline the voice cast in this DreamWorks animated movie for Netflix.
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.
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.
Nimona
Nimona tries to strike at the same imaginative core that worked so well for a few of Netflix’s animated releases from a year ago, namely The Sea Beast and Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, but instead comes out overbaked – trying to have its way in so many directions that it just ultimately feels lost within so many ideas.
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 MORE: Movies Like The Wild Robot, Movies Like Hoppers
