Ever since the 1980s boom in anime thanks to "Akira" and the rise of Miyazaki in the '90s thanks to "Porco Rosso" and "Princess Mononoke," fans of animation have been eating good — especially kids who watched a lot of cartoons and Pixar movies who grew up still loving animation, but wanted something more serious. Perhaps even an entire documentary that's animated!
There are now a lot of animated movies for adults, seemingly more in recent years, like Seth Rogen's "Sausage Party" and "Isle of Dogs" from Wes Anderson. So I did my best to go back into the past and give you the best slate of under-appreciated adult fare that isn't live action.
'A Town Called Panic' (2009)
So a very strange one to start this list: a stop-motion animated adventure fantasy comedy thing with little toys made by two Belgian filmmakers that's very hard to stream online.
You could watch this with children around, but not even you will understand what the hell is going on. Empire magazine famously said it was akin to watching "'Toy Story' on absinthe."
For fans of: "Mary and Max"
Watch it free on Kanopy or rent on Kino Now.
'The Illusionist' (2010)
Another French film! Not to be confused with a different movie of the same name starring Ed Norton, this is a movie set in 1959 about Jacques Tati's relationship with his estranged daughter and magic.
Sylvain Chomet's work on "The Triplets of Belleville" is also worth a look, as these are both gorgeous, sweeping movies that deeply deserve to be examined further. Oddly, each lost to a Pixar movie at the Oscars for Best Animated Feature Film.
For fans of: "The Triplets of Belleville"
'Persepolis' (2007)
Okay, who put three French movies in a row on this list?
"Persepolis" is maybe the first movie so far that you can't actually put in front of your children, because then they would have to learn about war in the Middle East, depression, sex, death, religion, suicide, sexism, communism and terrorism, and that just doesn't seem like a conversation you want with kids so early on.
Also, why do all of these movies keep losing to Pixar at the Oscars?
For fans of: "The Breadwinner"
'Waltz with Bashir' (2008)
This was the first animated movie to ever be nominated for Best Foreign Feature at the Academy Awards, and for good reason. The docudrama depicts what it was like during the 1982 Lebanon War, with several of the interviewees asking for actors to rerecord their answers and for the animated characters not look like them, to protect their anonymity.
At least it didn't lose to Pixar this time.
For fans of: "Flee"
'The World of Tomorrow' and 'It's Such a Beautiful Day' (2015 and 2012)
Don Hertzfeldt's work needs to be seen to be believed. It's been copied and parodied a lot, like in some famous Pop Tart commercials, but these short films and movies are deeply dark comedies about existentialism, the future, regret, death, technology, relationships, childhood, parenting and a whole lot more.
From everything Don's worked on, these are among my favorites.
For fans of: his other works, including "Rejected"
They're scattered in a few places but MUBI is your best bet.
'Anomalisa' (2015)
Charlie Kaufman chose a Cincinnati hotel as the setting for his most depressing movie, and his first animated one (stop-motion using puppets, a hallmark for him). This was the first R-rated animated film to be nominated for Best Animated Feature (losing to Pixar, the king of that category).
This is a real head-trip of a movie with quite a notorious oral sex scene.
For fans of: "Team America World Police" (if you're into puppet sex)
'Grave of the Fireflies' (1988)
This is by far the saddest movie you will ever see that's animated, and yes that includes "Up" and "Wall-E." This is from Studio Ghibli, but not from Hayao Miyazaki. It's still very worthy of the name, and well worth seeking out, though.
It's set in Japan during the last days of World War II, as two kids struggle to endure poverty and famine that has hit the country hard, and the orphans' village is bombed by American planes. It's heartbreaking to see children starve to death, but you can't pull any punches when depicting something so tragic. This movie crushes me every time, it's a hard watch.
For fans of: "Akira" and "Princess Mononoke"
If you enjoyed this list, we have more, like a pick of existential films, or black and white ones.
