Top 10 Non-Disney/Pixar Animated Films of All Time

It is Animation Month on the site and all month long I will be doing top ten lists on animation and doing reviews on either good or bad animated films. Now my favorite genre of film is animation and obliviously since I was a kid I would watch Disney films and all sorts of animated shows/films. So these next few weeks, from today until January 31st I will be ranking the Top Animated films of All Time. But in order to get to that final list on the 31st I need to do three others. This week will be the Non-Disney/Pixar Animated films as there are more animated films that are not under the big Disney/Pixar corporation that are loveable great animated films. Now obviously I will be ranking Disney and Pixar too, but separately within the next couple of weeks. So in order to be on this list they cannot be a Disney or Pixar film, however I will be counting the films that are Fox animated films or Blue Sky, even though they are now Disney licensed films but still they aren’t fully Disney so they count. DreamWorks, Sony Animation, Warner Bros. Animation, Illumination, any company or corporation that made an animated feature film, except the ones under the House of Mouse, will count on this list. I’m so excited to do this and have been for a while. Now some of this might be opinionated but I will try my best not to be. Comment below what your favorite Non-Disney/Pixar animated film is and let’s get right into this list and countdown the Top 10 Non-Disney Animated Films of All Time.

Top 10 Non-Disney/Pixar Animated Films of All Time

10. Coraline (2009) – Laika is an American stop motion animated studio that have created some of the greatest animated films within the last decade including ParaNorman, Missing Link, Kubo and the Two Strings and there very first feature film Coraline. The film Coraline is about a young girl who finds a parallel world behind a secret door in her new home. But this world is more dark and sinister and holds a secret that she must find. The film was a box office smash and was critically acclaimed. It is considered by many people as the best animated film of the last decade and is considered one of the best stop motion animated films ever. The animation in this film is pretty interesting and creepy from the way the parallel characters look to how visually stunning the animation looks even though it is extremely creepy. It’s a very strange movie that sadly I have never had the time to see. *GASPS* Yes I know, an animation lover like me has never seen what could be the greatest stop motion animated film of the past 10 years and I hate to say it but I have no reason to why I haven’t, I just haven’t. The film is extremely beautiful, even though the characters look scary, especially Other Mother’s real form, but the animated film as a whole is so stunning and so gorgeous as the colors in this film are stylish, the look of the characters are pretty interesting and the fact that this film was the 1st film under a new animation company shows how not only how great their animation is, but how great it will be in the future. Stop Motion animation in the 2000’s alone were spectacular but over the next 10 years from 2010 – 2020 they will get extremely better and better. Coraline was nominated for many awards including Best Animated Feature for the Academy Awards. The film as a whole is a great film and just like me if you haven’t ever watched this movie then we need to find our time to watch this film because my god it is a wonderfully amazing film. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyaGIaJsmTg

9. The Iron Giant (1999) – The 90’s was a strong decade for animation as Disney was going through a Renaissance, Pixar started to become a juggernaut animation company thanks to the help from Disney, DreamWorks began it’s company with a couple of big films and this Warner Bros. animated film became the most loved underrated animated film. The Iron Giant was a box office flop as the film did poorly commercially, bringing in less than $20 million dollars of its budget. It didn’t help that two big films, The Blair Witch Project and The Sixth Sense were dominating the box office while Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace was still making money in theaters, making The Iron Giant flop hard it’s opening weekend. Regardless the film gained a cult following and found a huge fan base over the years. A film about a young boy befriending a giant alien robot during the late 1950’s won the hearts of many people and ever since it has been said to be one of the greatest animated films of all time. 99 was a pretty big year for animated films, Tarzan, Toy Story 2, Fantasia 2000, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, Pokemon the Movie 2000 all came out during the year 1999 so it’s no wonder the film was kind of under the radar. Still this beautiful film has so much heart and soul that it can hang around any film from the Disney Renaissance Era. The ending of this film is so heartbreaking to watch and the friendship and bond that Hogarth and The Iron Giant make is done so perfectly and will make you warm and fuzzy inside. Also it was directed by future Pixar director Brad Bird, who directed both Incredibles 1 and 2 and Ratatouille. This film all together deserved more love than what it got during the summer of 1999 as while it has all the love and attention now, you can just imagine how highly it would had been praised back in 99 had it not flopped in the box office. I purely recommend this animated film if you never seen it as it is beautiful and has some of the best animation over the last 50 years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4dT2eBWI2M

8. Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) – Wes Anderson is known for having some of the most unique stylized films ever but to bring his style of film into the world of animation he has to make it one of the best. So he decided to make a stop motion animated film based on the Roald Dahl’s novel of the same name and in the end the film received critical acclaim, was nominated for many awards and yet the film didn’t do so well in the box office, but yet it is known as one of the best animated films of all time. The film has an all-star voice acting cast including George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe, Michael Gambon and Owen Wilson. Talk about a stellar cast. The animation in this film is also so beautiful with the mixture of multiple colors to the way the characters look on the screen, the film looks incredible. I didn’t see the film when it first came out but luckily I took a film class all about the Anderson brothers and I got to see this film and I was amazed by the film. It has quirky humor, a lot of heart and soul, extremely loveable characters and a pretty unique but satisfying soundtrack. Again this is coming from Wes Anderson, the man who directed The Royal Tenenbaums, Moonrise Kingdom, The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. This film made me a bigger fan of Wes Anderson and he followed it up with another animated film in 2018 called Isle of Dogs and that film did extremely well with critics and the box office and during awards season. Fantastic Mr. Fox is a masterpiece if you ask me and just like the Iron Giant if you have never seen this film then by all means find a way to watch the film. You will not be disappointed in this film, I can guarantee you that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELqdLvz60zA

7. Rango (2011) – Rango is shockingly a great animated film. Usually I don’t judge a film based on the company and when I saw Nickelodeon Movies in the trailer I was like there no way this animated film is going to be great, let alone memorable and well I was wrong. Not only was this film memorable but it was a critical and box office success and it won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2012. So the film is about a chameleon that ends up in the town of Dirt. The town is desperate for a new sheriff and Rango lies about being one and from there he gets himself in some situations including taking on a rattlesnake. The animation in this film is really good, like it’s fantastic. The film is meant to be an animated western and the animation in this film backs up the western part of the film and it feels like you’re watching a western film from the 1950’s and its phenomenally animated by its animators. The characters look really good, the colors in this film is genuinely on point with the film’s western concept as it uses dull colors but at the same time it uses a color scheme you would see in a western. Plus I love how the film perfectly brings these animal characters to life like they look like their animal counterparts, had they of course been in a western town. I haven’t seen the film in a long time but I remember the film being so big and so talked about when it first came out. It was nominated almost everywhere during awards season and it has a very unique voice cast that do a very great job at bringing their characters to life on the big screen. I’m shocked Nickelodeon or Paramount have never made or talked about a sequel as I would love to see more from Rango and its cast of characters in the future. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIg5_09Tcf8

6. Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) – After the success of Chicken Run, Aardman Studios and DreamWorks Animation teamed up again and brought one of the most successful British animated characters Wallace and Gromit onto the big screens. Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is to this day the most successful film Aardman Studios ever created as the film was a critical success, made over $190 million in the box office, tripling its budget, it has at the moment a very high rating on Rotten Tomatoes (95%) and it would go on to win many awards including Best Animated Feature in the Academy Awards. The stop-motion clay animated film is wonderful as the film is parodying classic monster movies. The film is about Wallace and Gromit being pest control agents and how they need to rescue a village being plagued by rabbits. But the film takes a turn and it is found out that the village has a Were-Rabbit. This film is surprisingly good as the comedy in this film is pretty spot on, the pacing of the film is perfect, the parts where the film becomes a supernatural film is done beautifully and the animation is beyond incredible. This film is the only stop-motion animated film to win Best Animated Feature in the Academy Awards and the film showed how far and how great Aardman Studios is. Since Wallace and Gromit films like Flushed Away, Arthur’s Christmas, The Pirates in an Adventure with Scientists and Shaun the Sheep the Movie helped bring more success for Aardman Studios but without the huge success of Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit the animation studio would had been seen as just your ordinary British animation studio and not as a huge successful animation studio that has found success worldwide. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nk6Gs6Z_Bo

5. Shrek (2001) – Somebody once told me the world was gonna roll me….I’m sorry I couldn’t start talking about this film without singing All-Star by Smash Mouth. In 1994 a former butthurt employee of Disney named Jeffery Katzenberg and one of the greatest directors of all time Steven Spielberg helped found and create DreamWorks Pictures and DreamWorks Animation. 7 years later a certain film that was parodying Disney movies would go on to become the most successful movie in the company’s history and would be later plastered all over the world. And when I say everywhere I mean everywhere, I’m talking about cereal boxes, Twinkies, Ketchup bottles, Mcdonalds, hell even Broadway was stuck with this animation icon for a while. Shrek in 2001 became one of the most successful animated films of all time. I don’t think I need to explain what Shrek is about since everyone has seen this film, but if you haven’t it’s about an Ogre saving a princess with a Jackass and then falling in love with her.......yeah that pretty much sums up the entire movie. All jokes aside Shrek actually changed the game for animation, and for it to be a DreamWorks movie and not a movie under the Disney company and or Pixar to change the game for animation, yeah that just shows how big this movie was during it’s time. Since Shrek came out 2D animation has pretty much died out for feature films as while the style comes back here and there it became a style of the past. The film as a whole still lives up well today as while the animation isn’t the greatest animation today, back then it was pretty superior. The film has a great voice cast who has great chemistry together, it has an unbelievably incredible soundtrack, it has a great story and the film has loveable characters. Shrek was a massive success with critics and commercially as the film gained $484.4 million dollars in the box office for a film that’s budget was a little bit above $60 million. Yeah you can say the film was pretty successful knowing it gained back so much money. Money isn’t enough for you well okay the film also has at this moment a Rotten Tomatoes score of 88%. Still not enough, okay well it became a pop culture phenomenon. That’s not enough for you, well okay how about this. The film won the very first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. The film will be having its 20th year Anniversary later this year and to think without this film DreamWorks would never be a huge competitor to Disney. Shrek is without a doubt one of the greatest animated films of all time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=em9lziI07M4

4. Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse (2018) – Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse gave us a story of Spider-Man but this time it wasn’t fully about Peter Parker and instead a much younger/underrated comic book character Miles Morales. I made a review for this movie back in November on the website and I still stand with my idea that it could be the greatest Spider-Man film adaptation of all time. But in general, the film is visually stunning and the animation is beautiful. The animation looks like a comic book, as that is the point, but it also adds in comic book cliché’s like subtitles in word bubbles, *Booms* and *Pows* and of course just beautiful comic book animation that looks colorful and you can see the detail work from the artist of the comic. This animated film was huge for Sony as prior to this film they had a lot of hit and misses with critics and in the box office. While Arthur’s Christmas, Surf’s Up and The Pirates: Band of Misfits were critically and commercially a success for Sony Animation, The Smurfs, Open Season and THE EMOJI MOVIE bombed hard and made Sony Animation feel like a joke compared to animation studios like Disney, Pixar and DreamWorks. Then Miles Morales and this new Spider-Man animated film came out and it took off like a rocket. The film has an all-star voice cast and amazing animators/directors that put this amazing film together. It also has one of the best soundtracks on this list including songs from Post Malone/Swae Lee, Black Caviar, Jaden Smith and much more. Also the film won 40 awards including a Bafta, Golden Globe and an Academy Award, becoming just the 2nd animated film that contents is from a comic book to win an award. The stunning visuals, the amazing comedic/action scenes, the amazing character development and the incredible musical score really make this film loveable and incredible and there is so much more that I can talk about for this film but that is what my review is for. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-euUGPQZoHw

3. Spirited Away (2001) – This is another animated film that I never have seen but I know its history and how incredibly beautiful this animated film is. Now the film is under the Walt Disney distribution but it technically is not a Disney film so it counts for this list. Spirited Away is one of the most successful animated films to come out of Japanese studio Studio Ghibli and it became very successful once it made its way into the United States. The film is about a young girl named Chihiro Ogino entering the world name Kami where spirits and folklore live. Her parents are turned into pigs and now she must find a way to free herself and her parents from the evil witch Yubaba and return to the human world. So as I said before I never saw this movie growing up and even when I grew older and saw images and scenes online of this film I never really attempted to watch this movie and for that I say I am ashamed of myself because this movie is stunning and has beautiful animation. Not only that but the film was created by a legendary animator and director Hayao Miyazaki and he has created some very beautiful animated Japanese films including Castle in the Sky, My Neighbor Totoro and Howl’s Moving Castle, so you already know from seeing his name that this film is going to be a huge movie and in the end it was critically and commercially a success. At this moment it has 97% on Rotten Tomatoes and is still to this day one of the most beloved animated films ever. I want to check this film out before I rank the Top 10 Animated Films of All Time list at the end of the month so I can have a clue on where it would rank and if it would make my top 10 list. But it defiantly a really great film that became the 2nd film to take home Best Animated Feature in the Academy Awards. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByXuk9QqQkk

2. The Lego Movie (2014) – Everything is Awesome about this movie. From the voice cast to the animation to the story and comedic moments, this film visually is incredible and film wise is a cinematic masterpiece. The Lego Movie was created by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the same guys who created the 21 Jump Street films and later helped produce Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse. Warner Bros. really knocked it out of the park with this film. I mean who would have thought a film about Lego would become a huge success both critically and commercially while also starting a new line of animated films centered on some of the iconic kid toys. Now you may be thinking this film was created to be a cash grab for Lego and that’s actually not the truth. There was a concept idea 8 years prior from Dan Lin of the Lego Movie and because of the success of the Lego video games a certain executive in Warner Bros. recognized the value of the Lego franchise and he bought the licensing of the Lego video games. In 2007 there would then be an idea of the Lego based film to be in concept and then years later Phil Lord and Christopher Miller took that idea and concept and put out one of the most loved animated films not just of the 2010’s, but of all time. The film grossed over $460 million dollars, would later get a spinoff called The Lego Batman Movie and later a sequel, The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part. However the biggest accomplishment for the movie is how it stylized the entire animation in just Lego. The water, the explosions, the fire, the whole freaking animation in this film is purely Lego and it is executed so perfectly. Also the characters in this film are extremely loveable from Emmet, voiced by Chris Pratt, to Batman, voiced by Will Arnett, the characters in this film is purely amazing and loveable characters. Finally, I mentioned the name of it in the beginning but Everything Is Awesome might be annoying, might be literally a song that will get stuck in your mind for a long time, but it is a very killer sweet song that was nominated for an Academy Award. But while the song was nominated for an Academy, in the biggest snub and biggest WTF ever in the Academy’s history, The Lego Movie wasn’t even nominated for Best Animated Feature despite it being the most popular animated film that year, although that year’s Oscars had a lot of great animated films in the category including winner Big Hero 6 and How to Train Your Dragon 2, but I mean still The LEGO MOVIE WAS SNUBBED AND LIKE WHY!?!? Whatever it doesn’t need an award to be on this list because we all know how great the film is and why it is this high on the list. Take that Academy and yes I will say it one more time for the viewers at home, EVERYTHING IS AWESOME…..IN THE LEGO MOVIE! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cQgQIMlwWw

1. Shrek 2 (2004) – From 2004 up until 2010, Shrek 2 was the highest grossing animated film of all time with $919.8 million dollars. The sequel to Shrek is considered by many people and fans of animation as the greatest animated film of all time and one of the best animated sequels ever. Shrek 2 had a lot of shoes to fill as it needed to one up Shrek and it needed to continue DreamWorks Animation’s success and boy did this film not only do that, but it did even more. It showed that It could be a huge competitor to both Disney and now Pixar and the success of the film with both critics and in the box office brought a lot of more money into the film production’s wallet as it is to this date the highest grossing film in the production’s history. Now while the money part of the film’s success is very great, the film as a whole is phenomenal from the story of true love to the character development for Shrek. This film is about Shrek, Donkey and Fiona going to Far Far Away so Shrek can meet Fiona’s parents. From there Fiona’s Fairy Godmother creates a plot to destroy Shrek and Fiona’s marriage and for Fiona to become married to her son, Prince Charming. Visually this film is amazing, a huge step up from the 1st film, and the storytelling/character development in this film is perfection especially from Shrek as the first film we meet Shrek and he’s the only Ogre in this world and is hated by the village people. However we then learn that Fiona is an Ogre but Shrek never knew this until the last few minutes and in general to keep it short he falls in love with Fiona the person despite the fact that she is an Ogre. This 2nd film shows not only how much he truly loves her but how much he would do to sacrifice everything for her, including making both of them human. Now this is getting close to spoiler territory so if you already know the story of Shrek 2 then you know what happens next, but if you don’t then get out of the rock you live under and watch the damn movie. As a whole this film has beautiful and fun scenes including the highly praised “I Need a Hero” scene and the amazingly funny dinner table scene that has become a Top Tier meme. Plus the soundtrack for this film is higher than God and yes I just said the Shrek 2 soundtrack with Accidentally in Love, Holding Out for a Hero, Funky Town, Changes and Livin la Vida Loca is better and higher than GOD, yeah I just went there. This also is a joke; don’t come at me all you church goers and God saviors. Look, in the end this Academy nominated film is far superior than every film on this list, despite being neck and neck with the Lego Movie, but in the end Shrek 2 undoubtedly tops this list because it is a perfect sequel to a great original film, it’s an amazingly incredible animated film and it continued to highly show how amazing DreamWorks animation is and topped the 1st Shrek entirely and created its own legacy in the process. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_HjMIjzyMU

Honorable Mentions:

How to Train Your Dragon The Prince of Egypt Kung Fu Panda Anastasia Megamind