The best animated movies of 2023 had a milestone this year: The works from Disney and Pixar, the historic heavy-hitters of American animation, were completely overshadowed. And not just at the box office! Movies from around the world, and up-and-comers working in Hollywood, made their mark and continued to prove that, insular as it may seem, animation is a field that’s opening up. If 2022 was the year of stop-motion (with Mad God, Pinocchio, The House, Wendell & Wild, and Marcel the Shell), then 2023 is anime’s domain. Many of the best animated movies of 2023 were either operating completely within anime’s wheelhouse — as new movies from Makoto Shinkai and Hayao Miyazaki knocked us flat — or using its language in inventive ways — like Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman adapting Haruki Murakami — to remind us to look beyond our borders for affecting artistry. Throw in a pair of the most playful superhero movies in recent memory, movies about jazz musicians and basketball players, and a neon teddy bear allegory (emphasis on the “gory”) and you’ve got a varied, invigorating Disney-free crop of animation, experimenting with form and content while smooth-brained tech bros push for AI images. Pour one out for the model-makers, painters, background artists and other animators working through the crunch to bring us these movies — their industry may be under attack, but their creations are shields that will stand strong for decades to come.
Here are the 10 best animated movies of 2023:
10. Suzume
Makoto Shinkai’s anime has always revolved around similar imagery, themes and characters. While his earlier films were certainly popular in Japan, they never took off elsewhere. Until Your Name. Your Name. may have just been the right order of those individual elements at the right time, but that would ignore the film’s appeal to young Gen Z audiences. The unrelentingly beautiful animation of shooting stars and skylines draws viewers, but the seemingly apocalyptic events permanently altering Japan’s countryside keeps us emotionally invested. Your Name, with its destructive, fate altering comet, was not just an allegory for one of the deadliest, costliest and most powerful natural disasters in history, it is also by far the most well known commentary or reflection on the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. In Suzume, Shinkai goes back to this inflection point in his career and his country. He goes back to 3.11. Suzume Iwato (Nanoka Hara and Nichole Sakura) is an orphan from Tohoku. The 17-year-old lives in Kyushu with her aunt Tamaki (Eri Fukatsu and Jennifer Sun Bell), when a mysterious and very pretty boy crosses her path looking for a door. Sōta (Hokuto Matsumura and Josh Keaton), a Closer, is on the search for doors in Japan’s many abandoned communities. From onsen towns and amusement parks that didn’t survive recessions, to abandoned schools and buried towns, Sōta closes doors that, left open, invite disaster. It’s a ritual closing, a saying goodbye to a place and its people that Shinkai describes as mourning. At its best, Suzume is a film that imagines modern Japan as a post-apocalyptic setting, evoking the animated beauty and “mono no aware” of pastoral iyashikei like Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou. The spectacle of a Shinkai film is part of what people love about them, and here the best of CoMix Wave Films’ panoply is reserved for grass, ruins and stars. The director’s commitment to the real-world likeness of everything from computers and social media to hamburgers and even feet has always been pointed, but it has never felt so integral to the story he’s telling. More than any other film at Shinkai’s hand, Suzume connects the interpersonal drama at the core of Shinkai’s stories with the apocalyptic backdrop driving the plot. In this middle ground, Suzume comes of age not through a singular act of romantic, world-shaping love, but through connection to others in a found community. While Shinkai has always struggled with pacing and exposition, over-relying on montage and writing stories that retread rather than deconstruct his past themes, his habit of leaning on heteronormative scripts of progress, success and happiness is perhaps the most tiresome. Suzume’s central themes do break from this mold in the climax, but the persistence of these logics become more pernicious as Shinkai tries to tell something more grounded in reality. There is still a magical realism rooted in Japanese folklore underlying the plot of Suzume, but for all the worms and portals, there is even more weight lent to the paper of Suzume’s childhood diary. The record of the day she lost her mother is scribbled out, the page dated in crayon. It’s not as visually stunning as the magical doors that lead to a simulacrous dreamscape—it’s not an embrace in freefall over a city skyline, nor the broken fragment of a falling star—but it’s the closest thing to real that Shinkai and an army of animators have ever made with all their CGI, rotoscoping and handdrawn 2D animation.—Autumn Wright
9. Ernest and Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia
At the start of this sequel to Ernest & Celestine—the lauded 2012 animated feature by directors Benjamin Renner, Vincent Patar and Stéphane Aubier—Celestine (Pauline Brunner) has accidentally broken Ernest’s (Lambert Wilson) beloved “Stradibearius” violin. This mishap prompts the adorable mouse and bear duo to embark on an action-packed expedition to Ernest’s country of Gibbertia, which is home to the only luthier who can repair the instrument. The pair arrive at the mysterious territory searching for the craftsman, but are instead shocked to learn that all forms of music have been criminalized in Gibbertia. Like all worthwhile children’s work, Ernest & Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia is driven by something deeper than the need for superficial laughs or spectacles: The desire to inspire its young audience to pursue their passions and stand up against authorities that threaten their freedom of expression and individuality. Following in the spirit of films like Mon Oncle and Brazil, Gibberitia employs situational absurdity to emphasize the nonsensicality of rules taken to extremes. The rebellious spirit of A Trip to Gibberitia is further communicated by non-narrative devices such as its colorful musical score. Composed and orchestrated by Vincent Courtois, Gibberitia’s non-diegetic sonic landscape is colored by rich influences of Balkan ska and Romanian marriage dances. The upbeat sound of the film’s many chase sequences create a joyful experience, in which rebellion—for a just cause—is not just something to be celebrated, but something that feels intrinsically human. Ernest & Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia crafts a moral tale undoubtedly worth the watch—so that the next time we encounter a group of politically oppressed bears listening to single-note music, we’re better prepared to take a stand.—Kathy Michelle Chacón
8. Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
There are already several wonderfully meditative, carefully realized adaptations of Haruki Murakami short stories – namely Korean director Lee Chang-dong’s Burning and Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s 2021 Oscar-winning Drive My Car – yet many of the Japanese literary icon’s most famous works have long been deemed unfit for cinematic translation. This likely has to do with Murakami’s penchant for employing elements of magical realism. The vivid, often fantastical scenes he creates through prose could easily come off as awkward, incongruous or simply unsatisfying on the screen, even within the seemingly limitless capabilities of modern VFX technology. By adapting several Murakami short stories with particularly surreal elements via animation in Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, writer, director, animator and composer Pierre Földes is able to evocatively distill the mystical streak that permeates loosely connected plotlines, unfolding in the wake of the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami that hit Tokyo in 2011. The film incorporates six of Murakami’s short stories from three separate collections: The Elephant Vanishes, After the Quake and Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman. Even casual Murakami readers will recognize that The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, the (slightly altered) first chapter of which was originally published as The Elephant Vanishes, is a major component of this film. It’s not the sole focus, but it lushly conjures many specific details, from Komura’s missing kitty-turned-vanished wife to the inquisitive teenage neighbor who allows him to camp out in her backyard. Though the film only delves into the first chapter of the novel as it appears in Elephant, it’s difficult to imagine another film tackling The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and succeeding in capturing the hazily idyllic yet overwhelming foreboding atmosphere that Blind Willow does so effectively. The triumph and allure of Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is owed to the specific animation style that Földes utilizes, which is a visually intriguing combination of motion capture and 2D techniques. Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is a refreshing take on a popular author’s oeuvre. It’s also ambitious in its own right, especially as it arrives on the heels of the aforementioned Murakami adaptations that have received substantial acclaim.—Natalia Keogan
7. Nimona
You know that joke about how we would all side with the queer coded villains of our childhood? ND Stevenson’s now decade-old webcomic-turned-graphic-novel Nimona is a commitment to that bit. Like its source material, Nimona is a legend for the freaks and the queers, a story told in figures, archetypes and tropes. Nimona understands that villains are often made villainous for their bodies and identities. Nimona embraces queer coding and turns it into a subversive power fantasy. You should absolutely go read Nimona. It won’t take much longer to read than it will to watch the 99-minute film (and you should watch it after), but with that space, Stevenson establishes and subverts the archetypes and tropes that shape not just narrative, but world view. It’s not subversive of just form or structure, but of narrative and ideology. Now in the hands of Spies in Disguise directorial duo Nick Bruno and Troy Quane, Nimona is roughly the same chaotic gremlin that fans of Stevenson’s work loved—with some notable reworks to fit into an animated kids movie on Netflix. It kinda skips the whole villain arc of the original story, which I would be more annoyed about if the many other adjustments and the reworked scope didn’t make this such a good standalone adaptation. The movie still captures the heart of Nimona. It may make for a less subversive take on villainy, but remains a thoughtful commentary on systems of power and the othering of non-normative bodies. Instead of entering years into a stagnant stand-off between the Institute and evil Boldheart (Riz Ahmed), Nimona (Chloë Grace Moretz) now finds the fallen knight hours after he’s framed for killing the Queen of his kingdom. Nimona is as charming as ever, with animation and voice acting capturing the comic-book action. The film adds an additional layer of class to the whole thing, as Boldheart was set to be the first knight of the realm not descended from noble lineage, and his and Goldenloin’s (Eugene Lee Yang) relationship is brought more to the fore. The two together are adorable, with as much care in their animation together as in any action scene. There’s never a moment that feels like their queerness is being toned down. There are other quibbles I have with exactly how Bruno and Quane explore identity, marginalization and systems of power, but none that greatly detract from my enjoyment of the film more than the lingering presence of Netflix’s history of transphobia. The most significant revision to Nimona is making its lead more explicitly trans, without ever saying it. And I don’t think it ever has to, to be clear. It may even understand that aspect of the character better than Stevenson did at the time of writing. It’s just that, on Netflix, transphobia gets to be explicit, but not trans people. And I don’t think Nimona would really stand for that.—Autumn Wright
6. Blue Giant
In his first feature since wrapping the critically acclaimed third season of Mob Psycho 100, director Yuzuru Tachikawa takes on the hallowed musical anime. Adapted from Shinichi Ishizuka’s ongoing manga series, Blue Giant is a film about a boy who wants to become the greatest jazz musician in the world, as he takes the most consequential step of his journey: Moving to Tokyo to break into the dying scene. Dai (Yuki Yamada), having left his hometown with a backpack and tenor sax, imposes on an old friend who moved to the city for college. He’s quickly met with the fact that there’s not enough venues left to make playing for money a possibility and begins working to pay his now-roommate Shunji (Amane Okayama) rent while scouring the city for musicians. He quickly meets pianist Yukinori (Shotaro Mamiya), who, unlike Dai, was surrounded by music at a young age. The two’s contrasting backgrounds and proximity to the world of professional music leads them to butt heads and build each other up the way rivalries-turned-bromances do in sports anime. Yukinori is more jaded, but also more technically proficient; Dai’s spirit undeniably comes through his sax’s sound. In anime, at least, that’s enough. With manga editor Number 8 penning the screenplay, Blue Giant feels remarkably concise despite its two-hour runtime. The original manga starts years earlier when Dai gives up basketball to pursue sax after discovering jazz music, but here we focus on a pivotal make-or-break moment and get the full arc of the trio’s development. A solid quarter of that runtime is dedicated to musical performances. More than most films, pianist and composer Hiromi Uehara had an outsized role in shaping Blue Giant. With saxophonist Tomoaki Baba and drummer Shun Ishiwaka, Uehara performs original compositions in addition to her orchestral score. They’re great. They’re perhaps not as mind-melting as the performances in film, with Dai nearly going Super Saiyan as he glows and bends space around him, but great nonetheless. But there’s a narrow gulf between good 3DCG (Chainsaw Man) and bad 3DCG (2016’s Berserk)—it either works or it doesn’t. And here it mostly does not. This formal shift is hard to pull off, and something I’ve only really seen done convincingly by MAPPA and Khara, and the camerawork in these moments doesn’t feel interesting enough to justify this direction. Still, the 3DCG’s use being limited to only parts of the musical sequences keep it from greatly deterring more sensitive eyes. And outside of these scenes, there are some conspicuously gorgeous highlights as well, with detailed nighttime cityscapes looking, at times, lifted from Mamoru Oshii’s Patlabor. Blue Giant is a somewhat tropey story that captures its characters’ big feelings, and its incorporation of live combo recordings contributes something unique to the steadily growing canon of musical anime.—Autumn Wright
5. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
A visual tour de force of hybrid 2D and 3D animation, Mutant Mayhem is not only the most authentically New York version of the Turtles yet, it’s arguably the most inventive. Rowe, Spears and production designer Yashar Kassai have rendered the brothers as if they’re hand-drawn, complete with messy sketch lines, doodle flairs and a graffiti aesthetic. This is the ultimate paint-outside-the-lines take on the Turtles and it works on every level. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is swinging for the fences with its story and voice performances to ambitiously, quantifiably shake up the artistic rut that theatrical computer animation has been stuck in for the last two decades. Another plus is that the brothers are voiced by non-adult voice actors Nicolas Cantu (Leo), Brady Noon (Raph), Shamon Brown Jr. (Mikey) and Micah Abbey (Donnie), who recorded together, and were encouraged to excitedly talk over one another like a gaggle of real, tight-knit brothers would do. It translates into rapid-fire, organic quips and seemingly effortless timing that conveys a rapport that is singular to this iteration. It also elevates the script so that it doesn’t sound like it was written by a bunch of 40-year-olds trying to be hip and young. Rowe and Spears have a firm hold on their pacing, especially in how they use comedy to enhance their action beats. They also chart a progression to the brother’s battle prowess that is satisfying and pays off in satisfying full-circle moments. There’s also much to be admired in their choice to frame a lot of sequences with hand-held camera blocking, which leans into the unpredictable youth of the heroes that works so well in the gritty New York environs they’re sparring in. The filmmakers are also delightfully experimental throughout the Mutant Mayhem, using inspired live-action inserts, segueing into different artistic styles (including a homage to Eastman and Laird’s comic art) and embracing the asymmetrical character design that gives the film a fresh and energetic looseness. Rowe and company prove that there’s no strength to the myth of IP fatigue when you have the vision and passion to reinvent with such bold and fun intention.—Tara Bennett
4. The First Slam Dunk
In basketball movies, whenever the coach has to calm his team down, reminding them of all their practice so that they snap back to reality, he calls them into the huddle. He gives a little speech through his stiff mustache, probably about teamwork and heart. At the end he emphasizes a single word: Fundamentals. More than any sport, basketball has the potential for showboating and going back to basics. The First Slam Dunk, with familiar characters, an innovative art style, and a narrative that’s helped structure an entire subgenre of anime, plays both sides of the court as it finds a delicate balance between flash and fundamentals. The first feature film adaptation of the formative ‘90s sports manga Slam Dunk, The First Slam Dunk comes written and directed by its original creator, Takehiko Inoue. A snapshot of the franchise as a whole, it stuffs swift characterizations, painful backstories, and nimble gameplay into its two-hour high school basketball showdown, as the underdog Shohoku takes on the reigning national champs Sannoh. Shohoku is our team, seen through the eyes of short speed demon Ryota Miyagi (Shugo Nakamura), who takes over main character duties from the novice Hanamichi Sakuragi (Subaru Kimura), a punk-turned-jock with dyed-red hair. Their teammates include Miyagi’s ex-bully Hisashi Mitsui (Jun Kasama), glass cannon hotshot Kaede Rukawa (Shin’ichiro Kamio), and ambitious Black senior Takenori Akagi (Kenta Miyake). When going about their lives, the characters are rendered in the same crisp, detailed 2D as their environment. When they hit the court, they become 3D CG models that allow for their expressive movements (the fluidity clearly influenced by motion-capture) to be seen from all angles by a roving, excitable camera. The 3D character models are nearly indistinguishable from their 2D counterparts and offer a real sense of depth thanks to a constant sheen of sweat. Lifelike reference work combines with sketchy pencil-stroke details to create characters that maintain a hand-drawn charm despite dribbling, shooting, and dunking with a silky smoothness. The First Slam Dunk moves like the NBA while exploiting the possibilities of animation to give us the perfect view of the action. As our attention wanes, the fantastic climax yanks us to our feet in a sensational, heart-stopping burst of invention. Taking place over the final minute of the game, the conclusion owes as much to Raging Bull in its adrenaline-warped use of time, sound and light, as it does to the countless underdog sports stories that established its template. The music drops out. The sound effects become nearly silent. You lean in, realizing how realistic the movie has made everything feel up until this point. When the clock finally expires and you finally remember to respire, you’ll have seen one of the year’s best action sequences. The First Slam Dunk wants it all. It wants to encompass both a satisfying entry point for newcomers, and a fleshed-out standalone for superfans. It wants to show how satisfyingly a sport can be animated, and how spectacularly it can evoke the sensations of seeing—or, even better, playing—a moment you’ll forever log in your memory’s highlight reel. It wants to dunk, and it wants to be automatic from the free throw line. It wants to be retro and to be on the cutting edge. The First Slam Dunk wants it all, and it’s a testament to Inoue and his team that they even get close.—Jacob Oller
3. Unicorn Wars
Who knew an animated movie made up of sunshine, rainbows, cuddles, and teddy bear dicks could be as bleak as Unicorn Wars? Maybe that last list item is a warning sign. For a bigger indicator, look at the director: Alberto Vázquez, the mind behind 2015’s Birdboy: The Forgotten Children. Together, these films make a fine double feature of grotesqueries, though compared to Unicorn Wars, Birdboy is an episode of Sesame Street. A story about drug addiction, corrupt authorities, and environmental collapse sounds grim on paper and plays grim on screen, but Unicorn Wars is more than “grim.” It’s deranged. Scorched earth and religious prejudice tie these two movies together. In Unicorn Wars, the former comes well after the latter, a deep-rooted belief in God being one impelling factor of many driving conflict between warring factions: Peaceful, forest-dwelling unicorns, and warmongering teddy bears. This isn’t a metaphor. There are literal teddy bears. The bears are governed by fascist tough-bears who derive their status from perpetuating war. That doesn’t mean the movie is too serious to enjoy its toilet humor. But Unicorn Wars carefully packs big, meaningful themes into a candycoated parcel, using delirium as bubble wrap to keep its contents secure. The fluidity in craftsmanship is as impressive as Vázquez’s talent for Trojan Horsing metaphors about the human condition into a movie about teddy bears knifing unicorns and unicorns goring teddy bears. If that was the whole picture, then Unicorn Wars would still be worth watching as an exercise in bad taste filmmaking and gonzo animation, like an extended episode of Happy Tree Friends constructed with actual skill. Ridiculous as it sounds, though, there’s more to Vázquez’s neon and gore-soaked vision than its grody particulars give away at first glance. Openly raunchy as his film may be, under that surface, it’s downright biblical.—Andy Crump
2. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse webs its way into a far more jaded world, one overstuffed with superhero sequels, and specifically, multiverse storytelling. And yet Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse swings in and, yet again, wipes the floor with its genre brethren by presenting a sequel that is both kinetic and deeply emotional. The script by Phil Lord, Christopher Miller and Dave Callaham (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) smartly builds upon the foundation of its already established characters, their relationships and the ongoing consequences from the first film to further explore the lives of secret teen superheroes Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld) and Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) a year after the first film. The writers do so with a clear agenda to not only best themselves visually, but by upping the game of the now-familiar multiple-timeline tropes. Together with the talents of directing team Joaquim Dos Santos (The Legend of Korra), Kemp Powers (Soul) and Justin K. Thompson (Into the Spider-Verse), Across the Spider-Verse—across the board—swings for the cinematic fences in the rare sequel that feels like every frame has been crafted with the intention of wringing every bit of visual wonder and emotional impact that the animators, the performers and the very medium can achieve. The hybrid computer-animation meets hand-drawn techniques established in the first films returns with a more sleek execution that’s a bit easier on the eyes, which affords the animators to get even more ambitious with their array of techniques and character-centric presentations. The depth and breadth of the animation and illustration styles are jaw-dropping. There are frames you just want to fall into, they’re so beautifully rendered and conceived. If there’s any critique, it’s that the more action-centric sequences are almost too detailed, so that the incredible work of the animators moves off-screen so quickly that you feel like you’re not able to fully appreciate everything coming at you. As a middle film in the trilogy (Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse is due in theaters in 2024), it’s a joy to be able to say that Across the Spider-Verse stands well on its own, based on the merits of its story and stakes. There’s also a killer cliffhanger that sets the stage for a third chapter that doesn’t feel like it’s cheating its audience like some other recent films have done (cough Dune cough). In fact, repeat viewings of Across the Spider-Verse to bridge the gap until the final installment next year sounds like a great way to savor this film as it so richly deserves.—Tara Bennett
1. The Boy and the Heron
Genzaburo Yoshino’s 1937 novel How Do You Live? is a time capsule, preserving the virtues of the society it was made and circulated in. It’s about how to live as a good person in this world, about the childhood experience of discovering difference, disparity, and loss—and, thus, turning to philosophy. The influence of the text is apparent in Miyazaki’s work at Ghibli. While the protagonist of his latest film, Mahito (Soma Santoki), is styled around Miyazaki’s childhood, Miyazaki himself appears as he is today more directly in the figure of Mahito’s granduncle (Shōhei Hino), a man who built a mysterious library on the family estate decades ago before disappearing into his stories forever. The Boy and the Heron, released in Japan with the same name as Yoshino’s novel, becomes a firm reminder of the need to grow up, but one that recognizes the importance of the ephemeral experiences of childhood. Unlike Miyazaki’s semi-biographical 2013 swan song The Wind Rises, the quasi-autobiographical The Boy and the Heron is styled as the fantasy Bildungsroman that he became famous for—with a mature, edgier bent. The opening sequence depicts a 1943 firebombing, rendered with striking animation that entirely breaks with the art style of the rest of the film, veering into the abstract. Mahito’s ill mother dies in the flames. Afterwards, the 12-year-old moves to the countryside as his father Shoichi (Takuya Kimura), an industrialist contributing to the war effort, remarries his late mother’s younger sister, Natsuko (Yoshino Kimura). Unlike the bucolic farmland of My Neighbor Totoro that imagines a space closer to nature or the remnants of a nostalgic past in Spirited Away that facilitates its fantastical traversal, the impetus for Mahito’s journey is an act of self-harm. The spirits find Mahito, feverish and delirious, on the family’s rural estate. A particularly nettlesome gray heron (Masaki Suda) harasses the boy, drawing him towards the site of his coming-of-age journey. His guide hereafter is apprehensive, the fantasies tainted with death and decay. From here, the script (trans. Don Brown) is perhaps Miyazaki’s best. Sharing its outline with all these past films, The Boy and the Heron utilizes a different narrative mode: The mythic. This is a fantasy world that deals in archetypes instead of history orientated by the polemics of fascists and philosophers. Everything is handled with delicate ambivalence, all implicit, the intentions left ambiguous. It is an open text begging to be read. Some may get the impression the film says nothing at all, but The Boy and the Heron is ultimately something more enduring than an edification. Synthesizing the virtues Yoshino wrote of a pre-war Japan with the terror of growing up in its collapsing empire, Miyazaki draws the world in its entirety. Through decades of refining his craft and iterating on this familiar story, Miyazaki has honed The Boy and the Heron into a platonic form—the kind held by Mahito’s philosopher-storyteller granduncle, who creates whole worlds with his small stone building blocks. To see The Boy and the Heron is to see Miyazaki. The film is as complicated as the man it is about, and this is what makes The Boy and the Heron a masterwork. I can see him still writing his stories, still drawing his airplanes.–Autumn Wright