22 Best Animated Movies of All Time, Ranked According to IMDb

The art form of animated movies has captured the hearts and minds of many in the past hundred years. Steadily rising in popularity over the past several decades as technology continues to improve. Animation has become an established genre in filmmaking and isn’t just for children anymore.

Animation has the unique ability to give the creator’s imagination limitless possibilities. If it can be thought of, it can be drawn and brought to life on screen. Animation has provided some of the most breathtaking worlds and visuals in all of cinema, mixing beautiful artwork with incredible storytelling has broadened animation’s audience, making it a genre for all ages to enjoy. These are some of the greatest animations according to IMDb.

22 ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ (2010)

IMDb Rating: 8.1/10

The 2010 film that birthed a massively successful franchise, How to Train Your Dragon transports viewers to the exciting Viking village of Berk, where dragons – and dragon slayers – are a part of daily life. In the midst of all this is Hiccup, a young and naive Viking who has big dreams, which are transformed when he meets a powerful dragon known as the Night Fury, who soon changes his mind about the supposedly ferocious beasts.

Since then, Hiccup and Toothless (which he names the adorable yet incredibly powerful HTTYD dragon) have gone on exhilarating adventures, but none come close to their very first one, which is centered on the unconventional bond that forms between them. Of course, the movie’s animation has held up incredibly well, too, making the entire franchise ideal for rewatching with the whole family. The film has stood proud at tall as one of the uncontested peaks of quality when it comes to DreamWorks Animation, one of the titans of the animation industry.

21 ‘A Silent Voice’ (2016)

IMDb Rating: 8.1/10

One of the biggest tearjerkers that anime has to offer, A Silent Voice follows the story of Shouya, a student who, as a young boy, consistently bullied the new girl in his class, Shouko, because she was deaf. Eventually, the bullying becomes too much for the rest of the class, as they begin to turn on Shouya for his lack of compassion. Now in high school, Shouya deeply regrets his actions as a child, tormented by his actions, and sets out to do everything he can to atone for his sins and make it up to Shouko.

A Silent Voice has one of the most unique and powerful portrayals of anxiety in animation, helping emphasize the film’s powerful themes and sequences of self-destruction and depression. The film has an uncanny ability to leave a powerful impact on its viewers, thanks to its heartbreaking sequences, likable and relatable characters, and a number of shocking twists and turns. Even for those that aren’t as accustomed to anime filmmaking A Silent Voice is a must-watch emotional rollercoaster that is one of the best that the medium of animation has to offer. – Robert Lee

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20 ‘Monsters, Inc.’ (2001)

IMDb Rating: 8.1/10

Unsurprisingly one of the top animated movies of all time, Monsters, Inc. is a classic that can provide a nostalgic viewing experience. Set in the bustling Monstropolis, the film follows the story of James P. “Sulley” Sullivan and his loyal companion Mike Wazowski, who work at the titular company that harnesses the power of children’s screams to generate energy. When a young girl named Boo accidentally stumbles into the monster realm, the duo embarks on a mission to safely return the kid to her own world.

What makes Monsters, Inc. so fantastic, aside from its fantastic world-building and cutting-edge animation, is Sulley and Mike’s profound journey of self-discovery. Boo’s arrival disrupts and challenges the duo’s long-held beliefs about the nature of human children, which is a crucial lesson in acceptance and having a broader understanding of those who are different. This, combined with some terrific vocal performances from the likes of John Goodman, Billy Crystal, and Steve Buscemi, has helped turn this film into an animated classic.

Watch on Disney+

19 ‘The Iron Giant’ (1999)

IMDb Rating: 8.1/10

Despite initially being a massive box office bomb, The Iron Giant has since been established as a true animated classic, being one of the greatest blendings of 2D and 3D animation at the edge of the 20th century. The film follows the story of Hogarth, a young boy living in 1957 Maine who makes the miraculous discovery of a giant robot from outer space. He soon finds himself making an unexpected friendship with the robot, and is forced to hide him away so that the government won’t take him away, or worse, attempt to destroy him.

Few animated films are as consistently beautiful, heartbreaking, and exciting as The Iron Giant, which finds a way to perfectly balance all of these aspects to create a true animated hidden gem. The way that the film blends the classic energy and set pieces of American 50s suburbia with the sci-fi trends of the era paralleling the Red Scare and McCarthyism is masterful in execution. It all comes together in a highly emotional and moving ending to create what is easily one of the best animated movies of all time. – Robert Lee

18 ‘Inside Out’ (2015)

IMDb Rating: 8.1/10

Diving deep into the inner workings of the mind, Inside Out is a Pixar film that introduces audiences to 11-year-old Riley (Kaitlyn Dias) and the emotions that drive her – Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black), Fear (Bill Hader), and Disgust (Mindy Kaling). When Riley’s family moves to a new city, her emotions go haywire, forcing them to reevaluate and come to a better understanding of their own role in Riley’s life.

The premise itself makes the movie worth watching, and it pulls off its representation of emotions so well. As fans have come to expect from Pixar movies, there’s a level of emotional depth that adds complexity to the main characters (especially the emotions). The animated film is an accurate depiction of mental health and the way it can shift during major changes or in the process of growing up. Especially with the massively anticipated sequel on the way, there’s no better time than the present to check out one of Pixar’s most beloved films.

17 ‘Ratatouille’ (2007)

IMDb Rating: 8.1/10

Ratatouille is a groundbreaking Pixar movie set in the visually stunning streets of Paris. There, viewers are introduced to Remy, a rat with an unusually refined palate and an even stranger talent for cooking, which both soon combine to fuel his dream to become a chef. Soon, he forges a partnership with Linguini, a kitchen apprentice who could use some help to climb the ranks. The duo eventually find their footing and succeed in becoming one of the greatest chefs that Paris has to offer.

On top of being a clear love letter to the art of cooking and food, Ratatouille’s wonderfully weird story is also an ode to passion and the act of pursuing one’s dreams, no matter how wild. Its famous quote – “anyone can cook” – is a strong message and reminder to follow one’s own path, just as Remy does. This simple yet powerful message has helped the film become a fan favorite title of Pixar’s since its release, enchanting and inspiring people worldwide.

16 ‘Klaus’ (2019)

IMDb Rating: 8.2/10

One of the highest-rated Netflix original movies of all time, Klaus is a Christmas comedy film unlike any other. Serving as Sergio Pablos‘ directorial debut and immediately recognizable among the streaming giant’s selection of cartoon movies, Klaus follows the heartwarming tale of the initially spoiled and entitled Jesper (voiced by Jason Schwartzman), who’s sent to a remote Arctic island where the lack of Christmas cheer makes his job difficult. When he meets the titular reclusive toymaker (voiced by J. K. Simmons), the two team up to change their community.

With its strikingly beautiful visuals and animation style perfectly complementing its heartfelt story, it’s easy to see why this film has become a Christmastime favorite. The film was able to blend together 3D animation and 2D animation in order to make a perfect best-of-both-worlds experience that makes the most out of modern technology. It’s overall a fantastic movie that highlights the joy of giving and the magic of the holiday season.

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15 ‘Demon Slayer the Movie: Mugen Train’ (2020)

IMDb Rating: 8.2/10

When discussing the best animated movies, it’s important not to overlook anime films, and Demon Slayer the Movie: Mugen Train is one such masterpiece that deserves attention. Serving as a capstone to the enthralling saga of the Demon Slayer series, the cinematic gem follows the exploits of the young demon slayer, Tanjiro Kamado, and his fearless friends as they embark on a perilous mission aboard the titular train. While on the train, they end up facing off against a number of dangerous demons in a battle with high stakes and death around every corner.

Audiences can expect to be immediately absorbed by the film’s story, which revolves around the mysterious disappearances of numerous passengers on the train. It also helps that it’s a visual spectacle, complete with flawlessly dynamic fight scenes. Fans of the series likely already know that it seamlessly extends the story of the anime show while also being a great standalone movie.

Watch on Funimation

14 ‘Finding Nemo’ (2003)

IMDb Rating: 8.2/10

A Pixar classic that needs no introduction, Finding Nemo is centered on the epic adventure that a cynical clownfish named Marlin (Albert Brooks) embarks on after his son Nemo (Alexander Gould) is captured by humans and taken to Sydney. Along the way, Marlin meets zany characters like Dory (Ellen DeGeneres), some peculiar sharks, friendly sea turtles, and more. At the same time, Nemo is having his own adventures and mischief with a collection of fish that he meets in a dentist’s office fish tank.

Its relatable and often funny characters help make its family-focused story more engrossing, making it among the most rewatchable Pixar films ever made. The animated film has something to offer viewers of all ages, as more mature audiences who are re-watching this movie years down the line may appreciate a fresh look at Marlin’s perspective (and surprisingly tragic backstory). While the film would receive a sequel 13 years later in Finding Dory, it doesn’t hold a candle to the original Pixar classic.

13 ‘Howl’s Moving Castle’ (2004)

IMDb Rating: 8.2/10

Howl’s Moving Castle tells the story of Sophie (voiced by Emily Mortimer), a young hatmaker who is transformed into an old lady after an encounter with a wicked witch. To be able to break the curse, Sophie looks for the elusive wizard known as Howl (voiced by Christian Bale) and his mystical moving castle. Their adventures have them traveling to a wide variety of mystical and magical worlds, all while they continue to bond and become the true family that Sophie had never had.

A fan-favorite Studio Ghibli movie, Howl’s Moving Castle introduced iconic characters like Calcifer (voiced by Billy Crystal) and weaves a fantastical tale of magic, romance, and war. It all comes together to deliver a strong anti-war message, while also highlighting feminist themes around embracing old age and empowerment. The fantastic story and the odd, but lovable characters make Howl’s Moving Castle a renowned animation.

12 ‘Toy Story 3’ (2010)

IMDb Rating: 8.3/10

There’s a snake in my boot! The third installment to the beloved Toy Story franchise sees the toy’s owner, Andy (John Morris), all grown up and ready to head off to college. With no one to play with them, the toys, wallow away in isolation until they are accidentally donated to a daycare center and forced to be played with by toddlers. As they attempt to find meaning and refuge in their new lives, they soon find that the daycare is far from the toy paradise that they were lead to believe.

Toy Story 3 brings the whole gang back with Woody (Tom Hanks) and Buzz (Tim Allen) at the forefront, having to deal with all the toys’ future. As funny as it is surprisingly melancholic and emotional, this silly animated movie about plastic toys turns out to be a deeply effective film that explores the themes of loss, love, and moving on. The film acted as the then-perfect finale and final chapter for some of the most beloved and legendary animated characters of all time.

11 ‘Princess Mononoke’ (1997)

IMDb Rating: 8.3/10

Hayao Miyazaki is a master storyteller who has brought some of the most beautifully animated and deeply complex worlds to life over several decades, and Princess Mononoke is one of his best. When a young boy from a village seeks out a cure for a terrible curse, he is thrust into a war between the forest gods and a greedy mining colony. He now much choose between San, the young woman raised by wolves fighting for the forest, and Lady Eboshi, a woman attempting to destroy the forest for the betterment of her tribe and humanity as a whole.

Filled with fantastical elements, Princess Mononoke is an epic tale about nature and humans’ wicked desire to control and ultimately destroy it. The world of Princess Mononoke is easily one of the most dynamic and enthralling in all of animation, brimming with life, character, and powerful themes that still resonate decades later. It is a wonderfully drawn film with incredible visuals and is filled with interesting, fully-realized characters that are some of the best that animation has to offer.

10 ‘Up’ (2009)

IMDb Rating: 8.3/10

Up follows the touching story of the elderly widower Carl Fredricksen, who goes on an adventure across the South American wilderness to fulfill a promise he made to his late wife, Ellie. Overeager Wilderness Explorer Russell and a talking dog, Dug, tag along for the ride on Carl’s house, which is carried through the sky by hundreds of balloons. They soon find themselves facing off against a dangerous squadron of dog pilots, as the duo of Carl and Russell embark on the unexpected adventure of a lifetime.

Humorous, visually stunning, and occasionally tear-jerking, the film has all the hallmarks of what makes Pixar movies so successful. It has held up incredibly well and is worth rewatching with family and friends, as young audiences will be entertained by the wild trip and mature audiences will appreciate its message about how it’s never too late to go on an adventure. It’s also hard to deny that the first 15 minutes of Up may just be the greatest individual sequence in animated film history.

9 ‘Toy Story’ (1995)

IMDb Rating: 8.3/10

A Pixar film that forever changed the world of animation, Toy Story is a groundbreaking movie that featured the best the genre had to offer at that time. It’s centered on a cowboy doll called Woody who enjoys being Andy’s favorite toy. When a flashy new arrival, Buzz Lightyear, threatens Woody’s position, chaos ensues that lands the duo far from home. With moving day fast approaching, Woody and Buzz are now against the clock as they have to race back home so that they aren’t left behind.

A timeless classic beloved by numerous generations, 1995’s Toy Story is still one of Pixar’s best animated movies with a high rewatch value. It’s also the award-winning film that spawned a massively successful franchise that’s still active today, with beloved characters returning to fans’ screens in the highly-anticipated Toy Story 5. While a number of these sequels have certainly earned their own spots in animation history, the massive importance that the original has in film history simply cannot be understated.

8 ‘WALL-E’ (2008)

IMDb Rating: 8.4/10

WALL-E is set in the distant future where Earth is nothing more than a massive garbage heap and follows the eponymous robot as he cleans up the waste. Being the only robot that is still functional in this wasteland, WALL-E leads a lonely existence, until one day he meets EVE, a pristine robot from space who he quickly falls in love with. This unexpected robot love soon finds WALL-E traveling across space as an unexpected savior of humanity and the planet earth.

WALL-E is one of the heaviest and best films Pixar has made due to its themes of consumerism, corporate greed, and the destruction of our planet. As dark as the future is presented in the film, WALL-E in the end still remains optimistic, showing that it’s never too late to make a change and heal the planet, one step at a time. Being as poignant with its social critiques as it is heartwarming with its tale of love.

7 ‘Your Name’ (2016)

IMDb Rating: 8.4/10

This beautifully animated anime film follows two teenagers, Taki, a high school boy in Tokyo, and Mitshua, a 17-year-old girl from the countryside, as they become mysteriously linked to one another and begin switching their bodies. Both are dissatisfied with their lives and wish for a change, now forced to attempt to communicate with each other and shift their lives to fit their predicament. As time goes on, they begin to grow closer with one another and eventually become friends.

The film is an emotional, magical, romantic tale that expertly blends fantasy and realism. With its stunning animation and themes of love, youth, and destiny, Your Name delivers a fresh, thought-provoking tale of two star-crossed individuals growing up. The film made massive waves upon its release, becoming one of the most successful anime films of all time, and enchanting audiences worldwide in a way that very few anime films have been able to do.

6 ‘Coco’ (2017)

IMDb Rating: 8.4/10

Aspiring young musician Miguel wants nothing more than to play the guitar, but due to his family’s ancestral ban on music, he is forced to hide his secret talent. Desperate to become a musician like his idol, his great-great-grandfather, Ernesto de la Cruz, Miguel winds up in the colorful, chaotic world of the Land of the Dead. Miguel, along with his trusty companion Dante, traverses the magical afterworld in search of his idol and winds up uncovering a terrible secret about Miguel’s family.

Coco is a fun, colorful, animated film filled with humor and wonderful music for the whole family to enjoy. Especially after Pixar’s efforts in the 2010s were incredibly hit or miss in the eyes of fans, Coco showed that the studio was still capable of bringing to life highly creative and incredibly emotional stories. The film does justice to Mexican culture in a way few animated films have been able to accomplish and stands out as one of Pixar’s greatest films.

5 ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’ (2018)

IMDb Rating: 8.4/10

In a spectacular debut for the first on-screen appearance of Miles Morales as Spider-Man, he must make sense of his new powers in a world with too many spider-people. Warped into Miles’ universe, a cast of otherworldly versions of Spidey help the young wall-crawler come into his own while trying to find their way back home. It soon enough becomes a race against time against some of the wall crawler’s greatest villains before Miles’s universe is destroyed.

Into the Spider-Verse‘s animation is outstanding, completely revolutionizing and changing the medium of computer animation in film in the process. It plays like a living comic book, bringing some of the most stunning animation ever seen before on the big screen. Mixed with an awesome soundtrack and plenty of lovable spider-powered characters, Into the Spider-Verse is a perfect animated addition to the Spider-Man universe.

Watch on Fubo

4 ‘Grave of the Fireflies’ (1988)

IMDb Rating: 8.5/10

Grave of the Fireflies is another film that proves animation isn’t just for kids. Its heavy themes and tale of survival during the final months of World War II in Japan are heartbreaking. Set in Kobe, Japan, the story follows two siblings, Seita and Setsuko, as they desperately try to survive the end of the war. Especially for one of Ghibli’s earliest works, the film knocks it out of the park in every conceivable way, with pitch-perfect execution of its themes, messages, and emotional moments.

Filled with the atrocities of war and personal tragedies Grave of the Fireflies is an eye-opening tale of love, loss, and perseverance. It does not shy away from the effects of war and does nothing to glamorize it, instead focusing on the repercussions of such large-scale attacks between groups of humans and society’s failure to protect its own people in such tragedy. Few animated films are as powerful as Grave of the Fireflies, which continues to be a powerful and timeless work of art.

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3 ‘The Lion King’ (1994)

IMDb Rating: 8.5/10

Disney’s The Lion King is one of the best animated movies of all time. Based on Shakespeare‘s Hamlet, The Lion King follows young cub, Simba, who just can’t wait to be a great King like his father, Mufasa, but his evil uncle, Scar, has ambitions of his own for the coveted throne and will do anything to take it. Ever since its release, the film has surmounted a powerful legacy as not only one of Disney’s best films, but one of the greatest 2D animated movies of all time.

Filled with a colorful cast of iconic characters, a memorable Disney soundtrack and musical numbers, and themes taken right from Shakespeare, The Lion King is Disney at its best. Creating a beautiful world of destiny, betrayal, and responsibility, this animated masterpiece is one of the best. The film acts as the true culmination of everything that the 20th century of animation was building towards, creating a one-in-a-lifetime cinematic achievement that still holds up 30 years later.