Animation isn’t a genre: It’s an entirely unique medium unto itself. It has produced several of the greatest, most creative, and most artistically daring films of all time, many of them as close to perfection as cinema can possibly hope to come. Many of those near-perfect animated masterpieces, however, inevitably end up slipping under most people’s radars.
Of course, saying that no one remembers these movies is a bit of an exaggeration for dramatic effect’s sake. They’re gems from over the years that come from all over the globe, and as such, it’s logical that there will naturally be someone out there with fond memories of them. But one can very safely say that the mainstream public has definitely forgotten about them, and that’s a shame. They’re among the best animated films ever made.
10
‘In This Corner of the World’ (2016)
The 2010s have seen the release of several great anime feature films, and In This Corner of the World is one of the best. It’s one of those war films with excellent Rotten Tomatoes scores that you likely haven’t heard of anyway, and that shouldn’t be the case. In it, a spirited young woman is married off to a man she barely knows, as she combats the daily struggles of living in Hiroshima during World War II.
Based on Fumiyo Kōno‘s manga of the same name, this beautifully hand-drawn masterwork contrasts the beautiful nature and culture of ’40s Japan with the horrors of the war. This contrast never feels cheap or emotionally manipulative. Instead, In This Corner of the World employs spellbinding visuals and genuine bits of emotion to tell one of the most moving WWII stories that anime has ever housed.
9
‘The Elm-Chanted Forest’ (1986)
The Yugoslav musical The Elm-Chanted Forest, also known in the U.S. as Fantasy Forest, was the very first Yugoslav animated feature ever produced. What a debut it was. It tells the story of a painter who can talk to the creatures of an enchanted forest, and who must help them stop the evil Cactus King in his attempt to build an army of magical living weapons and machines.
Eastern European animation in general has been criminally underappreciated by the mainstream for forever, and films like this one show why that’s such a shame. It’s an exquisitely bizarre little movie that probably feels a little too much like an acid trip to be appropriate for younger kids; but older animation fans ought to check it out at some point, as it’s free to stream on YouTube.
8
‘Havoc in Heaven’ (1961)
While Japanese animation has been hugely popular throughout the entire world for many years, Chinese animation is another national animation industry that has gone terribly underappreciated over the decades. Those looking for a great, classic introduction into Chinese animation might want to check out Havoc in Heaven, also known as The Monkey King and The Monkey King: Uproar in Heaven. It’s about Sun Wukong, the King of the Monkeys, who sets off on his first adventure to gain a worthy weapon.
It’s one of those ’60s classics that just keep getting better with time, created right at the height of the Chinese animation industry. It’s visually amazing, full of great music, packed with exciting action scenes, and just a terrific blast of fun overall from start to finish. There are more adaptations of the 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to the West than any one person can count, but this one’s easily among the best.
7
‘Treasure Island’ (1986–1988)
The world of movies made for television is one that should never be ignored, particularly when looking for excellent animated films that have been forgotten by time. There are many animated films that are among the best made-for-TV movies of their respective era, and the Soviet adventure comedy Treasure Island, based on Robert Louis Stevenson‘s seminal book, is no exception.
The first part of the movie, Captain Flint’s Map, aired in 1986; the second, Captain Flint’s Treasure, aired in 1988. Subsequent airings have always treated it as a single film, however—and it’s a damn good one, too. It’s funny, visually timeless, full of great music and sound design, and sprinkled with some live-action pirate segments that are irresistibly fun, it’s one of the great forgotten animated gems of the ’80s—though people with very niche knowledge of the history of meme culture very much might be familiar with it.
The field of animated documentaries is another one that shouldn’t be ignored when talking about the best forgotten animated films of all time, and for proof, one needn’t look much further than Netflix’s The Remarkable Life of Ibelin. It’s about Norwegian gamer Mats Steen, who died of degenerative muscular disease at the age of 25. While mourning what they thought had been a lonely life, they started receiving messages from online friends of Mats’.
It’s one of the best documentaries on Netflix, a heartfelt love letter to both Steen himself and the online gamer community. Poignant, constantly life-affirming, and full of surprises, it’s one of the most unique documentaries from the 2020s so far. It’s a very recent movie, so cinephiles shouldn’t allow it to fall into oblivion as the years pass.
5
‘The Little Fox’ (1981)
Hungary is a country that has historically had one of the greatest and most groundbreaking animation industries on the planet, and as such, it’s a shame that its animated movies aren’t more often appreciated by the mainstream. Those looking for a gateway needn’t look further than The Little Fox, known in Hungary as Vuk, the tale of a red fox kit who ventures away from his family’s den and, upon his return, finds it empty.
It can also be a bit dark, but never enough to make it anything else than an ideal watch for the whole family.
It’s an irresistibly charming, nostalgia-filled, family-friendly adventure that displays all of Hungarian animation’s biggest strengths in their full splendor. It can also be a bit dark, but never enough to make it anything else than an ideal watch for the whole family. It’s emotional, it’s colorful, and it’s an awful lot of fun.
4
‘Cat City’ (1986)
Béla Ternovszky‘s Cat City is one of the coolest, yet most underrated animated cult classics of the ’80s. This adult sci-fi comedy is a parody of several famous films, such as the James Bond series. In it, a rodent agent delivers plans to save mice from a feline crime syndicate dedicated to eradicating his kind. As far as adult animated movie masterpieces go, it doesn’t get much better than this.
The colorful visuals pop right off the screen, and they complement the movie’s satirical tone wonderfully. It may just be the greatest Hungarian animated movie of all time, if not even one of the best animated movies of the 20th century overall. Fun, funny, and unapologetically bizarre at times, it’s a gem that everyone who loves animation should check out at least once in their lives.
3
‘The Pinchcliffe Grand Prix’ (1975)
Based on characters from a series of books by Norwegian cartoonist and author Kjell Aukrust, the Norwegian stop-motion masterpiece The Pinchcliffe Grand Prix is an absolute must-see. It follows Reodor Felgen, who decides that he’ll enter a car race to defeat his former friend, who has stolen his plans for a car.
What ensues is one of the most creative, visually dazzling, and irresistibly entertaining animated films ever created. It’s an absolutely mesmerizing blast of fun with a genuinely compelling story, endearing characters, and some of the most striking sets and props of any stop-motion movie of the era. Anyone who loves animation owes it to themselves to watch The Pinchcliffe Grand Prix, and owes it to the film to make sure that more people discover it.
2
‘Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama’ (1993)
One of the highest-rated animated films of all time on IMDb, Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama is an anime film co-produced by Japan and India, based on the Indian epic of the same name. It’s one of the greatest ’90s anime movies, an undeniable masterpiece with exquisitely fast pacing and visuals that, though a bit dated, nevertheless still look quite okay for their age.
But the visuals aren’t what you come to Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama for: It’s the spectacle of the story being told, and there’s very little room to complain there—if any at all. Aside from being a fantastic adaptation of its source material, the movie is epic, sprawling, and emotionally riveting. It’s not exactly a “hidden” gem among more niche cinephile circles, but mainstream audiences have been unaware of its greatness for years.
1
‘The Adventures of Prince Achmed’ (1926)
Calling The Adventures of Prince Achmed “forgotten” is definitely a bit of a stretch, but a forgivable one. The reason why it’s a forgivable stretch is that many people, mistakenly, still think that Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs from 1937 is the oldest animated feature film of all time. That isn’t the case at all. The first animated feature in history is widely accepted to have been the 1917 Argentine picture The Apostle, though that’s considered lost media nowadays. The oldest surviving animated feature of all time is the 1926 German film The Adventures of Prince Achmed.
It’s also one of the best fantasy movies of the last 100 years, which is no small achievement. Based on elements from several One Thousand and One Nights stories, the film uses a silhouette animation technique invented by director Lotte Reiniger that has aged like fine wine. Its story is also an absolute delight, making it as fun for the whole family today as it surely must have been a century ago. Few movies were ever this perfectly tailor-made for the medium of silent cinema.
Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama
- Release Date
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November 9, 2001
- Runtime
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135 Minutes
- Director
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Ram Mohan, Yûgô Sakô, Koichi Sasaki
- Writers
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Ram Mohan, Yûgô Sakô, Koichi Sasaki, Hiroshi Onogi, Rani Burra, Narendra Sharma
Cast
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Nikhil Kapoor
Ram (Voice) (English)
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Arun Govil
Sita (Voice) (English)
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Raell Padamsee
Ravan (Voice) (English)
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Namrata Sawney
Lakshman (Voice) (English)