Any list of the greatest animated films will start an argument. Taste, nostalgia, and the age you were when you first watched a movie all shape the answer. Still, a few titles keep coming up because of what they achieved, not just how much people love them.
The four below are picked for lasting influence, awards recognition, and the way they changed what animation could do. Check off the ones you’ve watched as you go.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
This is the film that proved animation could carry a full evening in a theater. It premiered in Los Angeles in December 1937 and is widely recognized as the first full length cel animated feature. Many in Hollywood expected it to fail, and the project was nicknamed a folly while it was in production.
It was a huge success, and the Academy took notice. In 1939, Walt Disney received an honorary Oscar for it, presented as one full size statuette along with seven miniature ones. Nearly ninety years later, its hand drawn characters and the way it blended comedy, fear, and song still shape how family films are built.
The Lion King (1994)
Disney’s mid 1990s run reached its peak with this story of a young lion prince, Simba, and the responsibilities he runs from. It drew on themes of succession and grief, which gave it a weight uncommon in family animation at the time. Hans Zimmer wrote the score, and Elton John and Tim Rice supplied the songs.
The film won two Academy Awards, one for Best Original Score and one for Best Original Song. It later became a Broadway musical in 1997, which is still running decades on, and it was remade in 2019 with photorealistic computer imagery. Few animated stories have moved across so many formats.
Toy Story (1995)
Pixar’s first feature, directed by John Lasseter, was the first entirely computer animated feature film. Released in November 1995, it followed a cowboy doll named Woody and a space ranger toy named Buzz Lightyear, voiced by Tom Hanks and Tim Allen. The idea of toys coming to life was simple, but the technology behind it was not.
The Academy gave Lasseter a Special Achievement Award for leading the film, and its screenplay earned a nomination as well. Just as important, it set the direction for the industry, and computer animation soon became the default for major studios. The sequels have kept the franchise going, with Toy Story 4 winning the Best Animated Feature Oscar in 2019.
Spirited Away (2001)
Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli fantasy follows a ten year old girl, Chihiro, who wanders into a spirit world and has to work in a bathhouse to save her parents. It is hand drawn, strange, and quiet in places, and it never talks down to its audience. The film became a landmark in Japan and became the country’s highest grossing release at the time.
Its international reputation is backed by real honors. It won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2002, and in 2003 it won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. It remains the standard example of a non English language animated film reaching a worldwide audience on its own terms.
Where to Start
If you’ve seen only one of these, make it a different one from the last time you watched. Each represents a distinct moment: the birth of the feature length cartoon, Disney at its commercial height, the shift to computer animation, and Japanese hand drawn artistry on the world stage.
Together they cover more than sixty years of animation history, from 1937 to 2001.
