The 10 Best Animated Films of 2009

2009 was a great year for animated films, and now all of them have finally made it to DVD release, thus allowing me to finish off those few odd foreign titles that I'd been waiting for (because my tragic flaw is that I'm a completist), so I can finally present my top ten of the best animated films of last year. The fact that there were more than ten films to seriously consider, and that traditional, CGI, and stop-motion films could all be represented, made me happier than you can imagine.

10. "A Town Called Panic" – This Belgian stop-motion film stars the plastic figurines of a Horse, a Native American Chief, and a Cowboy, who have a series of surreal adventures. Think of Cartoon Network's "Robot Chicken," but without the pop culture references and celebrity voices, and you have something approaching the feel of "A Town Called Panic." Of all the animated films released this year, this is definitely the most unique and unexpectedly enjoyable. The animation is cheap, the story is completely illogical, and the characters are clearly all insane. And it's marvelous.

9. "The Secret of Kells" – a Celtic-themed cartoon, with lovely, stylized visuals, that tells the story of a little boy named Brendan, who becomes instrumental in the creation of the famous illuminated manuscript, the Book of Kells. This is the first full-length feature from Irish animation studio Cartoon Saloon, best known up until now for their television work. After picking up a surprise Oscar nomination last year, the film got plenty of press, but I don't think it's quite as good as its supporters make it out to be. Both the animation and story are promising, but I don't think they're quite at the same level as some of the others on this list.

8. "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" – One of the most pleasant surprises of last summer was this delightfully silly cartoon comedy from Sony Pictures Animation, about a town with very peculiar weather. As a fan of the original picture book I was skeptical about the new additions to the story, like the wide-eyed young scientist who creates the food storms with a brilliant invention that predictably ends up running amok. But the humor and the heart were there, and I can't deny any film that has Mr. T playing the town cop – and sporting a reverse mohawk!

7. "The Princess and the Frog" – Disney's return to traditional animation, a category it dominated for decades, was a wonderful piece of nostalgia that finally gave little African-American girls a princess of their very own. Sure it follows a standard formula, complete with the animal sidekicks and song numbers, but it's a formula that works. My favorite moments all involved the villain of the piece, Doctor Facilier, and Ray the firefly, a character I'd initially written off because of his exaggerated design, but wound up falling in love with. I sincerely hope that the studio won't leave us again soon.

6. "Wonder Woman" – Warner Brothers' DC Comics direct-to-video animated films have been consistently entertaining, but I think this may be the best of them. Wonder Woman has a notoriously difficult origin story, but the animators nailed it this time. They successfully bring the character into the modern era, and let her tackle some of the contradictions of being a modern woman, while also keeping true to her classic mythological roots. I'm actually a little disappointed that this isn't the pilot for a full television series. If a live action "Wonder Woman" film must be made, the filmmakers should seriously consider using this one as a template.

5. "Fantastic Mr. Fox" – Wes Anderson directed an animated film? Can he do that? Well yes, he can, and it's a very good one. Using a Roald Dahl children's book as his starting point, Anderson combines intentionally retro-style stop motion animation, well-cast celebrity voice actors, and a lot of his usual trademark hipsterisms into a very thoughtful, sweet little movie. Sure, the hero is a talking fox with criminal tendencies, but otherwise the story is a familiar one, about dysfunctional families and loyal friends. And it turns out that animation is a great medium for Anderson's very particular visual sense.

4. "Up" – I like the first ten minutes of "Up" more than I like the rest of the film, and it's really just those ten minutes which I think people will remember in a decade or two. The other eighty minutes are a lot of fun, technically immaculate, and certainly up to the usual PIXAR standard for storytelling, humor, and everything else, but an awful lot of it was also pretty familiar. "Up" felt like leftover odds and ends of other films, tacked on to the touching story of an old man and his house – albeit all the bits were good. I just couldn't help thinking the film would have been much better as a short or a featurette.

3. "Coraline" - The glut of 3D films this year can be blamed in part on the achievements of "Coraline," which used them to amazing effect last spring to bring its chilling Other-world to life. A stop-motion feature from "Nightmare Before Christmas" director Henry Selick, this is one of the few animated children's films that could accurately be classified as a horror picture. That alone makes it more daring and interesting than most of the other animated films released last year. But the execution is what seals the deal, as it pits the young heroine against some of the most terrifying nightmare creatures ever animated: button-eyed doppelgangers of her own parents.

2. "Mary and Max" – This Australian gem is easily overlooked, as it didn't get much attention when it was released in the US, and aims for a more mature audience than the usual PIXAR film. Using crude stop-motion animation, it chronicles the pen-pal friendship of two kindred spirits, a little girl in Australia named Mary and a lonely old man in New York named Max. The story takes some dark turns as the years go by and Mary grows up, but it's never anything less than honest and candid and true. I really hope more viewers discover "Mary and Max," because it's one that deserves to be seen.

1. "Ponyo" – This is one of the strangest films Hayao Miyazaki has ever made, and that's saying something. The imagery that he employs for "Ponyo," however, is stunning stuff. The shots of Ponyo the goldfish-girl running on the tops of ocean waves, Sosuke's toy boat traveling through the flooded town, and the underwater wonderland of Ponyo's home are among my favorite things Miyazaki has ever done. This is a film aimed at a younger audience, which perhaps left some fans cold, but it's also one of Miyazaki's happiest and most charming pictures in years, and I hope to see more like it before he really does retire for good.