2021 was, as far as years go, not the best.
But it was an exemplary year for animation, an artform that broadened the kind of stories it told and embraced new aesthetic tools to tell those stories. 2021 brought us jaw-dropping works in traditional animation, computer animation, and stop-motion animation, and within those formats embraced different styles and contours. The result was a whole bunch of movies, TV shows and shorts that were endlessly surprising and just as inspiring.
Here is our list of the very best animation from 2021, works that proved that limitless creativity and powerful new technology can create works of art that we could only have dreamed about a short time ago. Imagine what 2022 will bring.
“Amphibia”
For the third season of the Disney Channel series “Amphibia,” the show about a human girl who is transported to a mythical world populated by andromorphic frogs was flipped inside out. After the events of the Season 2 finale, Anne (Brenda Song) was joined by the amphibious Plantars (Justin Felbinger, Amanda Leighton, Bill Farmer) in modern day Los Angeles. As imagined, there are just as many – if not more – hijinks, like an early favorite that involved the frogs going to (and falling in love with) the local mall. Creator Matt Braly’s series is warmhearted and constantly inventive, with a surprisingly vast mythology that only deepens with each passing season. If you haven’t watched “Amphibia” yet, it’s never too late to start – all the episodes to date are currently available on Disney+.
“Belle”
Filmmaker Mamoru Hosoda’s latest wonder is a fantastical retelling of “Beauty and the Beast” set largely in a virtual world known as U. Suzu is a young girl whose mother died tragically when she was younger and who now retreats into a vast, computer-generated landscape, where she blossoms as a singer named Bell. Of course, soon she encounters a creature known as the Dragon (who is very much “the beast” in this scenario) and her worlds (both virtual and IRL) are upended.
Mamoru recruited veteran Disney animators Jim Kim and Michael Camacho to design the characters and hired Irish studio Cartoon Saloon (most recently of “Wolfwalkers” fame) to do background work for the U. But as visually imaginative as “Belle” can get (and it can get pretty wild), the most striking thing about the film is its empathy. This is a movie set in a place where you can be whoever you want, but the story is really about loving who you really are.
“Centaurworld”
Megan Nicole Dong’s Netflix animated series pivots around an ingenious premise: a warhorse (voiced by Kimiko Glenn) is transported from a dangerous, war-ravaged battlefield (with shades of Disney’s animated “Mulan”) to a trippy, sunshine-y world, populated by centaur characters that range from the adorable to the absolutely deranged. The stylistic clash, between gritty action and “My Little Pony”-style comedy, is just one of the joys of “Centaurworld,” which fearlessly balances these tonal shifts in sometimes startling ways. Oh, and before we forget, it’s also a full-blown musical with songs by Toby Chu, who did the music for Pixar’s short film “Bao.” The first season premiered earlier this year with a second season debuting in December.
“City of Ghosts”
One of the most imaginative animated series to debut this year, Netflix’s “City of Ghosts” follows the Ghost Club, a group of little kids who visit various neighborhoods in Los Angeles and communicate with the ghosts of people who lived once there. It’s both a love letter to the city and a gently surreal kids show where ghosts aren’t scary or threatening but merely lost (and occasionally annoying). The animation, produced by TeamTO, is unlike anything you’ve ever seen (or more importantly felt) before, oscillating between faux documentary, daytime kids programming and serious history show with ease. Credit to creator Elizabeth Ito for crafting one of the most special new shows of 2021, animated or otherwise.
“Dug Days”
This series of animated shorts serve as a pseudo-sequel to Pete Docter’s 2009 Pixar film “Up,” which at the time was only the second animated feature ever nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. And while it could have been a crass cash-grab, more grist for Disney+’s content mill, “Dug Days” turned out to be something altogether more moving and unique. Written and directed by “Up” co-director (and one of Pixar’s secret weapons) Bob Peterson, the stories of talking dog Dug and his elderly companion Carl (Ed Anser, reprising his “Up” character for one of his final performances) were consistently hilarious and deeply moving. The final episode in particular is deeply resonant, especially considering that Asner passed a few days before the episodes debuted. If you were skeptical or skipped “Dug Days” for some reason, consider this your suggestion to correct that.
“Encanto”
Disney’s 60th animated feature is also one of its very best – the tale of a family in Colombia, each of whom is given a magical gift. Well, everyone except Mirabel (Stephanie Beatriz), who begins to have unsettling visions of her family and the gifts being lost forever. This creates an even greater rift between her and her family, but instead of giving up, she vows to solve the mystery and keep the family whole.
“Encanto” directors Jared Bush and Byron Howard create a warm, lush environment and make each family member distinct and identifiable, and the musical numbers, featuring songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda, are wild and imaginative. (Good luck getting “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” out of your head.) Now streaming on Disney+ for all subscribers, “Encanto” feels like a new animated Disney classic.
“Far from the Tree”
In addition to two new Disney animated features, there were also a pair of exemplary theatrical animated shorts from the studio this year – “Us Again” and “Far from the Tree.” The latter investigates intergenerational trauma via the story of an adult raccoon and a baby raccoon, who venture out of the forest and onto the waterline for food. Beautifully stylized in a kind of 2D/3D hybrid aesthetic, it is deeply affecting and heralds the emergence of a bold new voice at Disney animation in Natalie Nourigat, whose short “Exchange Student” was a highlight of the initial Short Circuit program at the studio.
“Flee”
The prospect of an animated documentary is always dicey and takes a fair deal of finesse to pull off (the last one that garnered this much attention was 2008’s “Waltz with Bashir”), but Neon’s “Flee” is a total knockout. It charts the experience of Amin, a refugee who flees from Afghanistan to Denmark as a teen. Making things even more complicated: his sexuality, which he has to hide in order to survive. (The documentary is set on the eve of his marriage to his partner.)
Reenactments and also dramatizations of the actual filming process (director Jonas Poher Rasmussen occasionally shows up) make the experience hit even harder. But it’s not a total bummer, as “Flee” also features one of the most wipe-away-tears uplifting moment in cinema this year, set to a deep cut Daft Punk favorite no less. This Oscar hopeful is utterly miraculous.
“The Ghost and Molly McGee”
Originally pitched 14 years ago, Bill Motz and Bob Roth’s offbeat animated series “The Ghost and Molly McGee” finally arrived on the Disney Channel in 2021. The show follows the titular Molly McGee (Ashly Burch), an upbeat tween who moves into a haunted house and finds herself cursed by Scratch (Dana Snyder), a curmudgeonly ghost. Overflowing with charm, “The Ghost and Molly McGee” excels largely due to the conviction of its voice actors (in the ghost world, Scratch is something of a loser, and all the ghosts that put him down are a scream) and the fluidity of its animation (courtesy of Mercury Filmworks). Also, the songs are really wonderful too. The episodes are now on Disney+, so even if you’ve cut the cord, you can enjoy all that “The Ghost and Molly McGee” has to offer.
“Kid Cosmic”
Any new animated series created by the great Craig McCracken, especially after his woefully underappreciated Disney series “Wander Over Yonder” (which is, mercifully, available on Disney+) would automatically be an event. But “Kid Cosmic,” streaming on Netflix, still managed to surprise. It’s the tale of a backwoods kid simply named Kid who discovers a set of cosmic rings, not unlike the ones Thanos lusted over in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Each ring gives him and his gang of friends a special ability (duplication, flight, etc.) as they fend off some intergalactic meanies looking to retrieve them.
The second season, released a few months after the first, had an entirely new setting and subtitle (“The Intergalactic Truckstop!”) and focused on one of the supporting characters instead of Kid. (Also: this time, instead of rural New Mexico, it was set in outer space.) The art style is a deliberate throwback, the animation (by Mercury Filmworks) seamless, with the storytelling often unafraid to tackle serious themes or go to daker-than-expected places. It’s a triumph, and a third and final season is coming in 2022.
“Love, Death and Robots” Season 2
Proof that robots can evolve. The first season of the Netflix animated anthology series “Love, Death, and Robots,” released in 2019, was an attempt by David Fincher and Tim Miller to get some of their ideas they’d collected for a “Heavy Metal” reboot off the ground. The results were frequently exciting and also pretty juvenile. For the second season, they enlisted the tremendously talented Jennifer Yuh Nelson to help steer the ship, who managed to keep the immaturity to a minimum while also maintaining the anthology’s hard-R flavor. (She also directed the “Blade Runner”-y installment “Pop Squad.”) With more variety and more humor, season two of “Love, Death and Robots” excelled (“Automated Customer Service” is like an R-rated “Mitchells vs. the Machines,” and “All Through the House” should become a new Christmas favorite).
“Luca”
Pixar’s straight-to-Disney+ feature is another all-out classic – an unexpected tale of adolescence, sea monsters, and gelato on the Italian coast. For some reason the argument has been made, somehow, that because the film’s storyline, about a pair of sea monsters who run away to a human town, is simpler than some of the other Pixar favorites (most recently “Soul,” which tackled key philosophical quandaries and took place between the living and great beyond) that it is somehow “lesser” in Pixar’s ouevre. But “Luca” is just as sophisticated as any of the animation studio’s other classics, with an outstanding art style that was clearly influenced by Hayao Miyazaki (specifically his early series “Future Boy Conan”) and Italian neo-realism (the story’s emotional core is unimpeachable). Director Enrico Casarosa fearlessly committed to a world free of overtly complicated explanations or deep mythologies (things that perhaps would have been a “must” in the previous John Lasseter era), instead always erring on the side of what makes the most sense or what is the most truthful on an emotional level. The results are nothing short of spectacular.
“Maya and the Three”
Jorge R. Gutiérrez (“The Book of Life”) is one of the most exciting, most singular voices in modern animation. So when he was given carte blanche to do a nine-part epic for Netflix, you knew you were in for something good. How good remained to be seen. But “Maya and the Three” is a terrific achievement. It’s the story of a young warrior (Zoe Saldaña) who assembles a team to defend her homeland, and while that might seem pat, Gutiérrez layers on culturally specific mythology and a willingness to brutally kill characters, creating something wholly original and deeply moving. (Don’t get too attached to the colorful characters; let’s just say that will not be a season two.)
With an art style all his own (one that seems to be diametrically opposed to the clean lines and smooth angles of computer animation), he has created something beautiful, whimsical, rewarding and very, very dark.
“The Mitchells vs. the Machines”
There was no greater surprise in 2021 than “The Mitchells vs. the Machines,” a movie that had a sort of anonymous title when it was at Sony Pictures (“Connected”), then made the move to Netflix fully intact. Directed and co-written by Mike Rianda, a veteran of Disney’s “Gravity Falls,” “The Mitchells vs. the Machines” had a typical American family (Danny McBride, Maya Rudolph, Abbi Jacobson) travel across country amid a robot apocalypse. And it could not have been funnier or more heartfelt. Of course, this being Sony Pictures Animation and producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller, the visuals in the movie are completely next level, with a look that oftentimes feels just as groundbreaking as what was achieved on Lord and Miller’s other recent Sony Pictures animated project, “Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse.”
Of course, if it was just cool-looking, it wouldn’t matter nearly as much. Thankfully “The Mitchells vs. the Machines” will wring tears out of the most hardened moviegoer. It’s a movie that is so idiosyncratic and touching that it’s amazing it exists at all.
“Olaf Presents”
The premise for “Olaf Presents” is simple: Olaf (once again voiced by the great Josh Gad) returns for a series of Disney+ shorts that has him recounting other Disney movies in a fashion similar to what he did in “Frozen II.” (If you’d forgotten, he told the story of the first “Frozen” in the most Olaf way possible.) While this could be viewed as a cynical “brand extension,” Gad and animator Hyrum Osmond manage to create something unique and special – a celebration of Disney’s animated output that never feels too cloying or sentimental, and a satire that never bites too hard. It’s walking the finest of lines and it’ll leave you crying with laughter (and also probably wanting to watch “Aladdin” again).
“Raya and the Last Dragon”
Disney’s first animated feature of 2021 (released last spring as a hybrid Disney+ Premier Access/theatrical title) is a go-for-broke adventure set in a mythical version of Southeast Asia. “Raya and the Last Dragon” weaves an admirably dense mythological tale of an ancient evil and the dragons that were sworn to protect the human tribes from their advances, sprinkling in actual folkloric elements and creatures but creating a fresh, modern-influenced vibe all its own. (Think “Aladdin” with its of-the-minute pop culture references and ancient setting.)
This is a movie that survived a fairly contentious production that saw much of its senior leadership swapped out for other filmmakers late in the process, that is (incredibly) about the power of communication and trust. This takes on an additional dimension when you factor in that it was produced largely during the pandemic, with the animators and technicians working from home. Not that the movie is a bummer; far from it. It’s an invigorating adventure full of twists and turns, filled with colorful characters and creatures.
“Robin Robin”
Did you think that this list wouldn’t have some stop-motion representation? Because Aardman Animation, the studio behind Wallace and Gromit and Shaun the Sheep, returned this year with their first animated musical – the Christmas tale “Robin Robin.” Like “Luca,” “Robin Robin” has a central allegory that be utilized by various marginalized groups but focuses on a Robin that has been raised by a mouse family who looks to discover what they are truly made of. It’s beautiful and touching, with toe-tapping musical numbers and a unique, arts-and-crafts-inspired aesthetic that makes everything feel like it was made of yarn and wool. Also Gillian Anderson plays an evil cat.
“Star Wars Visions”
While the animated side of the “Star Wars” galaxy is impressive, a series of interlocking, super lengthy sagas overseen largely by Dave Filoni, they are also suffering a same-ness stemming from their uniform animation style and the singular storytelling of Filoni. And along comes “Star Wars: Visions,” which is exactly what we (and the franchise) desperately needed – a collection of animated shorts from different filmmaking teams and different animation studios, streaming on Disney+. And the results were thrilling. The stories ranged from pop musical (“Tatooine Rhapsody”) to a Jedi-filled epic (“The Ninth Jedi”), with stops along the way for a Kurosawa-indebted black-and-white story (“The Duel”) and unhinged, manga-influenced madness (“The Twins”). It couldn’t have been an easy decision for Lucasfilm to go in such extreme directions (especially given their conservatism when dealing with the big screen projects), but “Star Wars: Visions” paid off dividends.
“The Summit of the Gods”
This international co-production (released by Netflix domestically) is a French-language feature based on a manga series written and illustrated by Jiro Taniguchi (and based on a novel by Baku Yumemakura). It follows a Japanese photojournalist as he looks to discover the truth behind a camera supposedly owned by George Mallory that was lost during the explorer’s failed attempt to scale Everest in 1924. As he investigates this mystery he gets drawn into the life of a damaged (both physically and emotionally) climber who is attempting his own impossible feat. Featuring some truly edge-of-your-seat moments, “The Summit of the Gods” is wonderfully animated in a plainspoken (but still outrageously beautiful) style that never disrupts the emotional bedrock. (The last few minutes are particularly devastating.)
“Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans”
2021 was such a great year for animation that “Trollhunters,” a beloved animated series created by Guillermo del Toro that spanned three different series, had a whole spin-off movie released (co-written by del Toro) that combined aspects of all three series and it was barely commented upon. Which is a shame because “Rise of the Titans” was handsomely designed and truly served as the climax for all three shows. You could feel del Toro’s passion for the project – there’s an unexpected level of visual oomph and the screenplay (co-written by Marc Guggenheim and Kevin and Dan Hageman) went to some dark places.
“Marvel’s What If… ?”
Marvel Studios’ first animated series initially seemed like a lark – a collection of stories in which one aspect of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is changed, resulting in an entire alternate timeline full of fascinating peculiarities. But the Disney+ show wound up, via the trailer for “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” to be an essential part of Marvel Studios lore. Among the first season stories (it’s already been renewed for season two, and a spin-off is also being planned) that delighted endlessly were essentially “Risky Business” remade with Thor (Chris Hemsworth), a version of “Captain America” but if Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) got the super serum and, crucially, a look at what would happen if Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) lost touch with his humanity. The animation, which combined computer graphics with hand drawn flourishes, was unique and engrossing.
