2022 has made it very clear that we are living in a golden age of animation.
The wildly different styles of animation, a wide variety of stories being told and an equally wide array of audiences being targeted (and not just children!), 2022 felt like an adventurous, experimental time for the medium, where even major studios like Pixar and DreamWorks were embracing new techniques and aesthetics. (And 2023 looks even more adventurous!)
Here are the very best animated features of 2022:
10. Strange World
It’s rare for a movie that was only released a few weeks ago to feel unfairly overlooked, but in the case of “Strange World,” it’s the truth. Granted, the movie wasn’t the easiest sell – it is set in a pre-industrial world that becomes technologically complex thanks to a magical vine, only when that vine starts to die it leads to a desperate mission underground. And every time Disney Animation has attempted a Jules Verne-ian adventure movie, it falters at the box office (see also: “Atlantis: The Lost Empire” and “Treasure Planet”). It was also released alongside one of the more horrendously botched marketing campaigns in the studio’s history. And it’s a shame, too, because Don Hall’s movie is smart and warm and full of great designs and big ideas – the whole dying plant thing is a metaphor, you see, for our relationship with our planet – and he introduces an openly queer character in a Disney animated movie and then doesn’t make a big deal about it. Now that “Strange World” is streaming, the audience should conceivably grow. In ten years, young adults will speak enthusiastically about how much “Strange World” meant to them. It’s a delayed reaction, but it’ll come.
“Strange World” is streaming on Disney+.
9. The Bad Guys
2022 was a banner year for DreamWorks Animation with the studio getting its mojo back in a major way. (And the lineup for the next few years suggests that the best is yet to come.) “The Bad Guys” was an unexpected delight, a visually audacious crime movie about a bunch of animal thieves (led by Sam Rockwell’s big bad Mr. Wolf) who try to change their wicked ways. Based on the book series by Aaron Blabey, “The Bad Guys” is charming and offbeat, inspired by Quentin Tarantino movies and Japanese anime (in particular early Hayao Miyazaki series “Sherlock Hound”) and French comic books. If “The Bad Guys” stumbles, it’s in the lack of a true emotional center. It’s oodles of fun and looks very cool but it needed a little bit more feeling. But considering DreamWorks has already deemed “The Bad Guys” its next franchise (there’s a holiday special and TV series on the way and, we’d imagine, eventually a sequel), there’s plenty of time to get that part ironed out.
“The Bad Guys” is streaming on Netflix.
8. Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe
Much better than it had any right to be, “Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe” is also more complicated than at first glance. It’s a sequel to the iconic MTV duo’s lone movie, “Beavis and Butt-Head Do America” (released back in 1996, when Bruce Willis and Demi Moore were still a couple – they both appear in the movie) and also a follow-up to the original series (which ended in 1997; little is ever spoken about the failed 2011 reboot). It also had to introduce a number of new ideas that were then expanded upon during the 2022 series (which aired after the movie on Paramount+ and is also excellent). That’s a lot of ground to cover. And yet directors John Rice and Albert Calleros and original creator Mike Judge (who co-wrote and stars as both of the dumb asses) did it gracefully and hilariously, updated the original series, introducing the boys to modern life and presenting a fairly compelling sci-fi comedy in the process. And, yes, you’ll probably giggle uncontrollably for much of the running time. As you should.
“Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe” is streaming on Paramount+.
7. Wendell & Wild
Henry Selick is back. The director of such stop-motion classics as “The Nightmare Before Christmas” and “James and the Giant Peach” hasn’t had a new movie since 2009’s Oscar-nominated “Coraline.” But thanks to an unlikely team up with Jordan Peele, who co-wrote, produced and stars in “Wendell & Wild,” we have a new Selick movie. And for that we should be thankful. The plot of “Wendell & Wild” is basically a new version of “Beetlejuice,” with a young orphan goth girl communing with some demons (played by Peele and frequent collaborator Keegan Michael-Key) and ending up getting into a lot more trouble than she bargained for. While the plot doesn’t always work, the movie has a strong core with the girl getting another chance at seeing her parents but asks harder questions as she has to decide whether or not spending more time with them is worth additional complications. Dark and strange in all the ways you’d expect (and some ways when you’re probably not expecting), the fact that “Wendell & Wild” exists at all should be a cause for celebration – the fact that it’s as good as it is, well, that’s just icing on top.
“Wendell & Wild” is streaming on Netflix.
6. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
Perhaps the year’s biggest (and best) surprise was how sublime this sequel to 2011’s “Puss in Boots” really was. Directed by Joel Crawford, who helmed the similarly surprising “The Croods: A New Age,” “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” sees the self-described “fearless feline hero” (once again impeccably voiced by Antonio Banderas) get knocked down to his final life, which sends him on a frantic quest to find the wishing star and extend his existence. More thoughtful and darkly tinged than the first film (there are a lot of deaths!), with a snappy new visual aesthetic, all-star supporting cast (including Florence Pugh, Ray Winston, Olivia Colman and a scene-stealing performance from Harvey Guillén) and inventive action sequences set “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” apart. And the undercurrent of melancholy makes everything feel that much more important.
“Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” is currently playing exclusively in theaters.
5. The Sea Beast
Filmmaker Chris Williams spent 25 years at Disney, working on classics like “Big Hero 6” and “Moana.” Was it any surprise that, when he left the company, he’d do the same thing at Netflix? “The Sea Beast,” Netflix’s most popular animated movie ever, was co-written and directed by Williams, who drew on his love of adventure movies like “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and the 1976 “King Kong,” to craft a story with big monsters and big heart. Set in a mythical oceanic kingdom built around sea monster hunting, Karl Urban plays a hunter who falls in with a precocious young orphan (Zaris-Angel Hator) and starts to realize that there might be more to his profession than he initially imagined. Cleverly designed and animated (the animation was handled by Sony Pictures Imageworks), with breathtaking action set pieces and richly nuanced characters, “The Sea Beast” is the type of movie that makes you want to stand up and cheer. And you can if you want to. It’s your living room.
“The Sea Beast” is streaming on Netflix.
4. Apollo 10 ½: A Space Age Childhood
One of the more unsung triumphs of 2022, “Apollo 10 1/2 : A Space Age Childhood” is Richard Linklater’s fond remembrance of growing up in Houston-era Texas during the time of the Apollo space mission. (His dad had a small job in the program.) The movie is built around an adorable anachronism: when realizing that they built the lander a little too small, NASA employs a kid (Milo Coy) to go on a secret mission to the moon first. And while this is alluded to, most of the movie is just a chronicle of the kid and his family’s life in Texas, with vivid narration courtesy of Jack Black (there must be more narration in this than in “Casino”) – what he did, what television programs he watched after school, the weird Texas-y things his dad (Bill Wise) did with the top of his beer cans. In preparation for the movie, Linklater encouraged families who had lived in the area during the same time period to send him everything – photos, for sure, but also issues of TV Guide and any ephemera from the era that could really bring it to life. That kind of painstaking research really pays off; the movie has such a warm-and-fuzzy energy, you almost want to hug it. And Linklater’s preferred style of animation, a heightened version of rotoscoping, has never looked better and never been employed so efficiently, with the animators conjuring up fine period detail from sparse “sets.” For Linklater, a filmmaker as obsessed with time (and the passage of time) as Christopher Nolan, animation became the ultimate tool vehicle for him to visit the past.
“Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood” is streaming on Netflix.
3. Lightyear
For some reason people kept getting tripped up about the central conceit of “Lightyear.” It was meant to be the big, splashy sci-fi movie that Andy saw as a kid in “Toy Story.” The movie that first got him interested in Buzz Lightyear. (Co-writer/director Angus MacLane theorizes that there was probably a Saturday morning cartoon after the movie; the toy Buzz was most likely based on that.) It’s not exactly a puzzle. And “Lightyear” succeeded in bringing the character to life in a new way; not only did it dramatize the events of the in-universe movie version of Buzz but it playfully interrogated the original “Toy Story” movies and what a sequel (or spin-off) means in 2022. When Buzz (Chris Evans) bungles an escape from a hostile alien world, it leaves his crew members and passengers stranded. Buzz, ever the perfectionist, attempts (repeatedly) to get off the planet but thanks to the time space continuum, returns to a world that has moved on from his adventures. Eventually he encounters a villain – a version of himself even more obsessed with returning to the past and the “way things were.” In this way MacLane questions the soundness of returning to the “Toy Story” universe, the potentially poisonous nature of nostalgia and the way that audiences want the same thing, only in a slightly different package. “Lightyear” is more than the same thing in a slightly different package; it’s a rousing sci-fi adventure full of chunky machinery, thrilling voyages and the cutest sidekick in movies this year – Sox (voiced by Pete Sohn), Buzz’s robotic cat companion. To infinity and beyond.
“Lightyear” is streaming on Disney+.
2. Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
Guillermo del Toro has long wanted to adapt Carlo Collodi’s immortal story and now, thanks to Netflix, he was able to accomplish that goal. “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio,” which really lives up to the name, is set in the lead-up to World War II, with Pinocchio (a wooden boy who can never die) becoming of interest to a traveling circus (led by Christoph Waltz) as well as the fascist movement (embodied by Ron Perlman). Instead of underlining the importance of listening to your parents and following the rules, del Toro and director Mark Gustafson (a modern stop-motion master) make a loving ode to disobedience and free-thinking as well as a touching tribute to the fragility of life and the preciousness of relationships. Of course, “Pinocchio” never sags under its weighty thematic concerns; it is fleet-footed and hilarious (Ewan McGregor’s cricket keeps getting hurt) and features some truly gorgeous design work, informed in part by illustrations by American artist Gris Grimly. When Pinocchio is “killed” and sent to an underworld presided over by a chimeric, masked monster (voiced by Tilda Swinton) and attended to by a group of skeletal rabbits, you’ve fully entered a world unlike any you’ve experience before. And yet at its heart, it’s a classic “Pinocchio” story, made all the better by its bold reinvention.
“Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” is streaming on Netflix.
1. Turning Red
What a triumph. Pixar seems to be in a mini renaissance (see “Lightyear” above), thanks largely to the leadership and creative guidance of new chief creative officer Pete Docter. And “Turning Red” is one of the best Pixar movies – not just of this recent crop, but ever. Co-written and directed by Domee Shi, who was rightfully promoted to a vice president of creative following the movie’s release, “Turning Red” tells the story of Mei (Rosalie Chiang), a Chinese-Canadian teenager living in early-2000’s Toronto. She’s obsessed with a boy band (4*Town) and loves hanging out with her friends as much as she loves making her doting parents proud (Sandra Oh is her mom and is amazing). Oh and when she gets stressed out she transforms into a giant red panda. “Turning Red” feels quietly revolutionary (especially for a Pixar film) – from its frank talk of menstruation to its unique animation style, which is influenced by Japanese animation, old monster movies (the movie climaxes with a “Godzilla”-worthy Kaiju showdown) and other 2D hand-drawn animated favorites. There’s a feeling of newness that permeates “Turning Red.” But it’s not all razzle-dazzle, since the story at the heart of “Turning Red” is about reconciliation, generational trauma and the power of self-acceptance. (There’s a sequence towards the end of the movie set in a kind of spiritual netherworld that will cause you to sob.) Also, the boy band songs (co-written by Finneas and Billie Eilish) are absolute bangers (mystifyingly left off the Oscar short list). “Turning Red” is just the best, a movie of unique cultural specificity that feels truly universal.
“Turning Red” is streaming on Disney+.
