This Is the Greatest Animated Movie of All Time

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Oct 1, 10:30AM EDT

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Animated movies have their beginning back in the silent film era. Entertainment legend Walt Disney has been given credit for taking the genre mainstream. “Steamboat Willie” introduced Mikey Mouse in 1928. Mikey remains a beloved character at Disney’s theme parks a century later. Disney released a long string of animated films, many of which are considered the foundation on which later animated films were created. These include “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937), “Pinocchio” (1940) and “Fantasia” (1940).

To this day, the best animated films deliver lasting value to viewers of all ages. For proof, look no further than the ample slate of masterpieces from Pixar or Studio Ghibli. Not just visually exquisite, films such as “WALL·E” and “Spirited Away” imbue their fantastical adventures with intelligent commentary on humanity, nature and the interplay between the two.

One can watch these films as a child and then watch them again as an adult, picking up on different but equally impactful details and messages each time. That’s the power of great animation.

Then we have the films aimed primarily or even exclusively at adolescents and adults, which use animation as a gateway to boundless expression. Don Hertzfeldt’s “It’s Such a Beautiful Day,” for example, relays the mental breakdown of its protagonist through unique drawing styles and an offbeat tone. The cyberpunk classic “Akira” is likewise best-suited for an older crowd, as it dispenses with copious amounts of graphic violence. Needless to say, you have your options.
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To determine the best animated movie of all time, 24/7 Tempo developed an index based on several measures from the Internet Movie Database and Rotten Tomatoes. The index is a composite of the movies’ IMDb rating, Rotten Tomatoes audience score and Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score. All ratings were weighted equally. Supplemental data on acting and directing credits came from IMDb.

The best animated movie of all time is “Grave of the Fireflies,” released in 1988 and directed by Isao Takahata. Here are the scores:

IMDb audience rating: 8.5/10 (240,844 votes)
RT Tomatometer score: 100% (40 votes)
RT audience score: 95% (69,019 votes)

Click here to see all the greatest animated movies of all time.
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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.