As an art form, animation doesn’t get enough respect. Animated movies remove the final limits from the virtually limitless potential of cinema. In terms of character and production design and the ability to elicit an emotional response from the audience, animation is a beautiful way to tell a story. Of course, not every animated movie is a walk in the park.
For every Pixar masterpiece, there are dozens of cheaply produced, poorly conceived movies that underestimate the intelligence of their young audience members (and their parents). So, here are the five best and five worst animated movies from the 2010s.
Best: Kubo And The Two Strings (2016)
Throughout the 2010s, Laika established itself as one of Hollywood’s most exciting new animation studios. Despite its disappointing box office returns, Kubo and the Two Strings is their finest work.
The plot is captivating for audiences of all ages, the animation is gorgeous. The voice cast includes such A-listers as Charlize Theron, Ralph Fiennes, Rooney Mara, and Matthew McConaughey.
Worst: Space Chimps 2: Zartog Strikes Back (2010)
The first Space Chimps movie eked every last ounce of potential out of the premise of chimpanzees being sent into space to search for alien life. A sequel didn’t need to exist.
And yet, one does. Space Chimps 2: Zartog Strikes Back has a rare 0% approval score on Rotten Tomatoes, and as 75 minutes completely devoid of substance, it deserves it.
Best: Anomalisa (2015)
Charlie Kaufman is one of cinema’s most esteemed storytellers. When he adapted his play Anomalisa into a stop-motion animated feature of the same name, Kaufman used the form to explore the little details that audiences normally wouldn’t notice in live-action.
The movie tells the beautifully human story of a customer service guru who sees everyone in the world as exactly the same guy, until he meets a woman who stands out from the crowd.
Worst: The Emoji Movie (2017)
It was only a matter of time before Hollywood made a movie about emojis. For a movie about graphic expressions of emotion, this movie will not make you laugh, smile, cry, hang in suspense, or think.
T.J. Miller stars as a “meh” emoji. At least the movie makes the audience connect with the protagonist, as viewers will find yourself making the same “meh” face for 86 laborious minutes that feel like 86 hours.
Best: Coco (2017)
Since Pixar’s inception, the studio has been helping parents to broach difficult subjects with their kids, like the monsters in their closet in Monsters, Inc. or their complicated emotional spectrum in Inside Out.
In 2017, they tackled the hardest topic for a child to understand: mortality. In Coco, Pixar used Mexico’s Day of the Dead celebration to beautiful effect to teach kids that no one is really gone if they live on in their loved ones’ memories.
Worst: Cars 2 (2011)
There’s no way that Cars would’ve been stretched out into a franchise if it hadn’t been the brainchild of Pixar’s head honcho (but not anymore, for obvious reasons) John Lasseter.
After the first movie borrowed its entire plot from Doc Hollywood, Cars 2 shifted the spotlight from Lightning McQueen to the franchise’s Olaf, Mater, and randomly crammed him into a dull Bond-esque spy movie parody with secret agent cars played by Michael Caine and Emily Mortimer.
Best: Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse (2018)
Just when the crushing disappointment of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and all the legal squabbling with Marvel Studios made Spidey fans lose their faith in Sony’s ability to handle the character, they knocked moviegoers’ socks off with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
The vibrant animation style beautifully recreates the feeling of flicking through a comic book, while the story of Miles Morales teaches the audience that anybody can be a superhero.
Worst: Hoodwinked Too! Hood Vs. Evil (2011)
The original Hoodwinked! movie was a fun riff on Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, with different characters giving conflicting accounts of the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale. It should’ve been left there because the sequel is nowhere near as inspired.
The premise seems to have been cobbled together in a “How can we cash in on Hoodwinked!’s moderate success?” brainstorming session, as Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf are called in to investigate the disappearance of Hansel and Gretel.
Best: Toy Story 3 (2010)
Although Toy Story 4 was far from a bad movie, the franchise already had the perfect ending in 2010 when Andy gave his toys to Bonnie and headed off to college while Woody and Buzz watched on. Audiences across the world, young and old, bawled their eyes out.
Threequels are usually the ones that ruin the franchise — Spider-Man 3, The Matrix Revolutions, The Godfather Part III etc. — but Toy Story 3 does the exact opposite: it might just be the best of the bunch (and that’s saying a lot, because they’re all masterpieces).
Worst: Foodfight! (2012)
Whereas Seth Rogen’s Sausage Party imagines a supermarket in which food items are sentient beings who become aware that they’ll be eaten alive once they’re purchased, Foodfight! imagines a supermarket that turns into a city called Marketropolis where food brand mascots live after closing time.
With a reported budget of $65 million and a box office gross of less than $74,000, Foodfight! was a devastating financial catastrophe, and it’s since been branded one of the worst movies ever made.