My five favorite animated movies as of right now, with a brief description of each. Honorable mentions go to “Wall*E”, “Dumbo”, and “Up”.
5. “Castle in the Sky” (1986) Two young friends travel through the air with pirates and robots looking for the famous castle in the sky. An amazing story by Hayao Miyazaki.
4. “The Lorax” (1972) Based on the Dr. Seuss story of the same name, and not actually a feature length film, The Lorax is about a Lorax who tries to stop the Once-ler from destroying all of his trees. It’s kind of like Wall*E, but I like it better, because Wall*E felt too similar to other sci-fi movies.
3. “The Sky Crawlers” (2008) This movie may seem like a slow story about pilots who never age, but there is an incredible ending that really makes the rest of the movie make sense.
2. “Spirited Away” (2001) My favorite Miyazaki film, about a girl who enters a magical world where she forgets her name and meets a lot of very interesting and unique characters.
1. “Waking Life” (2001) This film follows a man through a lucid dream, a type of dream where the dreamer knows he is dreaming and can control it. In his dreams, he meets a lot of different people who present some very interesting ideas to him about life, dreams, and death. Essentially, this movie makes you think about a lot of things and question reality. Another amazing ending in this film.
“Waking Life” is a fascinating one, especially to watch with others, but I don’t think I could sit through it more than once or twice.