A Sunday film should do one thing above all else: justify the afternoon. Not exciting enough to feel like you should be doing something else. Just right.
Looking back, the 2000s were a golden era for this kind of filmmaking - studios still willing to fund serious work, directors still pushing at the edges of what was expected.
Animation removes the barrier of physical reality, which means it can go places nothing else can.
Everyone knows that the stork delivers babies, but where do the storks get the babies from? The answer lies up in the stratosphere, where cloud people sculpt babies from clouds and bring them to life. Gus, a lonely and insecure grey cloud, is a master at creating "dangerous" babies. Crocodiles, porcupines, rams and more - Gus's beloved creations are works of art, but more than a handful for his loyal delivery stork partner, Peck. As Gus's creations become more and more rambunctious, Peck's job gets harder and harder. How will Peck manage to handle both his hazardous cargo and his friend's fiery temperament?
The year is 2071. Following a terrorist bombing, a deadly virus is released on the populace of Mars and the government has issued the largest bounty in history, for the capture of whoever is behind it. The bounty hunter crew of the spaceship Bebop; Spike, Faye, Jet and Ed, take the case with hopes of cashing in the bounty. However, the mystery surrounding the man responsible, Vincent, goes deeper than they ever imagined, and they aren't the only ones hunting him.
Bob Parr has given up his superhero days to log in time as an insurance adjuster and raise his three children with his formerly heroic wife in suburbia. But when he receives a mysterious assignment, it's time to get back into costume.
Raised on tales of a Djinn fairy princess, Azur, a young Frenchman goes to North Africa in search of the sprite, only to discover that his close childhood friend, Asmar, an Arab youth whose mother raised both boys also seeks the genie.
A captured mustang remains determined to return to his herd no matter what.
What makes these films remarkable is their emotional honesty. They're animated, but they don't soften anything.
D, a legendary dhampir competes with a motley family of bounty hunters to track down Charlotte Elbourne, a young woman who has seemingly been abducted by vampire nobleman Meier Link.
An Israeli film director interviews fellow veterans of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon to reconstruct his own memories of his term of service in that conflict.
King Randolph sends for his cousin, Duchess Rowena, to help turn his daughters, Princess Genevieve and her eleven sisters, into royal material. But the Duchess strips the sisters of their fun, including their favorite pastime: dancing. When all hope may be lost, the sisters discover a secret passageway to a magical land where they can dance the night away.
After the Second Impact, Tokyo-3 is being attacked by giant monsters called Angels that seek to eradicate humankind. The child Shinji's objective is to fight the Angels by piloting one of the mysterious Evangelion mecha units. A remake of the first six episodes of GAINAX's famous 1996 anime series. The film was retitled "Evangelion: 1.01" for its DVD release and "Evangelion: 1.11" for a release with additional scenes.
In a 19th-century European village, a young man about to be married is whisked away to the underworld and wed to a mysterious corpse bride, while his real bride waits bereft in the land of the living.
Tension is a byproduct of investment. You're only on the edge of your seat if the film has made you care first. These do.
These films prove that animation is not a lesser form of cinema. It's a different one - capable of its own kind of greatness.