For a Friday with friends, you need a film that doesn't require perfect silence to work. Something engaging enough that it holds attention even in a room with people in it.
The 2020s have already produced films that will be studied for decades - lean, precise, unafraid to take audiences seriously.
Animation isn't a genre - it's a medium. And in the right hands, it reaches emotional places live-action simply cannot.
After reuniting with Gwen Stacy, Brooklyn's full-time, friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is catapulted across the Multiverse, where he encounters the Spider Society, a team of Spider-People charged with protecting the Multiverse's very existence. But when the heroes clash on how to handle a new threat, Miles finds himself pitted against the other Spiders and must set out on his own to save those he loves most.
In a brutal war between devils, hunters, and secret enemies, a mysterious girl named Reze has stepped into Denji's world, and he faces his deadliest battle yet, fueled by love in a world where survival knows no rules.
After a shipwreck, an intelligent robot called Roz is stranded on an uninhabited island. To survive the harsh environment, Roz bonds with the island's animals and cares for an orphaned baby goose.
As the world moves on from the war and technological advances bring changes to her life, Violet still hopes to see her lost commanding officer again.
With dreams of diving abroad, Tsuneo gets a job assisting Josee, an artist whose imagination takes her far beyond her wheelchair. But when the tide turns against them, they push each other to places they never thought possible, and inspire a love fit for a storybook.
What makes these films remarkable is their emotional honesty. They're animated, but they don't soften anything.
The unlikely friendship of a boy, a mole, a fox and a horse traveling together in the boy's search for home.
In the aftermath of the Fourth Impact, stranded without their Evangelions, Shinji, Asuka and Rei find refuge in one of the rare pockets of humanity that still exist on the ruined planet Earth. There, each lives a life far different from their days as an Evangelion pilot. However, the danger to the world is far from over. A new impact is looming on the horizon-one that will prove to be the true end of Evangelion.
Puss in Boots discovers that his passion for adventure has taken its toll: He has burned through eight of his nine lives, leaving him with only one life left. Puss sets out on an epic journey to find the mythical Last Wish and restore his nine lives.
Earth is decimated after intergalactic tyrant Darkseid has devastated the Justice League in a poorly executed war by the DC Super Heroes. Now the remaining bastions of good - the Justice League, Teen Titans, Suicide Squad and assorted others - must regroup, strategize and take the war to Darkseid in order to save the planet and its surviving inhabitants.
Tanjiro Kamado, joined with Inosuke Hashibira, a boy raised by boars who wears a boar's head, and Zenitsu Agatsuma, a scared boy who reveals his true power when he sleeps, boards the Infinity Train on a new mission with the Fire Hashira, Kyojuro Rengoku, to defeat a demon who has been tormenting the people and killing the demon slayers who oppose it!
The best suspense doesn't come from action - it comes from caring about what happens. These films make you care, then twist the knife.
The best animated films stay with you the way a dream does. Vivid, emotional, and hard to fully explain.