The best animation movies with friends on a friday from the 80s and 90s based on a true story. A hand-curated list of animation films for Moviepiq.
Friday night with friends is about energy. You want something that earns its place in the conversation — a film that people are still talking about on the way home.
The 80s and 90s represent a golden era for genre filmmaking — budgets were generous, ideas were bold, and many of the films from this period still set the standard everything else is measured against.
Animation isn't a genre — it's a medium. And in the right hands, it reaches emotional places live-action simply cannot. Below are ten animated films that use the freedom of their medium to tell stories with a rawness and beauty that's uniquely their own.
Teen Miles Morales becomes Spider-Man of his reality, crossing his path with five counterparts from other dimensions to stop a threat for all realities.
78-year-old Carl Fredricksen travels to Paradise Falls in his home equipped with balloons, inadvertently taking a young stowaway along for the ride.
In the distant future a small waste collecting robot inadvertently embarks on a space journey that will ultimately decide the fate of mankind.
Lion prince Simba and his father are targeted by his uncle, who wants to ascend the throne himself.
Aspiring musician Miguel, confronted with his family's ban on music, enters the Land of the Dead to find his great-great-grandfather.
The animated films that last are the ones that never condescend. They trust their audience — child or adult — to handle complexity, loss, and wonder in equal measure.
Two strangers find themselves linked in a bizarre way. When a connection forms, will distance be the only thing to keep them apart?
A cowboy doll is profoundly threatened and jealous when a new spaceman figure supplants him as top toy in a boy's room.
When an unconfident young woman is cursed with an old body by a spiteful witch, her only chance of breaking the spell lies with a self-indulgent yet insecure young wizard.
A family of undercover superheroes, while trying to live the quiet suburban life, are forced into action to save the world.
A devastating story of a young boy and his little sister struggling to survive in Japan during World War II.
There's a particular weight that comes from knowing what you're watching actually happened. It changes how you sit with the film's events long after it ends.
A great animated film reminds you that the most universal emotions don't need to be rendered in flesh and blood to feel completely real.