Needs More Love / Animated Films

• A Bug's Life: One of the most underappreciated and forgotten Pixar movies, nowadays. But the theme was original, the characters varied and appealing, not to mention an awesome speech and revolt against injustice in the climax. There was also the first Pixar princess (before Merida), and the first bloopers sequence in credits that Pixar made.
• Arctic Dogs: Despite its poor box-office reception and critical hate, it really is not a bad film. It has pleasing characters with many relatable aspects and sweet messages about following your dreams, never giving up hope and you need to love yourself. Not to mention the climax, which is almost like taking Zootopia and mixing it with a superhero film in the vein of DC and Marvel.
• Arthur Christmas: OK, the title isn't promising, but it's actually smart, funny, heartwarming-without-being-treacly, beautifully animated, and thoroughly entertaining, featuring wonderful voice work by James McAvoy, Bill Nighy, Jim Broadbent, and Hugh Laurie. Perhaps it'll catch on in Christmases of the future.
• Balto is a truly amazing animated film that needs MUCH more attention than it gets. Even Universal itself seems to be trying to forget the film ever existed, for some reason.
• Barbie movies need so much more love, particularly Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper and Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses. You'd think they'd be utterly ridiculous, being, well, films with Barbie as the lead, but the storytelling is on par with Disney and Pixar and the animation gets more and more gorgeous as time passes. So many awesome role models for girls.
• Cars 2: While this film is more of a spy movie and racing isn't used to defeat the Big Bad in here, rather than give this a lot of hate, it's also important to appreciate this film more due to a lot of action-packed scenes, some heartwarming moments here and there, and an important lesson about Being Yourself and be careful on which company you should trust.
• Cats Don't Dance is a charming movie about a cat trying to get big in Hollywood. With sweet, lovable characters and catchy musical numbers (by Randy Newman), it's a great family film. Plus, the choreography was done by Gene Kelly, and Lauren Faust (the creator of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic) was one of the animators. Unfortunately, the movie flopped because Warner Brothers didn't really support it, and it has (mostly) fallen into obscurity.
• Disney:
  • Hercules gets a lot of flack for being extremely Sadly Mythtaken and perpetuating Everybody Hates Hades. That said, it's got a great soundtrack, the most unique character designs in any Disney movie (courtesy of Gerald Scarfe), and the ever-hilarious Hades. They managed to make Danny DeVito a good singer for the film. Without Autotune.
  • The Great Mouse Detective, which is truly one of Disney's underrated classics. While Disney in the '80s was known for being outdone by Bluth (bar The Little Mermaid), it didn't mean the Disney movies were bad either. And The Great Mouse Detective combines a great hero and villain (voiced delightfully by Vincent Price) with an exciting story. The characters are all endearing such as Olivia and Dawson. While the songs aren't as numerous as a full-fledged Disney musical, they are still quite memorable such as "The World's Greatest Criminal Mind".
    • Not to mention, this was the directorial debut for John Musker and Ron Clements. The two may be better remembered for The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Hercules, Treasure Planet, The Princess and the Frog, and Moana, but there's always something a little extra special about one's first achievement, so the saying goes.
  • The Rescuers Down Under: Why does nobody talk about this?! The animation is spectacular, the characters are great, and it totally diverts itself from everything else Disney has done! Heck, even the Nostalgia Critic acknowledges its underrated status and says we need to see it!
  • The Hunchback of Notre Dame gets flak on all sides, for some questionable choices in character development (the gargoyles, to be exact), being slightly Lighter and Softer (though not by much) than the original book, being too dark for younger audiences, and for Quasimodo not getting the girl. Nonetheless, this film has great characters, beautiful songs complete with Ominous Latin Chanting, and wonderful animation.
  • Cinderella III: A Twist in Time. Not only is it good for a Disney sequel, it's a legitimately good movie. Everyone is given more personality, the jokes are funny, the animation is good, the story's intriguing, and need I even mention the carriage scene? Plus, Cindy jumps off of a moving carriage and then crashes her own wedding. Not bad, considering the coolest thing she did in the first movie was go to a party.
  • How about all the sequels to Lilo & Stitch? Not only are they good Disney sequels, they are good sequels period! They actually continue the story, build on its universe, and keep the charm of the first film.
  • What about the sequels such as Peter Pan 2, The Jungle Book 2, Mulan 2, and The Little Mermaid 2? While the plots are similar to the first films, some characters are flanderized, or has a couple problems here and there, but if you can get past that, you'll find that there are some new characters, catchy music, beautiful and stunning background arts, important lessons, a couple of funny moments, nice callbacks and reprising songs, and seeing the characters returning after a while.
  • Bolt was praised by the critics around the same time of its release (it was, after all, Disney's first genuinely successful animated feature of the decade since Lilo & Stitch), but it seems to have fallen off the map in the years since.
  • Same deal for Meet the Robinsons as Bolt. It provides an interesting idea of time travel and has a very touching story at its core, following Lewis' longing for a family.
  • Everybody forgets about The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, despite it being the most memorable package movie, having high production values, featuring some brilliant animation, ingenious stories and possibly the scariest Disney scene, period.
  • While its central characters are not very well-developed, the animation is rough around the edges (after all, the animators who made this film were just getting their feet wet after training under the remaining members of the Nine Old Men), and it commits the cardinal sin that many a Film of the Book has done by not actually following the book it's based on, Disney's The Black Cauldron is certainly worth a watch or two. Eilonwy is one of the more efficient heroines (and is a princess! Or not, as the Horned King calls her a scullery maid and the only person who calls Eilonwy a princess is Eilonwy herself) and doesn't tolerate Taran's sexist nonsense for a second. Also it's genuinely scary at points, which... may be another reason why it gets ignored so much.
  • Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Treasure Planet definitely need more love. They're two of the odd non-musicals of the Disney canon with some of the absolute best storytelling Disney ever did. Atlantis has Michael J. Fox voicing the title character (which in itself is a reason to see it), and Treasure Planet, like Lilo & Stitch has one of the most truly moving stories Disney ever told and is another family-centric film, focusing on the surrogate father-son relationship between Silver and Jim.
  • Brother Bear. It might not be Disney's deepest and darkest plot, but it's packed with Aesops about empathy, forgiveness, and brotherly love. It is nowhere near their worst production.
  • Home on the Range may have bombed horribly and shut down Disney's 2D animation department until The Princess and the Frog, and it may not be as beautiful or epic as Disney's Renaissance films, but it is far from a horrible film. It has nice songs courtesy of Alan Menken, fun and memorable characters, and a hilarious villain. It's comparable to some of Disney's more lighthearted and silly works.
  • Pretty much any Disney film that isn't a musical (with some exceptions) could just use more love, if you note the fact that nearly every Disney film on this list isn't a musical.
  • Oliver & Company is a film that's loosely based off of Oliver Twist. However, people seem to consider the film awful because it changes things from the original book. But the film itself has great characters, fantastic voice work, an underrated soundtrack, one of the more realistic villains in the Disney Animated Canon and pleasing animation. However, the film doesn't seem to get much attention but should be a must-see for any Disney fan.
  • No love for Dinosaur? Sure, the anatomy of some dinosaurs aren't correct, and species from different continents and different geologic time frames are seen together^note Some of them existed earlier in time than others, but the story itself is pretty good. The main protagonist Aladar is a bit calmer and more compassionate than your usual protagonist, and the music by James Newton Howard is epic. And the Carnotaurs themselves are pretty powerful and intimidating antagonists.
  • Chicken Little was heavily criticized for being too much like a DreamWorks movie, as well as setting up rooting interest in its protagonist in an indisputably mean-spirited way, (and was buried by the company since then) but if you can get past that, you'll find that it's actually a cute, charming romp with multiple funny moments and quirky characters. It also has a unique identity compared to what DreamWorks had out at the time (namely the lack of Ink Suit Actors) and it's decidedly Disney even with the Shout-Out overdose.
  • Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers. A great direct-to-DVD feature lost amid the wave of "cheapquels" and compilation movies Disney releases. A solidly written film starring the stars of the Classic Disney Shorts. Very awesome...yet very underrated... though thankfully Square-Enix saw fit to give it representation in Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance]!
  • Fantasia 2000: This sequel of the already Acclaimed Flop Fantasia is mostly forgotten, but Pines of Rome and Firebird Suite are incredibly poetic with awesome imagery, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and Pomp and Circumstance are nice renditions of the fairy tale and Noah's ark legend. Rhapsody in Blue had a quite original graphic identity and The Carnival of the Animals is just hilarious.
• Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within may have earned flak for being an instalment to the eye-poppingly popular Final Fantasy series that had little to do with the series, a video game movie that doesn't adhere to the source material, having slightly outdated CGI, and nearly ending Square as a whole; but it is still a gorgeously animated film with a well-engaging story, subtle references to the earlier Final Fantasy games, and an edge that most Western animated films don't have. Despite being made with motion capture CGI, the film very much feels like a late-Renaissance 2D animated film akin to Treasure Planet and Titan A.E. in terms of tone and aesthetic; which makes you think it is prime Cult Classic material, but even said cult following is very small at most. And even if the film is not an adaptation of any specific Final Fantasy game or even have obviously recognisable elements such as Chocobos, Moogles, swordfighting or magic, the film still carries the spirit of Final Fantasy in terms of the deeper themes and certain story beats. One wonders how successful the film might have been if they stuck to the Working Title of Gaia: The Spirits Within, instead of using the Final Fantasy name.
• Igor. As Pan Pizza said, it's certainly a unique and underrated gem. Critics called it a Tim Burton ripoff, but it does stand out in its own ways, notably the Black Comedy (Scampers is a character you would never see in any other kids' movie) and jazzy soundtrack that really helps to differentiate it a typical CGI kids movie.
• Jungledyret Hugo is a great, wonderful and beautiful piece of Danish animation. For the first two movies, the animation is of Don Bluth quality, the music is kick ass, the songs are both awesome and beautiful, the actors are great and they really puts their all into it, the plot is simple but good and it can be dark, gritty and intense but still keeps its optimism, the heroes are lovable and the villains vary from inefficent to extremly efficent, and the romantic relationship between the two main characters actually feels real and sincere for once. A must for any animation fan. And for the TV-series and the third movie; while the animation is cheaper and the plot is not as that mature, they too have their own charms that make them good to watch in their own rights.
• Mary and Max is a brilliant Claymation film that is a rather strange mix of drama and Black Comedy. The characters are deep, and the idea of "two people exchanging letters" in film has never been done quite so well.
• Likewise, The Nutcracker Prince also deserves to be this as it was one of the most well done adaptions of E. T. A. Hoffmann's The Nutcracker and the Mouse King that was ever seen. It's also one of the most underrated films ever from the 1990s.
• The Powerpuff Girls Movie definitely deserves more credits than it got. What makes this movie great is how they took such a child friendly and brightly colored kid show and turned it into such Darker and Edgier levels and adding more realism so that it completely deconstructs the show and the characters in it. The movie plays out almost like Batman Begins: the city is so corrupt and crime-infested that it's basically Hell on Earth, which inspires Professor Utonium to create the girls in order to bring some change... only it fails miserably due the girls' tag game causing massive damage to the city and them being outcasts, completely averting the Hero Insurance for once. The greatest part of the movie is how it transformed the large hammed Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain Mojo Jojo to a hardcore, silver-tongued, badass Magnificent Bastard who is downright ruthless. It's just sad that it was released the same year as The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and the Scooby-Doo movie were. If not maybe it would had earned more recognition.
• The Princess and the Goblin, which had a pretty good story and got terrible reviews and flopped at the box office. The characters were very well designed and the main protagonists were adorable.
• DreamWorks Animation as a whole is generally derided for being derivative and full of bad popular-culture referencing jokes, yet if you look at especially their more recent films, most of them are actually pretty stunning. Definitely rivaling the more popular competitor, Pixar.
  • The Prince of Egypt, while chastised by a few for being an animated musical take on a story in the Book of Exodus, and often compared to The Ten Commandments in that regard, is a truly epic movie. The songs are gorgeous to listen to, the truly spectacular animation is to die for, and it even gives little explanations for things never really touched upon originally, such as the vitriol between Moses and Ramses, and the way the Priests mimic Moses's miracles. Even the Nostalgia Critic acknowledges how underrated it is! Good thing he's been giving it more attention.
  • The Road to El Dorado is a fun, truly unique film with no proper hero character (the writers themselves admitted to focusing the entire story on Those Two Guys on purpose), gut-busting humor and a creative premise that goes sorely glossed over for absolutely no reason.
  • Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron is a remarkably somber film, and unlike most all-ages movies, it's pretty quiet. It has no comic relief characters or crazy sidekicks. It's a very good movie, though with a somewhat more serious and dramatic tone; it's likely that a lot of parents never took their kids to see it for fear that it would not keep the attention of said kids.
• Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return got a poor response from critics and was slapped with a limited release, but there is a strong case for it being worth more than it's getting. Plus, how can you go wrong with a film that boasts an All-Star Cast with Dan Aykroyd, Kelsey Grammer, Patrick Stewart, Lea Michele and Bernadette Peters?
• Anything made by the Georgian company Georgian Film Studio's animation division, the people who made I'll Return as the Rain. A good chunk of their animated shorts have a special charm to them that made them popular in Georgia... but since they were never released outside of Europe, only a small amount of non-Georgians are expected to be familiar with at least one of the company's works.
• Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure bombed when it was released in theaters in 1977, partly because it had been so expensive to make but also because many parents found it boring and/or thought it went on too long. A common complaint was that the movie had too many songs (over a dozen of them!), but the fact is that at least some of these songs are very good. Plus, how can you not like an animated film that inspired an MTV video (for Tom Petty's "Runnin' Down a Dream")?
• Some works from Soyuzmultfilm. This once powerful animation studios from the Soviet Union has over 1000 animated films in its library that were produced in the Soviet years. It's animation styles were praised around the world in film festivals, and it produced many compelling films. Unfortunately, they are obscure outside the Iron Curtain in several countries, and needs information on other languages as well. Few Soyuzmultfilm works are also lesser-known in Russia itself. It remains to be a influential animation studio that inspired people like Hayao Miyazaki.
• "Komaneko: The Curious Cat" is a very good Japanese stop-motion animated film from 2009. The stop-motion for the characters are very good and a sweet and relaxing setting.
• Thomas & Friends:
  • Thomas and the Magic Railroad: While there were a couple of things that fans weren't happy with such as Executive Meddling, Edward not appearing, P.T. Boomer being cut from the film, but just because those mistakes happened doesn't mean this film needs a lot of hate, this film still has excellent stop-motion, wonderful music like "He's a Really Useful Engine", Diesel 10 being an entertaining villain, Burnett Stone being a sympathizing character, and other good qualities.
  • Sodor's Legend of the Lost Treasure: While most of the interactions between Thomas and Sir Topham Hatt were a bit heated, including that one interaction after the dynamite scene. But if you could try to ignore most of them, you'll find that this film has some decent moments like the Arlesdale engines returning, a new character called Ryan, Thomas chasing Sailor John, "Never Overlook A Little Engine", Thomas' Earn Your Happy Ending moment, and Sailor John being an entertaining villain.
• The 2013 CGI film Thunder and the House of Magic is a surprisingly decent and cute film which stars an orange male cat who gets adopted by a magician and he later hangs out with a group of sentient toys (At least when the magician is around). The film can currently be watched on Netflix.
• It's Such a Beautiful Day is a heartbreaking, beautiful, and strangely underrated film by the creator of Rejected, Don Hertzfeldt. Unfortunately, it recently was removed from Netflix. You can pay 3 dollars for it on Youtube. Similarly, there is World of Tomorrow, which is thankfully on Netflix.
• The Wonderful World of Puss 'n Boots: Where to start. It's the film behind Toei's mascot, Hayao Miyazaki worked on it, the fact that many people point to this film as being the inspiration for certain scenes in The Castle of Cagliostro, etc. Though ironically, it's a very obscure film that's rarely mentioned except under Miyazaki's name even though he only partially worked on it, which is a shame because it stands as its own as a genuinely good fantasy film with its perfect blend of action and comedy.
• Jack and the Beanstalk (1974): As Nostalgia Critic pointed out here, this film is a wild ride from beginning to end. While based on the fairytail we all know and love, it takes several creative liberties that make the story in... very interesting directions to say the least. The animation is very good for something that came out of the 70s, and the characters can range from normal to creepy, to disturbing to hilarious depending on the scene and viewer. The ones who take the cake are easily the evil witch Hecuba and the brainwashed Princess Margaret, as they have their own moments that can either make you laugh or leave you unsettled.
• Help! I'm a Fish: Despite its title and cover art in the US (not pictured on trope page), it's actually not a film for extremely young children or even 3D-animated at all. It's a very well-animated 2D film with animation on par with the Disney films of the 90s and far from a Mockbuster with its own original characters and plot. Its villain is also voiced by Alan Rickman who's practically the fish version of Scar from The Lion King (1994). And yes, he even has his own eerily-fascist "Be Prepared"-like song number and motives. It's just a fun watch.
• The 2018 stop-motion film Strike is heavily overlooked, but it has well-designed intricate sets, a charming cast, bountiful humour, and surprisingly grim scenes for a movie that opens like a preschoolers' show.

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