6.5 animated movies for adults

If you're an animation fan looking for long-form entertainment, the pickings can be slim. By my calculations, about 99.8 percent of animated feature-length films are aimed at kids. And while the better ones (like Wall-E, Monsters Inc., and Brave) are fun for adults, too, sometimes you crave something a little more… sophisticated.

Image copyright Akira/Manga Entertainment

1. Akira
This 1988 film recently had a close call with a horrifying remake. Last June, Warner Brothers scuttled their plans for a live action remake starring an all-white cast (rumored to include Kristen Stewart and Garret Hedlund).

Let's all breathe a sigh of relief and take a fresh look at the original, the movie that introduced many Americans (including myself) to anime in the first place. This epic cyberpunk action flick takes place in a dystopic future Tokyo and follows the psychic motorcycle gang member named Tetsuo, and the potential release of a psychic named Akira who was captured and imprisoned after nearly destroying Tokyo with his supernatural powers.

Akira is beautiful, sleek, and 100% badass, if occasionally somewhat numbing and monotonous in its relentless pacing which rushes from one spectacular action sequence to the next. Nevertheless, this landmark film influenced everything that came after it, and it's well worth watching.

2. A Scanner Darkly
If you're going to talk rotoscoping, most critics will point you to A Waking Life, which was the first and most high-profile movie to use the technique. But pound for pound, Linklater's later film A Scanner Darkly is not only a better, more interesting movie, it's also a better fit for the technique.

Rotoscoping is an animation style where the actual film scenes are painted over. (It is as expensive as it is time-consuming, and it's a good thing that it's a rare technique, because it could easily wear out its welcome.) The effect is a trippy blend of reality and an imagined world of animation, which is just the thing this Philip K. Dick story calls for.

Image copyright The Fantastic Mr. Fox

3. The Fantastic Mr. Fox
Just like all Wes Anderson movies, if you like Wes Anderson, then you will like this movie, and if you don't, then you don't. This stop-motion treatment of the Roald Dahl book is given a PG rating and a bit of grown-up polish thanks to outstanding performances by George Clooney and Meryl Streep.

The Fantastic Mr. Fox is alternately wistful and tense, and essentially mashes up the standard "one last caper before I retire" story with a classic mid-life crisis. Kids may be attracted to the animals, but they will no doubt lose interest in the story's focus on Mr. Fox's difficulty reconciling his family responsibilities with his personal need to take risks and have fun.

4. Heavy Metal
Seriously you guys, this movie is terrible. But that doesn't stop people from loving it, and what kind of list would this be without it?

Heavy Metal was groundbreaking at the time. It was an animated movie that featured lots of boobs, sexism and prog rock. If you ask me, it hasn't exactly stood the test of time. I include it here simply as acknowledgment that it is indeed very popular with adults. Adults who wear mullets. OH SORRY, OK, I TAKE IT BACK.

Image copyright Watership Down

5. Watership Down
Like many people, I read Watership Down when I was about twelve, because it was a book about rabbits, and what did I know? This dark tale of murder, betrayal, and hellish compromise is timeless, and the animated adaptation still stands as one of the finest book-to-movie transitions ever made.

Watership Down is just the thing if you're not feeling suicidal enough.

6. South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut
The South Park movie was a watershed moment for American cinema and animation as a whole. I'm just kidding: It was mostly fart jokes and Canada bashing. This R-rated film is packed full of laughs, even if some of the humor (e.g. Saddam Hussein in Hell) is somewhat outdated.

It is also notable for having one of the best subtitles of all time. During one of the musical sequences, the subtitle reads "Rhythmic farting continues."

6.5. The Making of South Park: Six Days to Air
Even though it's not animated itself, this documentary on what it takes to get a South Park episode out the door is as enlightening as it is engrossing.

Main image copyright A Scanner Darkly