Best of the 2010s Poll

[James]

Our annual Oscar Event usually consists of a contest and a live chat. But this year, in celebration of the end of the decade, we've added a Best of the 2010s Poll where you get to decide the top 25 animated movies released from 2010 through 2019!

https://animatedviews.com/2020/the-best ... hoice-poll

Feel free to use this thread to discuss your choices. We'll announce the winners during our Oscar chat on February 9th.

(BTW - the contest is coming later this week!)

[Randall]

OK, I'll go first!

My initial list of the best of the decade, fortunately, had only 15 titles, so that's not bad for prepping a Top 10. I really loved these 15 films above the others, for various reasons. In order of year:

How to Train Your Dragon DWA
Tangled Disney
Toy Story 3 Pixar
The Adventures Of Tintin Paramount/Amblin/Columbia
Rango Paramount
The Pirates! Band of Misfits Aardman
Jack And The Cuckoo-Clock Heart France
The Book Of Life Reel FX/20th Cent Fox
Inside Out Pixar
The Peanuts Movie Blue Sky
Shaun the Sheep Movie Aardman
Your Name Japan
Zootopia Disney
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Sony
Missing Link Laika


- Breaking that down, I chose 3 of 15 from 2010! That was a good year!
- DreamWorks Animation got in early with HTTYD, then they were never heard from again as far as I was concerned.
- Disney took 2 spots, and Pixar 2.
- Aardman gets two nods from me in my Top 15.
- Jack And The Cuckoo-Clock Heart is a largely undiscovered gem. WATCH IT! It was a review I had to do, and I was amazed when I watched it. Such a cool flick. It's been on Netflix, so try to find it! Or better yet, buy it! (Will I be the only one voting for it, I wonder…?)
- I REEEEAAALLLY loved that Peanuts film. It was so perfect as the "final" Peanuts story. Just magical for me. And one of the few Blue Sky films I actually like. That IS magic!
- No Ghibli films from this decade made my list (though they were all good films), but I was really impressed with Japan's incredible Your Name.
- And how awesome was Spider-Verse, right?!?
- As much as nostalgia and love for the characters propelled my choices of Spidey and Peanuts, those were also phenomenal, game-changing films technically and artistically.
- Inside Out was just a great night at the theatre, as I attended the Fathom event that had bonuses included, and I was with my cousin, who is a newspaper film critic himself. And the film's amazing, too.

Taking this down to 10, and then ranking, is much, much harder. I'm just going to go with what made my heart really sing, and impressed me as unique and wonderful. "Best" is subjective anyhow, so I'm going mostly on emotion here. So, in order, starting with my favourite:

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
The Peanuts Movie
Inside Out
Your Name
Jack And The Cuckoo-Clock Heart
How to Train Your Dragon
The Book Of Life
Tangled
The Adventures Of Tintin
The Pirates! Band of Misfits

[Ben]

Not a bad list!

[James]

Last day to get your vote in is this Friday!

My tastes are more in the mainstream, so with over 100 movies to pick from the indie/foreign/non-major studios I liked were just outside my top ten. Two I really wanted to work in there but just couldn't find the space were The Book Of Life and Kubo and the Two Strings.

So the way I picked mine was to go through the list and pull out every no-brainer top ten film. There ended up being 7 that I felt (for different reasons) couldn't be left off a best of the 2010s list. Then I went through those 7 and arranged them in the order I wanted.

My top film: Tangled. I was very surprised by that actually! I knew I liked it a lot, but I assumed there was something better. Nope. It did just about everything perfectly.

#2 for me: How to Train Your Dragon. Hey remember when it looked like DreamWorks was going to be a top studio quality? Was that really ten years ago? Oh well! Dragon had equal parts action and heart and was such a unique story with sympathetic characters.

From 3 through 7, things were a little more muddled so these almost could have been in any order.

I went with Wreck-it Ralph at #3 and Toy Story 3 at #4. Ralph was a surprising departure for Disney animation and TS3 had such an emotional impact on audiences. I ended up with them in that order because I wanted to reward an original story over a sequel.

For #5 I have Frozen: amazing music, stunning animation, and memorable characters that Disney will be able to capitalize for decades. I may have liked some of my next picks better, but you can't argue the cultural impact of this one!

At #6 and #7 I picked The Lego Movie and Spider-man: Into the Spiderverse. Again, I could have flipped the order here. Both were such surprises, with low expectations that ended up not just surpassing them but being really great films in their own right. I think The Lego Movie not being nominated for Best Animated Film (let alone not WINNING it that year!) was the biggest animated Oscar snub of the decade. And wow did Sony knock it out of the park with Spiderverse.

So those were my must-haves in a best of the 2010s list.

A movie that I went back and forth on including as a must-have, I put at #8: Monsters University. Such an enjoyable film that fits almost perfectly in the world set up in the original.

For my last two selections I decided to just go with movies I really liked, regardless of whether they really were the best of the decade.

And possibly the funniest film of the 2010s (after The Lego Movie) and maybe one of my favorites of that time too (again, after The Lego Movie!) was my #9: Storks. Wow, what a hilarious movie! Zany, madcap fun all around!

For my last spot, I again went with a film that just makes me happy whenever I watch it (and is the 3rd Warner Animation title on my list), The Lego Batman Movie. I loved Will Arnett coming into this, but now he is forever Batman to me! So odd that for a comic studio known for dark, dour films, the same people also allowed this crazy but laugh-out-loud extravaganza to be made!

1. Tangled
2. How to Train Your Dragon
3. Wreck-it Ralph
4. Toy Story 3
5. Frozen
6. The Lego Movie
7. Spider-man: Into the Spiderverse
8. Monsters University
9. Storks
10. The Lego Batman Movie

[Ben]

MU.

Seriously?

Seriously, MU makes a Top 10, James?

Really.

That’s actually in your Top 10?

Of a decade!?

And you didn’t have room for other films?

But MU makes a slot...?

Seriously, MU...

MU.

Mind. Blown.

[Daniel]

Indeed. Much as I love Monsters University, even I would put it in a decade "best of" and I'm like the sequel person!

[James]

First off, Monsters Inc was my favorite movie of 2000-2009. So I'm predisposed to like the sequel! Second of all, give it another try when you can. With the passage of time (and seeing the relative low-quality of most films released in the seven years since it came out), Monsters University easily holds it's own as a solid outing. It's funny, different enough from the original while still being faithful to it, has a surprising amount of depth, and has one of those great Pixar non-sterotypical-messages-for-a-kids-movie: things are not always going to end the way you want them to, but you'll be OK. (See what I did there!)

No shame here putting it in the top ten, and not even as a just-because-I-liked-it pick, but because I think it really deserves it!

[Ben]

Well, it’s not "faithful", is it? It completely ignores that Mike and Sully met in fourth grade (or whenever it was). If you’re writing a prequel, at least stick, refer or make a note of the "facts" that came before. Or else you end up with a throwaway DTV short idea stretched to feature proportions...

Speaking of, it’s better than Finding Dory, though. I’ll give you that.

[James]

Well, it’s not "faithful", is it? It completely ignores that Mike and Sully met in fourth grade (or whenever it was). If you’re writing a prequel, at least stick, refer or make a note of the "facts" that came before.

I did say it "fits almost perfectly", and that was why I added the caveat. But really that throw away line is the only issue... which is not really much of a problem at all.

Or else you end up with a throwaway DTV short idea stretched to feature proportions...

This coming from the guy who like Anomalisa, a 40 minute short that they added 50 minutes of pure padding to so they could pretend it was feature length and not have to compete for the shorts Oscar!

Speaking of, it’s better than Finding Dory, though. I’ll give you that.

That's true. But I'd argue it is also better than any Disney or Pixar sequel that doesn't begin with the words "Toy Story"!

[Ben]

Well that’s a pretty narrow field...!

[Randall]

Great to see more posts here! I want to see more!!!!

I was surprised by James' pick of MU, but... okay.

It was Storks that really amazed me. I didn't like that one at all. And that's okay (of course).

I was surprised at how easy it was for me to come up with my list. So many films in the past decade were mediocre or bad. So, if the dude likes Storks above another 90 or so films, fair enough. And I did like or love all of James' other picks.

[James]

Going by favorites, not best mind you, Storks was one of my absolute favorite movies of the decade!

[James]

Voting has closed. Thanks to all who entered. We'll reveal the results next week, but...

Join us in the live Oscar Chat for a sneak peak at the results!

[Ben]

I thought we had until tonight!

Oh well, I started by listing evetything out, regardless of year, and just immediately losing stuff that I knew wouldn’t make my cut (mostly stuff that, having seen it, I’m happy not worrying about seeing again soon). So that wiped out a good portion of titles that left me with a good 25:

Megamind, Tangled, Adventures Of Tintin, Arthur Christmas, Rango, Brave, Madagascar 3, The Pirates! Band of Misfits, Rise of the Guardians, Wreck-It Ralph, Frozen, Big Hero 6, The Book Of Life, Inside Out, Shaun the Sheep Movie, Kubo and the Two Strings, Moana, Sing, Storks, Trolls, Zootopia, Ferdinand, Ralph Breaks the Internet, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Toy Story 4.

Then I figured which ones had the kind of entertainment value that I’d see myself watching over and over, or recommending others see, which got me down to 15 titles: Tangled, Adventures Of Tintin, Madagascar 3, The Pirates! Band of Misfits, Frozen, Big Hero 6, Inside Out, Shaun the Sheep Movie, Kubo and the Two Strings, Moana, Sing, Storks, Ferdinand, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Toy Story 4.

I found I’d gone for a surprising amount of mainstream blockbusters over what might be called more "quality" fare...though these aren’t really the "best" or even always my "favorite" titles, but since they were going to be thrown into the blender with the rest of everyone's else titles, I thought I’d go for a simple criteria of stuff I just plain enjoyed! So, shaving off the edges and working the list down to just ten selections, I end up with...

Tangled, Adventures Of Tintin, Madagascar 3, The Pirates! Band of Misfits, Frozen, Big Hero 6, Inside Out, Shaun the Sheep Movie, Moana, Sing.

As for ranking...well, I’ll leave it at that for now...!

[James]

You're raking me over the coals for Monsters University and you've got Madagascar 3 on your list?

Seriously?

Seriously, M3 makes a Top 10, Ben?

Really.

That’s actually in your Top 10?

Of a decade!?

Seriously, M3...

M3.

Mind. Blown.