My money's on Chuck Jones as usual, but three others that have stuck out to me recently are Pete Docter, Ralph Bakshi and Yuri Norstein. Fritz the Cat and Soul were both very pleasantly surprising. All three really showed they knew how animation can help sell a story.


My favourite director Vatroslav Mimica dabbled in animation as well, wouldn't call him one of the greats but I really dig his short Inspektor se Vratio Kući (the inspector has come home)