Guaporense's top 50 animations

Paprika is totes better than Millenium Actress.

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I though Paprika was his best at first viewing but on a second viewing I changed my opinion. At first I though Millennium Actress was mediocre, now I know that it is his masterpiece.

I also had a similar experience with Porco Rosso: the first time I watched it, the movie appeared to lack Miyazaki's magic and was his worst for me (that's it, still excellent but not tremendous) but the second time I watched it I managed to fully grasp it and it became one of my favorite movies.

And now for the top 10:

10 - Millennium Actress (2001)



Made on a tiny budget of 1.2 million dollars, Millennium Actress remains the best bang-for-the-buck movie ever made and easily one of the greatest animated films ever made.



9 - Children Who Chase Lost Voices (2011)



While 5 Centimeters per Second is generally considered Shinkai's best film, actually, I liked Children Who Chase Lost Voices from deep below even more. While it may lack the raw power of 5 cm, it is much richer and more beautiful. Indeed, one of the three or four most beautiful animated films ever made.



8 - Kiki's Delivery Service (1989)



The sixth Miyazaki to show up, Kiki's Delivery Service is simply the second best G rated movie ever made. Also, this is a movie that needs to be watched with subtitles, if you aren't watching it with kids. The dubbed version is much weaker and wouldn't make my top 50 list.



7 - Whisper of the Heart (1995)



In my top 100 thread, I used the literal translation of the movie's title, If You Listen Closely, but now I think that I should use the English title given by the distributor, even though it is worse than the original in terms of delivering the meaning of the film the other members of this forum will have difficulty in finding the movie on Netflix. Also, I should also stress that it should be watched with subtitles.



6 - Only Yesterday



In my honest opinion this is the most underrated movie I ever watched. One of the very few movies that touched me so deeply that made me cry. I don't know why but this movie worked on a profoundly personal level on me, partly thanks to the abstract character of animation, and resulted into one of the most powerful experiences I ever had watching a movie, animated or not.

The top 5 is easy to deduce from my previous threads and my top 10. I will not comment much given that I already spoke a lot about those movies before.

5 - Spirited Away (2001)



Trailer:


4 - Grave of the Fireflies (1988)


Trailer:


3 - Princess Mononoke (1997)



I didn't include it on my top 10 (which would be implied given that I put Spirited Away and Grave of the Fireflies on it) because I consider it a remake of Nausicaä, hence Nausicaä represents it on my top 10.

Trailer:


2- Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984)



Trailer:


1- My Neighbor Tororo (1988)



Trailer:


Comment: These 5 films are all Ghibli films, I have watched all these films at least 4 times and 4 are Miyazaki film's, what I call "Miyazaki's Four Great Movies" and the other is Takahata's greatest movie which is also one of my top favorite war movies.

Even though I have watched enough animations to make a top 50 list, I still haven't watched many well regarded classics. This year I plan to finish my "education" in animation as well as I am expecting four movies from Shinkai, Miyazaki, Takahata and Hosoda to be released in my country this year.

Miyazaki is cool and all, but he's extremely repetitive.

Oo my second all time favourite animation made it to number 2.

I have no issues with Millenium Actress being higher than Paprika.

Princess Mononoke and Nausicaa higher than Spirited Away? I don't know, the environmental message in PM is so obvious and forced that, while a great film, it feels chained by its awkwardly obvious message, and nausicaa i never loved that much.

I haven't watched many classics in animation.

I had previously posted a list of the 44 greatest feature length animated films voted by a pool of animators and animation critics (yes, there exist such a profession, at least in Japan):

http://www.movieforums.com/community...d.php?p=875386

Another good list, it was compiled in 2003, so films released after 2002 will not tend to show up there (such as the work of Hosoda, Shinkai and some Satoshi Kon and Miyazaki).

Animations in my watch-list for 2013:










Also, these four films will be released in the west in the next 12-18 months, by the four greatest living animators:

The first time I watched Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke and Nausicaa the one that impressed me the most was Spirited Away, however, after I watched all these films several times the last two became more powerful while Spirited Away became less powerful.

I though a lot about the ordering of these five movies: Grave of the Fireflies is more powerful than Spirited Away while Princess Mononoke is even more powerful than Grave of the Fireflies, Nausicaa is also very powerful and is more addictive than these three while Totoro is simply sublime in every way, so I decided only last month that Totoro was my favorite Miyazaki movie after circling around PM, Nausicaa and Spirited Away.

And yes, the environmental message in Princess Mononoke is quite transparent (but not exactly obvious, in fact, what is the exact message? that men and nature don't tend to coexist in peace?, in fact, PM doesn't have a crealy defined environmentalist message). The presence of environmentalism ideology bugged me the first time I watched it but the next times I learned to feel it instead of plain rejection. Miyazaki's religion is environmentalism. Complaining about a forced environmental message in PM is like complaining about the explicit mention of christian religion in a film like The Seventh Seal.

I am an atheist and not an environmentalist, but I am able to understand a director's passion for these subjects instead of simply rejecting all movies that features such themes, otherwise my range of watchable films would be quite restricted if only I would be able to watch movies that agree with my own ideological outlook.

I still haven't watched your favorite animation. If you are wondering why it didn't show up in this list.

The Iron Giant is a modern classic, Heavy Metal is good but probably a movie intended to be watched while high. Either way I liked it. And A Nightmare Before Christmas is one of the classics of my childhood. I hope you enjoy them,

New iteration of my top 50 animations (new additions in bold):

1 - My Neighbor Totoro
2 - Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie (parts 1 & 2)
3 - Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
4 - Princess Mononoke
5 - Grave of the Fireflies
6 - Spirited Away
7 - Porco Rosso
8 - Only Yesterday
9 - Whisper of the Heart
10 - Kiki's Delivery Service
11 - Castle in the Sky
12 - Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal
13 - Howl's Moving Castle
14 - Millennium Actress
15 - Evangelion 2.0
16 - Children Who Chase Lost Voices From Deep Below
17 - Summer Wars
18 - Scott Tenorman Must Die
19 - The Man Who Planted Trees
20 - 5 Centimeters per Second
21 - Tale of Tales
22 - Paprika
23 - Summer Days with Coo
24 - Ponyo
25 - Gauche the Cellist
26 - Hedgehog in the Fog
27 - Akira
28 - Wall-E
29 - Wolf Children
30 - The Place Promised in Our Early Days
31 - Ghost in the Shell
32 - Castle of Cagliostro
33 - Night of the Galactic Railroad
34 - UP
35 - Evangelion 1.0
36 - Horus: Prince of the Sun
37 - Memories
38 - Ratatoille
39 - Wings of Honneamise
40 - The Illusionist
41 - From Up on Poppy Hill
42 - The Plague Dogs
43 - Tokyo Godfathers
44 - Dimensions of Dialogue
45 - Galaxy Express 999
46 - The Incredibles
47 - Mind Game
48 - Watership Down
49 - The Triplets of Belleville
50 - Fantasia

Over a 4 months period I added 7 new entries into my top 50 animations.

The Iron Giant is very good. Good mix of humor and excitement.

Guapo, have you seen Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade? I haven't seen you mention it and it's really a rather good anime, complex and dark.

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#31 on SC's Top 100 Mofos list!!

Akira is my favorite of those (), Ghost in the Shell is my least favorite ().

I absolutely love Shinkai and Miyazaki, and still have some films of theirs left to watch. Spirited Away is a modern classic, as is 5cm per second.

The thing which puts a lot of Japanese animation above their competitors, in my opinion, is the attention to detail. Both Miyazaki and Shinkai have an incredible knack for creating a specific type of world around their characters which really amazes and astounds me.

The guy who does Shinkai's scores, Tenmon, is an absolute genius too.

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I rate it as . Very good indeed.

Shinkai is way underrated indeed. He is my favorite among recent animation directors.

Very awesome list. I hope you enjoy The Nightmare Before Christmas.
My only nitpick here is that you put The Illusionist in front of The Triplets of Belleville. Triplets was awesome, but I thought The Illusionist was boring. Obviously it wasn't made for my demographic, though.
One that I would highly recommend adding to your watch list is Rock and Rule. It's very dated, but it's one of the coolest movies I've ever seen and it's an all time favorite of mine.