2023 Readers' Choice Poll

[James]

Critics, the Academy, Hollywood guilds, and even the Animated Views staff are rendering their judgment on the top movies of the year. But now it's your turn! What was the best animated film of 2023? Cast your vote here:

http://animatedviews.com/avi/2023-readers-choice/

We'll tally up all the numbers and reveal your choice soon.

Until then feel free to discuss your vote here!

[Farerb]

I voted for Elemental, mainly because I think Spider-Verse and Miyazaki are overrated.
Not a good year for animation to be honest.

[Ben]

Not a *great* year all around, I donut think. A fairly good year, maybe, but I’m not sure there are any films we'll really be celebrating the 30, 40 or 50th anniversaries of in years to come. Oppenheimer I still have little interest in, Barbie is as divisive as it is popular, and everything else just feels somewhat like leftovers, as good or as well intentioned they may be.

I did just see Spider-Verse last night and was largely wowed by the ambitions, even if the film didn’t consistently meet them. First 45 minutes to an hour was just expanding everything, though I missed some of the last film's characters, but then the next 45m/hour lost all the "fun" and waded into some pretty depressing character and relationship dynamics that were, for a film of this kind, extremely depthy and angsty, perhaos a little too much and for too long, which is where I felt it could be a little tighter and use a bit more levity.

Somewhat losing the villain halfway through when he’s never quite been painted or explained to truly dramatic effect, did give the film a lack of focus and direction in that middle section again, That said, we then got twist on twist on twist, some of which were seen coming, some of which only built excitement at what is to come, in the last half hour, which mostly pulled things back just in time for a good cliffhanger ending and much pumped up anticipation for the last part.

It didn’t have the uniqueness or kinetic energy of the first, which we re-ran last week as a primer, or the sense of fun, but in many ways it wasn’t supposed to. In its huge scope and wildly ambitious storytelling, I somewhat likened this to The Godfather Part II — lofty comparisons indeed — in terms of story dynamics in expansion and depth, although I do say *likened* rather than it being an equivalent to, as I did think it ran long in the middle, and I missed the consistency of the first film. It took some wild swings and largely hit them, and is certainly the most ambitious and subversive animated film from this year's crop.

Of the "big" titles, I’ve also seen the Chicken Run sequel, which is Aardman’s best in a while but lacks the scope of the first, and isn’t as clever, funny or as detailed as the earlier film, though the change in voices didn’t actually affect it as much as feared, even if that did seem to be a box ticking exercise over anything else, and the music score made both films feel truly connected. It’s funny that the photochemical film of the first one made everything look "real", whereas the digital capture of this one gave it a very "manufactured" look, which also didn’t help it feel as "big".

And I unwittingly saw some/most of The Amazing Maurice, which played here as a TV movie, though it wasn’t compelling enough to keep my attention so we just left it on in the background while other things were happening. I’m sure it does what it does for the more intended audience, but it looked somewhat cheap and didn’t have that multigenerational appeal that all good family animation going way back should have.

I look forward to at least seeing Elemental and Leo soon, hopefully before the poll closes so that I can make an informed choice, but am amazed at the number of titles this year, and the number I haven’t even heard of, around half of which I have no idea what they are! And herein lies the trouble with streaming, and the "segregation" of different distributor offerings (and the world at large): some titles don’t get cinema, disc or network TV releases at all, and not everyone can afford all the streamers, so all these potentially great films remain stuck in their ghettos and unseen.

Bottom line: even amongst the ones I've seen, and will see in the next week or two, I’m struggling to come up with a coherent top three!

[Dacey]

I'm so behind on movies it's not even funny. I still haven't watched Wish or Spider-Verse. No "Barbenheimer" either (I'm sure I'll like Oppenheimer, but have become reluctant to check out Barbie despite being excited for it beforehand).

Kind of nuts that Ninja Turtles got snubbed at the Oscars, though, given how well-received it was. I guess they didn't want to risk saying the words "And the Oscar goes to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles"?

[Ben]

I think it’s so obviously Heron or Spidey that there’s little chance of that, though I wouldn’t like to call it between those two this year!

We're running Elemental on Saturday, but donut really expect that break through with the Pixar "charm"…Heron has over-delivered in box-office terms and Spidey is, well, Spidey, and the sequel to an already BAF winner.