The sheer breadth of choice we have, and the extremely subjective nature of the beast (one viewer’s pretty is another viewer’s twee) means that we’re fully confident that this ranking will inspire its fair share of rage/accusations of bias as well. All these factors combine to provide a mainstream and arthouse filmmaking landscape that’s friendlier toward a more diverse range of animation styles and subjects than ever before. The last fifteen years have seen the animation industry undergo huge upheavals, from the titanic union of old-school giant Disney with beloved game-changer Pixar, to the rise to international and Oscar-winning glory of the extraordinary Studio Ghibli (and its imminent dissolution), to the massive leap in quality made by the likes of DreamWorks and other up-and-comers. So here is that list: the time frame is extended this time to include any animated film in any style (bar rotoscoping, which we excluded because of its reliance on live-action filming first) from 2000 till now. We were a touch disappointed, to be honest, as we had a snappy comeback at the ready: we were already in the planning stages of an all-animation feature, so we felt justified in separating the live action picks from their hand-drawn, computer generated, stop motion and claymation brethren. Surprisingly, of all the many, many names we were called over our ranking of The 50 Best Films Of The Decade So Far, “anti-animation, hegemonic live-action crypto-fascists” wasn’t one, despite the fact we didn’t feature any animated movies on that list.