Top 25 Animated Movies of All-Time

By Phil Pirrello, Eric Goldman, Matt Fowler, Scott Collura, Cindy White and Jesse Schedeen

As Toy Story 3 reminds us why we go to the movies in the first place, IGN Movies decided to amend our previous rank and file of feature-length cartoons and submit this shiny new list of films for your approval.

We assembled our brain trust of film geeks and put together 25 of the genre's best films. Our criteria included the films' impact on pop culture, story quality, legacy, filmmaking style and our favorite "Get Out of Jail Free" card, Editor's Choice.

After you read our favorites, tell us a few of yours in the comments along with those movies you love and wish we did, but didn't. (Sorry, Bebe's Kids fans.)

Before Batman Begins, this animated theatrical release was the Dark Knight's best big screen story. And some fans can still make the argument that it is the best ever made. While we might not make that argument ourselves, we can understand why a few brave fanboys would.

Bruce Wayne's past takes center stage as Batman must stop a new rogue on the block, Phantasm, from killing Gotham's local mob population. The crimes and the perpetrator are connected to Bruce's first – and last – shot at true love, a relationship he was willing to give up the cowl for if it meant he could be happy. So it's a comedy, clearly.

Tragedy and Batman are meant to be together, and when you throw Mark Hamill's Joker into the mix, you have one of the most heartfelt and dramatically satisfying stories DC has ever told. The Phantasm is a great nemesis, and the reveal of who is behind the mask is both surprising and justified. The climax, set at an abandoned Gotham World Fair ground, is truly epic and, moreover, violent as hell, thanks to Joker challenging Batman to the fight of his life. Each character, good or bad, is connected by an event their pasts could not have avoided. The movie doesn't shy away from exploiting the consequences of that event, especially the toll it takes on Bruce.

With his films, Nolan nailed who the Dark Knight is. But Phantasm did it first.

Fritz Lang's Metropolis is one of the true classics of the silent film era. Many decades later, this Metropolis is now considered a classic among animated films.

This 2001 movie is an adaptation of Osamu Tezuka's manga series, which itself adapted Lang's film. The anime presents a conflict between two societal classes, but also offers a very personal exploration of what it means to be human. Metropolis is chock full of amazing visuals and pure, unbridled imagination. Is there any silent movie that can't be improved through liberal application of lush animation and Japanese robots? Nine years later, Metropolis certainly holds its own against classics such as Akira and Ghost in the Shell.

Not number one, you say? Walt Disney's ultimate creation? His piece de resistance? That's right, it's not number one in our book. Yes, Fantasia is pretty cool, great stuff -- a Disney masterpiece, sure, and a milestone in animation and cinema as a whole. But let's be honest here… It can also be kind of boring at times, cheesy at others, and dated in the worst way here or there (Those freakin' unicorns? Seriously? And baby unicorns?!).

And yet, there is still so much to praise for the film, even now 70 years since it was released. The episodic, mostly non-narrative epic is of course set to various pieces of classical music, resulting in sequences like the climactic "Night on Bald Mountain" (featuring the awesome demon-creature Chernabog) that are hallmarks of the genre. Technically peerless, featuring animation that is still among the best ever created, the film should be much higher on this list. But those damned unicorns…

Mamoru Oshii's feature-length film, adapted from the manga by Masamune Shirow, helped launch a massive, worldwide franchise that now includes several sequels, a couple of television series, videogames, novels, toys and more. James Cameron has praised it, the Wachowski brothers have credited it as being a major influence on The Matrix and a Steven Spielberg-produced live-action film is currently in the works.

Essentially a crime thriller set in the future, the original 1985 film introduced cyborg security officer Major Motoko Kusanagi on the trail of a criminal hacker known as the Puppet Master. The film explores such deep, existential themes as the nature of identity and what it is that makes us human.

It also includes hot naked chicks. So take from it what you will…

When writer-directors Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach combine their unique filmmaking talents, they bring about arguably their best work – despite the confines of some very old-school, very fun stop-motion animation.

Fox, based on the novel by Roald Dahl, features George Clooney voicing the titular character, a columnist who can't resist going back to his sly, chicken coop-robbing roots to feed his family when three big corporate chicken farmers threaten to tear down Fox and Friends' home. The setup is pretty basic, but the content and interplay between these animal characters is inspiring, witty and most of all pure fun. Our heroes, made of arts and crafts supplies, feel more alive than most live-action characters. And Anderson and Baumbach, operating outside of their usual wheelhouse governed by all-too-smart, upper-class people with upper-class problems, seem to bring out the best in each other here, giving the film many opportunities to be one of the most underrated films of 2009.

Continues