Toy Story changed everything about animated movies in 1995. This was Pixar’s first movie, and its chance to show it belonged in the animation scene. It was also a risky venture. Steve Jobs bought the studio to create a new way to make animated films. If it failed, he would lose a lot. Toy Story was a success.

Pixar built the software used to animate the movies on computers, rather than using the typical hand-drawn animation that Disney had perfected for years. Toy Story’s success changed everything, with even Disney changing its focus in later years to follow Pixar’s path. However, Toy Story wasn’t the only groundbreaking animated movie.

Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs (1937)

Released in 1939, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is the reason that Disney became the most successful animation company in the world for decades. The movie was based on the dark tales by the Brothers Grimm, but was changed into a kid-friendly feature film that has enthused families for decades.

The story is about a young woman whom an Evil Queen fears will become the most beloved person in the land, so she sets out to eliminate her. This animated movie is credited with creating the Disney Princess concept, as it featured the handsome Prince saving Snow White, and they lived happily ever after.

Snow White’s success led Disney to charge forward with more animated movies, featuring Disney Princess movies like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. None of these would exist if not for the groundbreaking Snow White. The Oscars even honored Snow White two years in a row, something unheard of.

Fantasia (1940)

One year after Disney Animation broke the mold with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, it created something entirely different and groundbreaking with Fantasia. While Snow White changed everything about animation and opened the doors for the Disney Princess movie revolution, Fantasia did the opposite.

Fantasia wasn’t geared toward kids, as this was a scary, frightening movie that shook up audiences and created an uneasy feeling. However, thanks to Mickey Mouse and the music, Fantasia became a film that many parents have dared to share with their kids in the years to come.

It was a mᴀssive success, and over the years, it has made over $80 million at the box office, as it has been released into theaters multiple times over the decades. Fantasia is why animated horror movies like Coraline exist decades later. It was also honored and added to the National Film Registry in 1990.

Akira (1988)

For almost five decades, Disney Animation ruled the world when it came to cartoon movies. However, things began to change in the 1980s. That is when Japanese anime began to cross over to America and became a popular subgenre. While there were smaller movies and manga that fans loved, Akira is what led to the breakout.

Based on the manga of the same name, Akira did more than popularize anime with an American audience who was only learning more about the animation style. It also helped elevate the sci-fi subgenre steampunk to the national consciousness, and it was just as crucial as Blade Runner when it came to that breaking out.

It is easy to point out Akira, alongside Hayao Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro, as a reason that 1988 was a groundbreaking year for anime, especially its rise to popularity in the West.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)

Every year, it seems that there are more and more movies that mix live-action actors with animated characters, thanks mainly to CGI advancements. Sonic the Hedgehog and Jurᴀssic World have gone a long way in making this the norm. However, Who Framed Roger Rabbit was the animated movie that mastered this.

CGI was not a thing at the time, so this was a movie that took hand-drawn animation and added it to live-action scenes, where Looney Tunes-style cartoon characters co-exist with humans. What resulted was a murder mystery noir, where a human detective investigated a murder to clear the name of a cartoon rabbit.

This movie went a long way in bringing back interest in classic animated characters like Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny, and created a new renaissance for the golden age cartoons. Director Robert Zemeckis also continued to explore new groundbreaking filmmaking techniques as well, with Forrest Gump and The Polar Express.

Beauty And The Beast (1991)

By the 1980s, Disney Animation was at a low point. The 80s saw few successful movies, with The Great Mouse Detective and Oliver & Company not coming close to the masterpieces of the past. However, thanks to the success of The Little Mermaid in 1989, Disney began to straighten itself back out again.

While The Little Mermaid technically started the Disney Renaissance in animation, it was Beauty and the Beast that made it a huge success once again. This was groundbreaking in many ways, including being one of the first to use computer-generated imagery to enhance storytelling, changing everything about animation.

It was also the first animated movie to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Picture, which caused the Academy to eventually create a new award for Best Animated Feature ten years later.

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

Stop-motion animation has been a niche technique for many years. Back in the golden age of fantasy movies, masters like Ray Harryhausen used the technique to create monsters and practical effects to great effect. Even Aardman Animation has been making stop-motion animated short films and TV shows since the 1970s.

However, in 1993, Tim Burton and director Henry Selick showed that a feature-length stop-motion animated movie could be a mᴀssive success. The Nightmare Before Christmas was a full-stop-motion animated movie that was a box-office triumph, a critical darling, and eventually was added to the National Film Registry.

This movie also opened the door for other films, as Aardman Studios finally moved into the feature-length movie realm in 2000 with Chicken Run, and Laika began its strong work with Coraline in 2009. Both Tim Burton and Henry Selick also returned to stop-motion in later years to great acclaim.

Shrek (2001)

Shrek accomplished something that ensures it will always be a part of animated movie history. In 2001, it became the first movie to ever win an Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film at the Academy Awards. However, Shrek’s place in history is more than just that piece of trivia.

Shrek ensured that DreamWorks would quickly move up to become the third most important animation studio in the world, behind only Disney and Pixar. It has since become one of the most profitable, thanks to franchises like How to Train Your Dragon and Kung Fu Panda, as well as the Shrek sequels and spin-offs.

Shrek also created a new, more realistic animated look for the characters and settings, which changed how animation was made for the next two decades. The story marked a shift in how animated movies were created, as it parodied live-action films and pop culture to great effect, offering something for both adults and kids.

Spirited Away (2001)

Hayao Miyazaki had been making animated films since 1979 and was a legend by 2001. However, Spirited Away was something bigger than anything he had done before. The movie, about a young girl swept into a world ruled by mysterious spirits, was groundbreaking, and Spirited Away changed animation forever.

Miyazaki took Japanese folklore and infused it into a coming-of-age story to create an anime that resonates with a wide audience, something that animated films often struggle to do. It worked to great effect, as it was the highest-grossing Japanese movie for 19 years. It also bucked trends by using hand-drawn animation.

This anime explored mature themes, but it used a story that resonates with children as well. This was something that influenced Pixar, with the movie Inside Out, and the Makoto Shinkai film Your Name. It remains a groundbreaking work of filmmaking that proves Studio Ghibli has always been ahead of the curve.

Paprika (2006)

Released in 2006, Paprika was another Japanese anime that was groundbreaking and sought to create something new in the genre. This was a surrealist fantasy film by Satoshi Kon, following a dream detective named Paprika who battles a dream terrorist who causes nightmares by using a device that shares people’s dreams.

As the synopsis shows, this is unlike almost any animated movie on the market. However, this psychedelic animated film is best known for its striking visuals, and in that regard, it remains a masterpiece of cinema. A good comparison is the movie Inception, but with animation allowing even more non-realistic visual flair.

As such, this animated film is likely the inspiration for movies like Inception, and Paprika’s ability to stretch beyond the animated spectrum shows its importance in film history.

Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse (2018)

Shrek changed everything by showing that the animation had reached a point where it could make characters look realistic in an animated world. The less cartoony the characters looked, the better in the post-Shrek world. However, in 2018, it was time to dial things back and change animation again.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse worked hard to make the characters and settings look cartoony. To do so, the animators used what is known as 2.5D animation, which is a mixture of the 3D animation that films use and the classic 2D animation of classic animation releases. Not only that, Spider-Verse changed styles throughout its running time.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was so beloved for its animation style that even the Shrek franchise reverted to using it for the last Puss in Boots movie, showing that it was time to make animated films look like cartoons once again.

Sources: Rotten Tomatoes, The-Numbers