15 Underrated Animated Movies That Deserve Way More Attention

April 16, 2026 | Film Chop

Animation gets a reputation problem. Most people think of Disney, Pixar, and a handful of Miyazaki films — and miss an enormous universe of animated movies that are stranger, more personal, and often more emotionally powerful than anything in the mainstream canon.

These are the underrated animated movies worth seeking out: the ones that got overlooked on release, the foreign gems that never found American audiences, and the studio-system underdogs that deserved better. Whether you grew up on animated movies or you’ve never thought of animation as a serious art form, these films will change your perspective.

Underrated Animated Movies That Deserve Way More Recognition

1. The Iron Giant (1999)

Director: Brad Bird | Studio: Warner Bros. | Available: Max, Tubi

A boy in 1957 Maine befriends a giant robot from outer space — and in the process, Brad Bird created one of the most emotionally devastating anti-war statements ever made in any medium. The Iron Giant bombed on release (Warner Bros. all but abandoned its marketing campaign) and has since been recognized as one of the great American animated films. The final sequence still destroys people decades later.

If you’ve only seen this once as a kid, watch it again as an adult. It holds up in ways almost nothing from that era does.

2. Persepolis (2007)

Director: Vincent Paronnaud & Marjane Satrapi | Studio: French/Iranian co-production | Available: Various platforms

Marjane Satrapi’s graphic memoir about growing up in Iran through the Islamic Revolution, adapted into a stark black-and-white animated film that won the Jury Prize at Cannes. Persepolis does what only animation can: it renders an entire worldview through visual metaphor, creating a coming-of-age story that’s simultaneously personal and political. One of the most important animated films ever made.

3. Waltz with Bashir (2008)

Director: Ari Folman | Studio: Israeli/German/French co-production | Available: Various platforms

An Israeli filmmaker attempts to recover repressed memories of his service in the 1982 Lebanon War. Waltz with Bashir is an animated documentary — and that description doesn’t capture how formally innovative and emotionally devastating it is. The film builds toward an ending that switches from animation to real documentary footage; it’s one of the most audacious formal choices in film history. Won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film.

4. Song of the Sea (2014)

Director: Tomm Moore | Studio: Cartoon Saloon | Available: Netflix

The Irish studio Cartoon Saloon has quietly produced a series of hand-drawn masterpieces that make Pixar look computational by comparison. Song of the Sea — about a boy who discovers his mute younger sister is a selkie — is visually breathtaking, drawing on Celtic mythology and traditional Irish visual art. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature but lost to Big Hero 6 in one of the great Oscar travesties.

5. Wolfwalkers (2020)

Director: Tomm Moore & Ross Stewart | Studio: Cartoon Saloon | Available: Apple TV+

Cartoon Saloon’s most recent film and arguably their best. Set in Cromwellian Ireland, it follows a young girl who discovers the legend of the wolfwalkers — people who transform into wolves in their sleep — is real. The animation style shifts between rigid English colonial architecture and wild, flowing organic wolfwalker sequences in a way that’s stunning in its intentionality. Wolfwalkers won the BAFTA for Best Animated Film and deserves to be in every “best animation” conversation.

6. Paprika (2006)

Director: Satoshi Kon | Studio: Madhouse | Available: Various platforms

A researcher uses a device that allows therapists to enter patients’ dreams — and someone starts using it to collapse the boundary between dream and reality. Satoshi Kon’s final film is the direct inspiration for Christopher Nolan’s Inception (Nolan has acknowledged it). It’s faster, stranger, funnier, and arguably more ambitious than Inception — and it was made by one person with a fraction of the budget. Essential for fans of mind-bending science fiction.

7. The Triplets of Belleville (2003)

Director: Sylvain Chomet | Studio: French/Belgian/Canadian | Available: Various platforms

A grandmother and her dog travel to a fictional version of New York to rescue her grandson, a Tour de France cyclist kidnapped by the French mob. Almost entirely without dialogue, using jazz, expressionist character design, and relentless invention, The Triplets of Belleville is unlike anything else in animation. Nominated for two Oscars. Beloved by animation scholars, unknown to most audiences.

8. Ernest & Celestine (2012)

Director: Stéphane Aubier, Vincent Patar, Benjamin Renner | Studio: Belgian/French | Available: Various platforms

A bear and a mouse form an unlikely friendship in a world where their species are mortal enemies. What sounds like a simple children’s film is a genuinely moving fable about difference, creativity, and the arbitrary nature of social rules. The watercolor-style animation is achingly beautiful. Nominated for the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. Perfect for adults who want something warm and intelligent — one of the finest feel-good movies in animation.

9. Kubo and the Two Strings (2016)

Director: Travis Knight | Studio: Laika | Available: Peacock, various

Laika’s stop-motion animation studio has been doing extraordinary work for years, and Kubo and the Two Strings is their masterpiece. A young boy with magical origami powers must face his family’s past. The film’s final act confronts grief and memory with more sophistication than most adult dramas manage. Lost the Oscar to Zootopia. That loss still stings.

10. Paranorman (2012)

Director: Sam Fell & Chris Butler | Studio: Laika | Available: Netflix, Peacock

A boy who can see ghosts must stop a zombie apocalypse in his small town. ParaNorman is funnier and scarier than most animated films aimed at kids — and it has a genuinely radical message about empathy and the cycle of bullying at its core. One of the most emotionally honest animated films of the 2010s, with a third-act twist that genuinely surprises.

11. The Wind Rises (2013)

Director: Hayao Miyazaki | Studio: Studio Ghibli | Available: Max

Miyazaki’s “final” film (before his latest return) is his most misunderstood. A fictionalized biography of Jiro Horikoshi, the engineer who designed Japan’s WWII Zero fighter planes, The Wind Rises is a meditation on creativity, beauty, and complicity — made by an 73-year-old man reckoning with his life’s work. More people know Spirited Away; this is the Miyazaki film that haunts you.

12. Millennium Actress (2001)

Director: Satoshi Kon | Studio: Madhouse | Available: Various platforms

A documentary crew interviews a legendary actress — and the boundary between her films and her memories dissolves. Satoshi Kon was a singular talent who died at 46, leaving only four features, and all four are masterworks. Millennium Actress is the most romantic of them: a film about film, about memory, and about the stories we tell ourselves to survive. If you love cinema as a medium, this is essential.

13. Long Way North (2015)

Director: Rémi Chayé | Studio: French/Danish | Available: Various platforms

A Russian aristocrat’s granddaughter secretly travels to the Arctic to find her grandfather’s lost ship in 1892. Long Way North uses simplified, flat shapes and a deliberately restrained color palette to create something that feels genuinely novel — a coming-of-age adventure story drawn in the visual language of Nordic folk art. Overlooked entirely on release, beloved by animation enthusiasts who’ve found it.

14. The Red Turtle (2016)

Director: Michaël Dudok de Wit | Studio: Studio Ghibli / Wild Bunch | Available: Various platforms

A man shipwrecked on a deserted island builds rafts to escape, only to have them destroyed each time by a mysterious red turtle. Then the turtle becomes a woman. Without a single word of dialogue, The Red Turtle tells a complete story of a human life — love, parenthood, loss, and the sea. Won the Un Certain Regard Special Jury Prize at Cannes. Made with Studio Ghibli’s backing. Seen by almost no one. It’s extraordinary.

15. Azur & Asmar: The Princes’ Quest (2006)

Director: Michel Ocelot | Studio: French/Belgian | Available: Various platforms

Michel Ocelot’s visually sumptuous fairy tale follows two boys — one French, one North African — raised as brothers who grow up to compete for the hand of a djinn princess. The film’s visual aesthetic draws on Islamic art and architecture in a way that feels reverential rather than appropriative. It’s one of the most beautiful animated films you’ve probably never seen.

What Makes Animated Movies “Underrated”?

Most animation on this list shares a few common traits: it was made outside the major American studio system, it wasn’t aimed exclusively at children, or it arrived in theaters without marketing support and disappeared quickly. Animation has historically been ghettoized as a children’s medium in Western markets, which means adult-oriented or artistically ambitious animation consistently gets overlooked.

The films above prove that animation is one of the most expressive art forms available — capable of things live action simply cannot do. For more genre-specific recommendations, see our guides to best animated movies for adults and our full ranking of best Disney movies.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the most underrated animated movie of all time?

Animation scholars most frequently cite The Iron Giant, Waltz with Bashir, and Satoshi Kon’s work (particularly Millennium Actress and Paprika) as the most criminally underrated animated films. All were overlooked commercially or critically at release and have since been reappraised as masterworks.

What are the best underrated animated movies for adults?

For adults specifically: Persepolis, Waltz with Bashir, Paprika, The Wind Rises, and The Red Turtle are all made for adult sensibilities with adult themes. None of them feature talking sidekicks or musical montages. All of them are extraordinary.

Are there underrated animated movies on Netflix?

Yes — Song of the Sea, ParaNorman, and several Studio Ghibli films (available on Max in the US) are frequently cited as hidden gems. Netflix also has its own animated originals like I Lost My Body (a French film about a severed hand searching for its owner) that deserve far more attention than they received.