10 '90s Animated Movies That Are Perfect From Start to Finish

Published Oct 20, 2026, 6:23 AM EDT

Writing from the Chicagoland area in Illinois, Robert is an avid movie watcher and will take just about any excuse to find time to go to his local movie theaters. Robert graduated from Bradley University with degrees in Journalism and Game Design with a minor in Film Studies. Robert tries his best to keep up with all the latest movie releases, from those released in theaters to those released on streaming. While he doesn't always keep up with the latest TV shows, he makes it a goal to watch nearly every major new release possible. He has been honing his craft and following any and all movie news all his life, leading up to now, where he has a vast knowledge of film and film history. He also logs every movie that he watches on his Letterboxd page, and has hosted a weekly online movie night with his closest friends for over 6 years.

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Feature-length animatedion has always been one of teh most celebrated and widely versatile forms of filmmaking out there, with each different era of filmmaking history having it own selection of animation titans that have defined the industry. However, there is something truly special about the 1990s that has made it the consistent choice for the best decade in terms of animation quality and variety within the medium as a whole. It saw both the very best that 2D animation had to offer as well as the humble beginnings of 3D computer animation.

It also certainly helped that studios like Disney were putting out some of the best works of art that they had been making for decades, ushering in a new era of passion and excitement for animation in the wake of their success. This was on top of the exceptional offerings in terms of stop-motion and anime filmmaking, which further cemented the 90s as a truly special time for fans of feature-length animation. In terms of the very best animated films of the decade, only a select 10 manage to be absolutely perfect from start to finish.

10 'Ghost in the Shell' (1995)

Image via Manga Entertainment

An icon of 90s anime filmmaking and one of the most iconic and influential cyberpunk movies ever made, Ghost in the Shell has built a lasting legacy as one of the best animated films for mature audiences. Its sleek style and darker exploration of a dystopian future has made it incredibly influential both inside and outside of the realm of animation. Over 30 years after its release, very few animated films have come close to the distinct energy that Ghost in the Shell still holds over audiences.

While anime as an art form was certainly celebrated and appreciated in the 90s when the film was first released, it has absolutely exploded in prominence and popularity in the 21st century, leading the way for Ghost in the Shell to become an even bigger classic thanks to its undeniable staying power. It stands now as one of the very first films that come to mind when considering sci-fi anime films as well as 90s animation as a whole.

9 'Mulan' (1998)

Image via Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Mulan was one of many masterpieces that Walt Disney Animation Studios put out during their legendary Renaissance era, combining exceptional hand-drawn animation with a story of identity and gender norms that still holds up over 25 years after its release. The story of perseverance and going against cultural norms in the name of honor and integrity has struck a chord with audiences over the years, thanks both to the exceptional growth of Mulan as a character and the wide array of iconic original songs.

It's far from the only masterpiece that Disney put out in the 90s, yet it continuously stands out as this perfect blend of genuine, emotional depth in its characters and story as well as overwhelming charm in its execution and visuals. The glorious blending of action, emotion, and musical moments has made Mulan one of the most timeless experiences that Disney has ever released and what many consider to be the last true masterpiece that the studio ever released.

8 'The Iron Giant' (1999)

Image via Warner Bros. Pictures

While Brad Bird's Cold War-era story of a boy and his 50 foot robot friend was originally a box-office disappointment, The Iron Giant has grown a monumental legacy after its release on home video, now being widely considered a masterpiece of the medium. This 90-minute animated masterpiece is overwhelming with charm and character in every second of its filmmaking, seamlessly blending together beautiful 2D animation with then-groundbreaking 3D computer animation that complement each other perfectly.

There's a real emotional pull put into the friendship that grows between Hogarth and The Iron Giant, creating a real sense of heartbreak when things go wrong for the duo, especially during the tearjerker final act. The raw, unrestrained way that the film goes about the emotions of its story and characters has played a major part in the film's continued success over the years, transforming the giant from a would-be relic into an icon of animation.

7 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' (1993)

Image via Touchstone Pictures

Widely considered to be the most legendary and immediately recognizable stop-motion animated film of all time, Henry Selick's holiday masterpiece, The Nightmare Before Christmas, has been an all-time classic ever since its release. The film has been endlessly rewatched by die-hard fans in both of the holiday seasons that it depicts, being as much of a Halloween classic as it is a Christmas classic. For many homes, the final 3 months of the year simply wouldn't be the same without this stop-motion classic.

The masterful craft and visual brilliance behind the film's stop-motion animation is the undeniable highlight, as each scene is a mesmerizing cacophony of masterful visuals and a style unlike any other film of the era. From the overwhelming personality and charm of Halloweentown to the manic chaos of Jack's attempts to go about Christmas in his own gothic ways, The Nightmare Before Christmas embraces its quirks and personality to make for one of the all-time great stop-motion masterpieces.

6 'Princess Mononoke' (1997)

Image via Toho

Acclaimed director Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli have released countless anime masterpieces over the years, for many being the unmistakable faces of feature-length anime filmmaking. However, as far as their offerings in the 90s are concerned, there isn't a pick more perfectly suited for this list than Princess Mononoke, the legendary adventure film with top-notch action and a powerful environmentalist message. It exudes absolute mastery over the medium of anime in each second of its animation, with an array of striking visuals elevating its already powerful story.

Miyazaki's greatest strengths as an artistic voice are on full display in this timeless masterpiece, as Princess Mononoke evolves its classic themes with a massive scale and gravitas unrivaled by other anime films. The film has been heralded as a fan favorite for many years, with its reputation continuing to grow as Ghibli's popularity has grown in the 21st century alongside the globalization of anime as a whole.

5 'The Prince of Egypt' (1998)

Image via DreamWorks Animation

While much of the conversation surrounding Hollywood 2D animated films in the 90s circles back to the influence and strength of Disney's offerings, it's important to note that one of their greatest competitors, DreamWorks Animation, also got its start in the 90s. Directly utilizing the influence of former Disney talent, DreamWorks' first film, The Prince of Egypt, proved to be a musical epic that rivaled the very best that Disney was putting out in their Renaissance era.

The film did absolute justice to the powerful biblical tale while making the story both incredibly approachable and standalone in its execution. There is a clear passion and respect for the source material while simultaneously being able to take the core strengths of this timeless story and convey its messages to the modern age of animation. DreamWorks' first outing continues to be heralded as one of their very best, as none of their other 2D films come close to the beauty and brilliance of this absolute classic.

4 'Beauty and the Beast' (1991)

Image via Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

The first animated movie to be nominated for Best Picture, as well as one of the most critically acclaimed movies that Disney has ever released, the reputation that Beauty and the Beast has built up for itself is outright staggering, to say the least. The animation is absolutely beautiful, its core story of unlikely love still touches heartstrings to this day, and the music is some of the best that has ever been made for a Disney film. When people think of the legendary stature of Disney's Renaissance era, Beauty and the Beast is one of the first films that comes to mind.

It cannot be overstated just how well crafted and timeless this animated classic is, as it takes a timeless fairy tale story with a rich cinematic history and creates what is widely considered to be the definitive iteration of the story. Many of its characters and musical numbers have become some of the most iconic in Disney history, as it helped massively usher in a new era of success and prominence for Disney that continued throughout the 90s and into the 21st century.

Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture Quiz Which Oscar Best Picture
Is Your Perfect Movie? Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country

Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one.

🪜Parasite

🌀Everything Everywhere

☢️Oppenheimer

🐦Birdman

🪙No Country for Old Men

FIND YOUR FILM →

01

What kind of film experience do you actually want? The best movies don't just entertain — they leave something behind.

ASomething that pulls the rug out — that makes me think I'm watching one kind of film and then reveals I'm watching another entirely. BSomething overwhelming — funny, sad, absurd, and genuinely moving, all at once. CSomething grand and weighty — a film that makes me feel the full scale of what I'm watching. DSomething formally daring — a film that pushes what cinema can even do. ESomething lean and relentless — pure tension with no wasted frame.

NEXT QUESTION →

02

Which idea grabs you most in a film? Great films are driven by a central obsession. What's yours?

AClass, inequality, and what people are willing to do when desperation meets opportunity. BIdentity, family, and the chaos of trying to hold your life together when everything is falling apart. CGenius, moral responsibility, and the catastrophic weight of a decision you can never take back. DEgo, legacy, and the terror of becoming irrelevant while you're still alive to watch it happen. EEvil, chance, and whether moral order actually exists or if we just tell ourselves it does.

NEXT QUESTION →

03

How do you like your story told? Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means.

AGenre-twisting — I want it to start in one lane and migrate into something completely different. BMaximalist and genre-blending — comedy, action, drama, sci-fi, all in one ride. CEpic and non-linear — cutting between timelines, building a mosaic of cause and consequence. DA single unbroken flow — I want to feel like I'm living it in real time, no cuts to safety. ESpare and precise — every scene doing exactly what it needs to do and nothing more.

NEXT QUESTION →

04

What makes a truly great antagonist? The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you?

AA system — invisible, structural, and almost impossible to fight because it has no single face. BThe self — the ways we sabotage, abandon, and fail the people we love most. CHistory — the unstoppable momentum of events that no single person can stop or redirect. DThe industry — the machinery of culture that chews up talent and spits out irrelevance. EPure, implacable evil — a force so certain of itself it becomes almost philosophical.

NEXT QUESTION →

05

What do you want from a film's ending? The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like?

AShock and inevitability — a conclusion that recontextualises everything that came before it. BEarned emotion — I want to cry, laugh, and feel genuinely hopeful, even if the world is a mess. CDevastation and grandeur — an ending that makes me sit in silence for a few minutes after. DAmbiguity — something that leaves enough open that I'm still thinking about it days later. EBleakness — an honest refusal to pretend the world is tidier than it actually is.

NEXT QUESTION →

06

Which setting pulls you in most? Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what's even possible.

AA gleaming modern city with a hidden underside — beauty masking rot, wealth masking desperation. BA collapsing suburban life that opens onto something infinite — the multiverse of a single ordinary person. CThe corridors of power and science at a world-historical turning point — where decisions echo for decades. DThe grimy, alive chaos of New York and Hollywood — fame as both destination and trap. EVast, indifferent landscape — desert and highway where violence arrives without warning or reason.

NEXT QUESTION →

07

What cinematic craft impresses you most? Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable.

AProduction design and mise-en-scène — every frame composed to carry meaning beneath the surface. BEditing and tonal control — the ability to move between registers without losing the audience. CScore and sound design — music that becomes inseparable from the dread and awe of what you're watching. DCinematography as performance — the camera not recording events but participating in them. ESilence and restraint — what's left unsaid and unshown doing more work than any dialogue could.

NEXT QUESTION →

08

What kind of main character do you root for? The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you.

ASomeone smart and resourceful who makes increasingly dangerous decisions under pressure. BSomeone overwhelmed and ordinary who turns out to be capable of something extraordinary. CA brilliant, tortured figure whose gifts and flaws are inseparable from each other. DA self-destructive artist whose ego is both their superpower and their undoing. EA quiet, principled person trying to make sense of a world that has stopped making sense.

NEXT QUESTION →

09

How do you feel about a film that takes its time? Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately.

AI love a slow build when I know the payoff is going to be seismic — patience for a devastating reveal. BGive me relentless momentum — I want to feel breathless and emotionally spent by the end. CEpic runtime doesn't scare me — if the material demands three hours, give me three hours. DI want it to feel propulsive even when nothing is technically happening — restless energy throughout. EDeliberate and unhurried — I want dread to accumulate in the spaces between the action.

NEXT QUESTION →

10

What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema? The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want?

AUnsettled — like I've just seen something I can't fully explain but can't stop thinking about. BMoved and energised — like the film reminded me what actually matters and gave me something to hold onto. CHumbled — like I've been in the presence of something genuinely important and overwhelming. DExhilarated — like I've just seen cinema doing something it's never quite done before. EHaunted — like a cold, quiet dread that stays with me for days.

REVEAL MY FILM →

The Academy Has Decided Your Perfect Film Is…

Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.

Parasite

You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho's Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it's ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.

Everything Everywhere All at Once

You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels' Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn't want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it's about.

Oppenheimer

You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort.

Birdman

You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it's about. Alejandro González Iñárritu's Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor's ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn't be possible. Michael Keaton's performance and Emmanuel Lubezki's restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.

No Country for Old Men

You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

3 'Toy Story 2' (1999)

Image via Pixar Animation Studios

The original Toy Story is often considered to be one of the most important animated movies of all time, with its stature of being the first feature-length fully 3D computer animated having massive ramifications on the entire animation industry. However, in terms of the standalone quality of the film itself, it's Toy Story 2 that slightly edges out the original in terms of 90s perfection status. The sequel does just about everything one would want an animated sequel to do, having improved animation, continued charm of the original, and expanding upon the world and themes of the original film.

Toy Story 2 builds upon the greatness of the original film in a way that very few sequels have ever been able to do to their masterpiece original films, upping the ante and quality in just about every way possible without taking away from the brilliance of the original film. Jessie and Bullseye are great new characters, the rescue mission of Buzz and the other toys is a blast to watch, and the film does a great deep dive into the psyche of Woody and the ideology of toys vs. collectibles.

2 'Perfect Blue' (1997)

Image via Rex Entertainment

An absolute masterpiece of psychological horror from legendary anime director Satoshi Kon, Perfect Blue is one of the darkest and most unnerving animated movies to have ever been released, being the quintessential example of how to accomplish horror thriller filmmaking in the realm of animation. Much like Kon's other films, Perfect Blue utilizes the personality and fluidity of its animation to amplify the emotions and themes of its film, an especially powerful tactic in a psychological horror film.

Perfect Blue has grown exceptionally popular in the time since its initial release, with many touting it as one of the greatest anime movies ever made and the greatest non-family animated movie of the 20th century. Its central themes of impostor syndrome and toxic fan culture have only grown more prevalent and topical in the years since its release, made all the more brilliant in the world of social media fandom. There really is no other animated movie like Perfect Blue, which continues to stand as a one-of-a-kind masterpiece of the genre.

1 'The Lion King' (1994)

Image via Walt Disney Animation

At one point holding the record for the highest-grossing animated movie of all time as well as being a cultural phenomenon that no other animated film could come close to reaching the scale and magnitude of, 90s animation is undeniably defined by the brilliance of The Lion King. The colorful animal take on the Shakespearean classic has stood the test of time not just as an icon of Disney and 90s animation, but in the eyes of many, is the clearest example of how animation can be used to create a timeless, imaginative work of art.

From breathtaking visuals to a wide array of memorable original songs, The Lion King constantly delivers the type of greatness and expertise that audiences grew to expect from Disney in their Renaissance era, yet even further elevated as the undeniable height of what they were capable of. It's a beautiful story of growth and nature that is just as powerful today as it was when it was released over 30 years ago. Just be sure to actually watch the original 90s masterpiece instead of the sorry excuse for a remake that the film received in 2019.

The Lion King