Kaguya-hime no Monogatari

The Animation Film Award (アニメーション映画賞) is an award given to the best animated feature film at the Mainichi Film Awards. The award was established to reward large scale cinematic animation, enabling the Oofuji Noburou Award to focus on shorter pieces. This award was first presented in 1989 for Kiki's Delivery Service by Hayao Miyazaki.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Films that were nominated for the Best Animation of the Year prize given by the Japan Academy Film Prize Association, first awarded in 2007. All five nominees are awarded the Excellent Animation of the Year (優秀アニメーション作品) by the association.

This list only contains entries which were nominated, but did not win the Best Animation of the Year prize.

Critics & Connoisseurs was a club that was founded in 2008 and ended club activities on the 31st of 2022.

The goal of the club was to come up with a list of highly recommended quality shows that are exemplary either within its genre or universally. An anime needed a 70% approval rate in our voting to get on the relation list. The following anime are all part of said list.

You can see the club page here:
https://myanimelist.net/clubs.php?cid=2913

Anime Relation List Part 2: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/328
Manga Relation List: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/334

An ongoing list of my favorite and personal anime movies.

Updated 9.12.2024

A small collection of visually distinct anime to feast your eyes on.

This list contains all movies that aren't related with any anime series. (Pre 2014)

Part 2: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/1267
Part 3: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/7998

I watched 35 movies from this list and these are my most favorites:

- Wolf Children
- The Tale of Princess Kaguya
- Tokyo Godfathers
- The Wind Rises
- The Girl who Leapt Through Time
- Kiki's Delivery Service
- 5cm Per Second
- Perfect Blue

These animes were the landmarks in anime industry. Critically acclaimed shows and popular for its story, characters, development, and the amazing experience that the audience might feel. Some of them are old and modern, but it has the same level of "masterpiece" that I've seen so far.

Full-length Ghibli movies only.

This is the kind of stuff you'll want to show to your older relatives or a friend / significant other who isn't into anime in particular but is open to new experiences. Not necessarily to hook them on anime but simply to share a good time together.

What helps an anime end up on this list:
* either subdued or distinctly avant-garde appearance that transcends common anime design sensibilities;
* mature, adult-life-related themes;
* well-crafted, compelling story and character interactions;
* fresh and daring ideas or their execution;
* being otherwise remarkable as an art piece;
* moderate length.

What DOESN'T help an anime end up on the list:
* referencing or pandering to otaku culture, incessant fan service, and all that crap;
* slow-burn slice-of-life narrative;
* overly random, absurdist, reference-heavy humor;
* being too long or narratively incomplete;
* being too tropey;
* not being very good in general (regrettably, this includes bad and mediocre adaptations of good manga/LNs, so no Berserk, My Home Hero, or Golden Kamuy on the list).

These aren't absolute rules but they're hard enough that I would only consider minor exceptions. There is most certainly not enough room for every single piece that fits the bill, so take this as my personal, heavily curated top-50. If there is a sequel or a side-story that also deserves attention (or, conversely, one you should skip), I will mention it in the annotations, so please watch them.

List is subject to revisions and reordering.

A Comprehensive and Chronological List of Japanese Animated works that have been nominated for an Academy Award.

A list of anime that have aesthetic appeal or have particularly distinctive art styles...

Anime with unique art-style/premise and or surreal/dreamlike sequences

Anything with visually appealing art that makes you go stunned and will make you never want to look away from that scenery, and can be used as your background wallpaper.

Anime either based on, heavily influenced by or drawing key aspects from folklore. Folklore encompasses the traditional beliefs, customs, and stories of a community, people or culture passed down through the generations by word of mouth and later often recorded in written form.

While the majority of works listed in this club have their origins in East Asian folklore (for obvious reasons) also included are examples of folklore ranging from portrayals of the mythology of Ancient Greece, stories featuring local spirits, legendary folk heroes, adaptions of Brothers Grimm fairy tales and narratives featuring the Gods of the Norse pantheon as characters. Modernised interpretations and retellings have been largely excluded.

As MAL currently sadly only allows a max of 50 entries on interests stacks this list prioritises the stand out and most high quality examples of folkloric anime. For a more comprehensive list which also includes manga, I direct you to my accompanying folklore club of the same name.

For those with trouble keeping up (in order).

A compilation of movies that definitely made me cry a river of tears !!!

Anime where characters aren't big eyed cute girls

I'll add more later

This is a part of a series of stacks that are about artistic tendencies in anime (and that border the fine line between sophisticated and pretentious).

This stack is a work in progress.

Bibliography:
Bingham, Adam. “Distant Voices, Still Lives: Love, Loss, and Longing in the work of Makoto Shinkai.” Asian Cinema. 20:2 (2009): 217-225.
Griffin, Blake. “Cowboy Bebop: The Acceptance of Loss.” Medium.com. 26 June 2020.
Lack, Jonathan R. “Elegy for a Lost Tomorrow: Representations of Loss in the Works of Isao Takahata.” 2015. University of Colorado, Master’s Thesis. 25-30.
Napier, Susan J. “Elegies.” Anime from Akira to Howl’s Moving Castle. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. 275-278.