The 100 best animated movies: animators and filmmakers, Q to Z

Alvy Ray Smith is digital animation pioneer. He cofounded Pixar, created the Lucasfilm computer division and directed The Adventures of André and Wally B.

“Yes, I know Snow White is kind of corny, but it was the film I saw as a child that first sucked me into the world of animation. I could put any one of the early Disney oeuvre here instead—Pinocchio, Peter Pan,Cinderella. Or Fantasia, which is infamously uneven, but I don’t care. It featured the work of my first animation hero, Preston Blair, with his dancing hippos. I first learned to animate from Blair’s $1.50 how-to book. The Incredibles is my favorite Pixar movie, because of its 1950s vision-of-the-future sets, just as promised by the Ford Times when I was a kid (a magazine for Ford automobile owners); hats off to Brad Bird, the funniest man, who added bite to Pixar. Tubby the Tuba was so bad that it inspired all the rest.”

Chris Sullivan is an independent animator and the director of Consuming Spirits.

1. Princess Mononoke
2. It’s Such a Beautiful Day
3. Persepolis
4. Castle in the Sky
5. The Iron Giant
6. Millennium Actress
7. Mind Game
8. The Nightmare Before Christmas
9. The Incredibles
10. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind