The year 2023 has been one of the greatest in animation history.
This is not just due to the animation's ubiquity (if "Barbie" had never come along, the No. 1 movie of the year would have undoubtedly been "The Super Mario Bros. Movie") but also the originality of the movies, even if they are part of a larger franchise, and the variety of animation styles that brought them to life (stop-motion, computer animation, traditional animation and combinations of all of the above). The fact that treasures like Disney's "Wish," DreamWorks' "Trolls Band Together" and "Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken," Netflix's "Leo" and Illumination's "Migration" didn't make the list is a testament to just how strong this year was. Also: we really, really liked "Merry Little Batman." It's on Prime Video and it is cute as s–t.
But without further ado, here are the very best animated features of 2023:
