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The 20 Best Animated Movies of 2020

This year’s gems sprung from both the expected and unexpected corners of the medium.
Best Animated Movies of 2020
By  · Published on December 15th, 2020

10. The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special

Lego Star Wars Holiday Special

Look, I’m as surprised to see this film as high on the list as you are. The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special may not be canon, but it’s probably the best we’re going to get regarding a follow-up to The Rise of Skywalker. And it most definitely is a follow-up.

The short film begins almost immediately after the fall of the First Order. Rey (Helen Sadler) struggles to teach Finn (Omar Benson Miller) the ways of the Force. While her friends prepare a grand Life Day celebration on Chewbacca’s homeworld, Rey travels to the Jedi Temple on Kordoku, where she discovers a green crystal that allows her to travel back in time.

For most of The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special, Rey spills from one classic Star Wars scene to the next. We re-meet Luke and Yoda on Dagobah, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan during their aggressive negotiations, and a quarreling Darth Vader and The Emperor on Death Star II. The real joy occurs when Rey accidentally propels characters from one film into another; galactic paradoxes abound.


9. Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge

Mortal Kombat Scorpions Revenge animated movies 2020

Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge basically retells the same story as the 1995 theatrical adaptation, but with one key difference. It hooks the narrative on the rage of the video game’s skull-faced, supernaturally savage combatant, Scorpion. Making the undead warrior’s revenge the driving motivation, the film frees the audience to relish in the bloodshed cheerfully.

Mortal Kombat is all about the fatalities, and this cartoon knows how to please its players. We open on Sub Zero’s clan slaughtering their way through Scorpion’s family, and it never lets up from there. Blood flows in torrents, limbs pile in mountains. It’s a gorehound’s delight, sold through a tyrannical sense of justice.


8. Onward

Onward Pixar

In a world where magic and fantasy are commonplace, two brothers rediscover wonder and their love for each other as they set off to restore their dead father to the land of the living. Standing in their way is every fantastic creature dumped out of The Lord of the Rings and Dungeons & Dragons.

With a theatrical life cut short by the pandemic, Onward is destined to meet its audience on the small screen. It’s a hyper geeky adventure, peppered with references to pop culture of every variety. Director Dan Scanlon stitches one big nerd blanket to keep you warm when life looks its coldest.


7. The Croods: A New Age

The Croods animated movies 2020

The Croods: A New Age is The Croods on acid. The sequel has the same basic prehistoric premise as the original — a family of cave people tries to make it in a savage world where death awaits around every corner — but director Joel Crawford and his crew crank the surrealism of the surroundings to eleven. Then they break the dial. They snap that damn thing off and eat it!

DreamWorks Animation composes a luscious canvas of weirdness, fabricating a reality that seems extrapolated from Ray Harryhausen’s concept of “dinosaur times.” Chicken Seals? Why not? Punch Monkeys? Yes, please.

The warm family fuzzies never quite hit as strongly as they do in a Pixar endeavor, but it’s a whole lot funnier. There is no topping peanut toes or the broad pleasures of sticks in eyes eliciting screaming panic. That’s just good comedy.


6. If Anything Happens I Love You

If Anything Happens I Love You

The less said about this twelve-minute short film, the better. Although considering that it dominated Netflix nearly immediately upon its release in November and spawned multiple hashtags across several social media platforms, the chances are slim that you’re unaware of its content.

I don’t want to rob any viewer of the experience I had with the film, knowing nothing before pressing play. Written and directed by Will McCormack and Michael Govier, If Anything Happens I Love You uses simplistic line drawings across stark, wide backgrounds to convey a deep sense of loss between two participants.

The film is a haunter. You may want to shake it, but it lingers long after the fade out. If we could only make its ache a memory, this country would be a better place. Preachy? No. Impassioned? Definitely.

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Brad Gullickson is a Weekly Columnist for Film School Rejects and Senior Curator for One Perfect Shot. When not rambling about movies here, he's rambling about comics as the co-host of Comic Book Couples Counseling. Hunt him down on Twitter: @MouthDork. (He/Him)