Bubbleblabber’s Best Adult Animated Films For 2024

Posted on December 17, 2024December 17, 2024 by The Bubbleblabber Team

Everyone’s talking about animation in film this year with impressive results not only for the kids stuff hitting theaters but also the more adult-skewing titles. A lot of these are making money but you’ll see despite some of these titles making tens of millions of dollars, today’s awards shows largely ignore them. In any event, here were the best-rated films in various categories.

Foreign Language Drama (Dubbed For English)

5) Mars Express

Box Office Results:$1.5 million

Perin’s love for anime comes through a lot here in a film that is not unlike Ghost In The Shell but Mars Express does Ghost In The Shell better than Netflix did Ghost In The Shell and the streamer has the actual license for the anime, so we needed a dude from France to give it to us correctly. Run, don’t walk, to the theaters to see this.

4) Rascal Does Not Dream of a Sister Venturing Out”;“Rascal Does Not Dream of a Knapsack Kid

Erica Mendez is not who I would have chosen to voice the main heroine Mai Sakurajima, which shows that it’s a good thing I’m not in charge of such decisions because she did fantastic. It’s not the type of character she usually voices but I was all for it after the first five minutes. The dub cast was good to me, Stephen Fu as Sakuta worked well because he managed to nail Sakuta’s sardonic nature. Kayli Mills as Kaede, and Cristina Vee as Toyohama were great as well, though Toyohama didn’t have all that much screen time.

3) Solo Leveling – Reawakening-

Box Office Results: $2.4 million

Solo Leveling-Reawakening- the ideal catch-up for fans who want to relive the journey on the big screen and a great entry point for curious newcomers waiting to discover Jinwoo’s world.

2) Mononoke The Movie The Phantom In The Rain

Mononoke The Movie The Phantom In The Rain dropping on Thanksgiving makes this a perfect alternate for those not wanting to watch an afternoon filled with football here in America, but even if you wanted to make today about the games, spend some part of your weekend turning off the lights and have one more fright before we get to the end of the year and you won’t regret it.

1)The Peasants

Box Office Results: $10 million

The English-dubbed adaptation is star-studded featuring the likes of Eleanor Tomlinson as Jagna, Douglas Booth as Jasio,and Saoirse Ronan as Hanka, a reunion of sorts of the cast that helped bring us the excellent English dubbed adaptation of Loving Vincent. BreakThru Films is showing itself to being one of the most exciting rotoscope production studios in the world and kudos goes to Sony Pictures Releasing for finding this gem, adapting the tale in English, and dipping into a whimsical palette that continues to put Eastern Europe on the map as a reservoir of animation truly distinct and just as stunning as any other movement in the world.

Comedy

5) Unicorn Boy

The art direction of Unicorn Boy is phenomenal, and does enough to help the feature-length get a passing grade itself. The clearly John Kricfalusi-inspired character designs with a My Little Pony paint job lends itself quite favorably to the overall premise of the film, with my personal affinity being towards the more real-life sequences rather than anything fantasy. I get that the movie is meant to be a reflection of Matty trying to come to grips as to WHO they are and I’m not sure during the course of production of the movie that they haven’t had it all figured out just yet, but what they are is a talented visual artist and animator who needs to get a more season writing partner for the next romp.

4) Memoir of a Snail

Nominations: Golden Globe ; Oscar Eligible

Box Office Results: $1.2 million

Adam Elliot’s brush is very much on display here, a dull-dreary setting flush with characters that you can’t help but fall in love with, even at their deepest and darkest. In a post-Trump elected world where people are crying and screaming and throwing temper tantrums on social media due to the result, Memoir of a Snail is an excellent take on Elliot’s pastiche of living life by the fullest and never giving up…never, ever, ever, giving up.

3) Musica

I shudder to think how good Musica could’ve done with a small indie theatrical run not unlike what the updated West Side Story or In The Heights did though I’m sure Amazon/MGM took notice of what those films did at the box office and opted for the safer route. Whether that was the right move or not, I’m not sure, but with how good the finished product came to be I would’ve given it a shot. In any event, if you give Rudy Mancuso’s Musica a shot you won’t be disappointed.

2) The Bleacher

The Bleacher feels like a short born for Adult Swim’s Smalls collection to be played in between commercials and reruns of whatever the network feels like airing that night. I mean this as a compliment because it certainly fits the stop motion shorts typically produced for the network with more of a macabre edge that lends itself quite nicely to the usually nighttime watching of the network that will also feature the likes of Lee Hardcastle, Stoopid Buddy Stoodios, and more.

1) HAIKYU!! The Dumpster Battle

Box Office Results: $100 million

I love sports anime and Hakyuu!! was one of the first I tried. There are a lot of great ones out there but with this series wrapping up soon I think it’s a great time to think about where it will rank. Haikyuu!! is so great that I believe it has earned a spot as one of the best if not at the very top itself.

Drama (Domestic)

5) The Watchmen (Both Volumes)

For any comic fan, The Watchmen is a must. A standard-bearer for a time when comics were produced with no fear and by people who didn’t give a fuck about what anyone thought of them. That time is largely over save for a few creators here and there, but the animated adaptation keeps most of the spirit intact from the original material, however, the spirit of the industry of the time to take chances and try slightly different things to help augment that source material doesn’t seem evident.

4) The Primevals

The Primevals in a lot of ways doesn’t hold up, especially in the plot department, but in every production way possible it certainly does so if you’re a classic film buff of sci-fi from another era, this one should be up your alley.

3) The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim

Nominations: Oscar Eligible

Box Office Results: $10.3 million

The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim is by far producer Jason DeMarco’s most polished licensed effort to date. The long-time Toonami producer has been adept in taking franchises like Blade Runner, Junji Ito, and others and sinking them into the bottom of the ocean and not taking accountability as a result. Fortunately, he won’t have to for The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim for he has a definite winning effort here that I hope leads to more animated projects inspired by Tolkien novels.

2) Stopmotion

Box Office Results: $804,000

It’s been a while since I’ve seen a decent live-action/animated hybrid made for adults, moreover, the stop motion animated sequences are so well done, I would put it up against a lot of the stop motion only adult animated films that have released in the last couple of years. Robert Morgan delivers perhaps his finest achievement with Stopmotion, his fingerprints crudely encrusted with DNA coming by the likes of David Lynch, Tim Burton, and David Fincher. Stopmotion is an early favorite for best film of the year.

1) Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths

Documentary

The Remarkable Life of Ibelin

Network: Netflix

Tales of friendship, love, and tenderness are presented in a way that is a growth industry. Gaming user-generated-content was being produced decades before the terms were even used and we didn’t even know it, fortunately, Benjamin Ree and Rasmus Takia are of a generation that not only respects these notions but even celebrates much in the same way We Met In Virtual Reality did for HBO. With Grand Theft Hamlet getting international sales for next year, don’t look now, but machinima is seeping into the mainstream and it wouldn’t surprise me to see Benjamin Ree and Rasmus Takia staking a claim as early foragers in this industry for years to come…just as Ibelin would have wanted it.