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Nominations voting is from January 8-12, 2025, with official Oscar nominations announced January 17, 2025. Final voting is February 11-18, 2025. And finally, the 97th Oscars telecast will be broadcast on Sunday, March 2 and air live on ABC at 7 p.m. Et/ 4 p.m. Pt. We update our picks through awards season, so keep checking IndieWire for all our 2025 Oscar predictions.

The State of the Race

DreamWorks’ “The Wild Robot” (Universal) has Oscar momentum, thanks to 10 Annie nominations. This follows the four Golden Globe nominations for Best Animated Feature, Best Original Song (“Kiss the Sky”), Best Original Score for Bowers, and Cinematic and Box Office Achievement.

Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” (Disney), which collected seven Annie noms (including Best Feature), is still very much in the Oscar race, as is critics’ favorite “Flow” (Sideshow/Janus Films), which earned three Annie noms. The Latvian film won Best Animated Feature from both the New York Film...

2024 really was the greatest year for animation ever.

There was an abundance of outrageously wonderful animated features released over the course of 2024 – all sorts of movies, with all sorts of animation styles and points-of-view. The fact that we left off plenty of wonderful movies, like Naoko Yamada’s brilliant, touching “The Colors Within” (which gets a wide release in January – seek it out), the French sci-fi noir “Mars Express” or mainstream gems like Mike Mitchell’s hellzapoppin’ “Kung Fu Panda 4,” tells you what a stellar year it really was.

But enough with the preamble, let’s chart the very best animated features of 2024 – from melancholic stop-motion to wondrous, widescreen computer animation and everything in-between.

DreamWorks Animation/Netflix 10. “Orion and the Dark”

2024’s most underrated movie is, incredibly, a gonzo animated feature written by Charlie Kaufman. Yes, that Charlie Kaufman. Based on the children’s book by Emma Yarlett, it...

Modern Films has acquired UK-Ireland distribution rights on Memoir Of A Snail, which won the Best Film award in Official Competition at the BFI London Film Festival today.

Modern is scheduling a theatrical release for February 2025, with an awards campaign. Anton and Charades handle international sales on the film.

Australian director Elliot’s second feature-length animation is a story of a melancholic woman – voiced by Sarah Snook – who is a hoarder of snails, romance novels and guinea pigs.

Australian stars Eric Bana, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Jacki Weaver and Nick Cave are also among the voice cast, as is Elliot.

The film...

The Australian film-maker of Harvie Krumpet and Mary and Max has long cherished the deadly and deadpan. His latest stars Sarah Snook as a collector of ornamental snails – and draws from a family history of hoarding

Suffering abounds in Adam Elliot’s dark and deadpan films. The Melbourne animator’s claymation characters overdose and lose testicles or imbibe on an array of poisons; they are assailed by strokes and lightning strikes. These beloved underdogs, the Oscar-winning film-maker says, are studies in human imperfection: “I’ve realised my films are about perceived flaws that often aren’t actually flaws.”

Elliot won his Oscar for the 2003 short film Harvie Krumpet, introducing the world to his surprisingly whimsical style. Global attention followed, and his first feature, 2009’s Mary and Max, starred Toni Collette, voicing a little girl who begins a pen pal friendship with the late Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Max, a New Yorker with Asperger syndrome.

The 68th BFI London Film Festival’s Official Competition is an exciting showcase of some of the most inventive and thought-provoking films from across the globe, competing for the prestigious Best Film Award. Each entry reflects a unique cinematic voice, exploring themes ranging from personal struggles to political conflicts, all crafted by directors with distinct perspectives.

April, directed by Dea Kulumbegashvili, delves deep into rural Georgian life, centering on the moral and emotional dilemmas faced by a doctor. Kulumbegashvili, a rising star in the film world, previously made waves with her debut Beginning (2020), which won the Fipresci Prize at Cannes. With April, she continues her exploration of personal resilience amidst societal rigidity, painting a vivid portrait of strength and morality.

In Christopher Andrews’ feature debut, Bring Them Down, the rugged beauty of rural Ireland serves as the backdrop for a fierce family feud. Starring Christopher Abbott (It Comes at Night...

As we go deeper into the fall movie season, October often offers the cream of the cinematic crop. This year is no different: with this year’s top winners at Berlinale and Cannes, and much more, there’s plenty to enjoy. As many of these will begin in limited release, look for them to expand in the weeks to come.

10. Black Box Diaries (Shiori Ito; Oct. 25)

A personal and harrowing exploration of sexual assault, Black Box Diaries was one of the best documentaries of Sundance this year. Lena Wilson said her review, “In the middle of Black Box Diaries, journalist Shiori Ito’s debut documentary, Ito grins at the camera as she strolls through downtown Tokyo on the day of her book launch. It’s October 18, 2017. The New York Times broke the Harvey Weinstein news two weeks ago. Alyssa Milano popularized the hashtag #MeToo two days ago. Ito, fresh-faced and...

El director de ‘Mary and Max’ regresa con una emotiva historia. © IFC Films

Tras conquistar al público y a la crítica con Mary y Max, en 2009, Adam Elliot regresa con su animación stop-motion con Memoir of a Snail, una película que se proyectará en el Festival Internacional de San Sebastián, dentro de la sección Perlak.

Memoir of a Snail se ambienta en la Australia de los años 70. La vida de Grace está marcada por la desgracia y la pérdida. Cuando su unidad familiar se desmorona y es separada de su hermano gemelo, Gilbert, Grace desarrolla una afición a coleccionar adornos de caracoles para calmar su soledad y encuentra esperanza cuando desarrolla una amistad con una anciana excéntrica, Pinky, quien la inspira a salir de su caparazón y dejar de lado las cosas que alborotan su hogar y su mente.

Elliot, quien escribe y dirige la película, ha reunido un impresionante...

As the 51st Telluride Film Festival winds down and the 81st Venice Film Festival kicks off, both have been – as expected – host to a number of highly anticipated films, a good chunk of which have been met with praise. We already covered the raves for Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night out of Telluride that could thrust it into awards contention, but what else has blown audiences away on the festival circuit over the weekend? Let’s take a look!

The Venice Film Festival is undoubtedly one of the most prestigious festivals out there, so it’s no surprise that some serious Oscar contenders have already had their debuts. With Maria, Angelina Jolie is now an odds-on favorite for at least a nomination, starring as famed soprano Maria Callas. After an eight-minute standing ovation, we can already see her taking home the Volpi Cup for Best Actress. Tabloid gossip was part...

Ahead of the programme release for the 2024 London Film Festival on Wednesday, the BFI have revealed which movies will be competing for the Best Film Award in this year's Official Competition line-up. Among the eleven hopefuls looking to scoop the prize taken last year by Ryusuke Hamaguchi's Evil Does Not Exist, highlights include Barry Keoghan and Christopher Abbott's feuding farmer feature Bring Them Down, Adam Elliot's (Mary & Max) long-awaited stop-motion movie Memoir Of A Snail with Sarah Snook and Eric Bana, and Geraldine Flower documentary The Extraordinary Miss Flower, the latest from 20,000 Days On Earth directors Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard.

In a banner year for international representation at the London Film Festival (13 countries are represented across the Official Competition line-up), the rest of the buzzy films set to compete in competition are as follows: Rungano Nyoni's Cannes Un Certain Regard-winning Zambian drama On Becoming A Guinea Fowl...

Recently featured on our fall movie preview, Memoir of a Snail marks the long-awaited return to feature filmmaking from Adam Elliot, director of 2009’s Mary & Max and Oscar winner for the short film Harvie Krumpet. Featuring the voices of Sarah Snook, Eric Bana, Jacki Weaver, and Kodi Smit-McPhee, the film won the top prize at Annecy earlier this summer and will now stop by Telluride ahead of an October 25 release from IFC Films. Ahead of the release, the first trailer has arrived.

Here’s the synopsis: “Grace Pudel is a lonely misfit with an affinity for collecting ornamental snails and an intense love for books. At a young age, when Grace is separated from her fire-breathing twin brother Gilbert, she falls into a spiral of anxiety and angst. Despite a continued series of hardships, inspiration and hope emerge when she strikes up an enduring friendship with an elderly eccentric woman named Pinky,...

"I believe in glasses half-full and silver linings..." IFC has revealed the official US trailer for the wonderful stop-motion animated film Memoir of a Snail, the latest creation from animation maestro Adam Elliot. It's set for a US release in October this fall. Adam won an Oscar in 2004 for his short Harvie Krumpet, but he is best known for his exceptional stop-motion film Mary and Max, which premiered at Sundance 2009. He's back again 15 years later with his second feature. A bittersweet memoir of a melancholic woman called Grace Pudel - a hoarder of snails, romance novels, & guinea-pigs. Set in 1970s Australia, her life is troubled by misfortune & loss. After their mom dies during pregnancy, she and her twin brother, Gilbert, are raised by their paraplegic-alcoholic former juggler father, Percy. Despite a life filled with love, tragedy strikes when Percy passes away in his sleep. The siblings are separated and thrust...

Adam Elliot’s animated feature “Memoir of a Snail” from IFC Films shows off sibling love with a snail’s quirky, whimsical nature in the first trailer ahead of its North American premiere at the Telluride Film Festival, which was announced in today’s lineup.

The stop-motion adult drama took nearly a decade to create and follows the life of Grace Puddle, a lonely misfit with a passion for collecting ornamental snails and a deep love for romance novels. Her life takes a downward turn when she’s separated from her twin brother at a young age. Despite ongoing hardships, Grace perseveres and finds inspiration through a friendship with Pinky, an elderly eccentric woman, as she slowly learns to find confidence and love.

The sweet trailer follows the twins as they grow from babies to teenagers, encountering bullies, rollercoasters, and old ladies in bikinis. With a swell of dramatic music...

Fantastic Fest is nearly here.

One of the very best, most underrated film festivals of the year, which takes place annually at a single movie theater in Austin, Texas (that’d be the Alamo Drafthouse on South Lamar), returns on Sept. 19. And ahead of the genre film festival, we’ve got the full lineup, which includes 28 world premieres, 23 international and North American premieres, and 15 U.S. premieres. (You can see the full list below.)

Among the movies playing at Fantastic Fest are “Never Let Go,” the new supernatural thriller from Alexandre Aja and actress Halle Berry; “Apartment 7A,” the “Rosemary’s Baby” prequel from Paramount; the Palme d’Or-winning thriller “Anora” from Sean Baker; A24’s bizarro “A Different Man;” and DreamWorks Animation’s beautiful, touching “The Wild Robot.” Other animated offerings include “Memoir of a Snail” from “Mary and Max” filmmaker Adam Elliot, and “Spermageddon” from “Violent Night” filmmaker Tommy Wirkola.

July 2024 is going to be a bustling month on Netflix, with over 50 movies scheduled to hit the streamer's library in the United States. As ever when it comes to Netflix, the incoming titles will generally skew mainstream and recent, but they still cover a wide array of genres and countries -- and sci-fi fans will find plenty of good stuff to dig into in that new batch.

The selection of science fiction titles coming to Netflix this July (not counting new originals) will include seven total movies, with six of those movies hailing from two enormously popular trilogies that are set to be made available in full on the service. The seventh one, meanwhile, is a sequel to a popular animated film that Netflix currently doesn't have. But as frustrating as that impracticality is always wont to be, the sequel in question is fun and self-contained enough to be enjoyed on its own.

"Life's a beautiful tapestry that needs to be experienced... It's small pleasures savored..." You never know when you'll stumble across a film so touching, so profound, so wholesome in every sense, that it will leave a lasting impression that may change the way you live your life. I love animation and always enjoy watching indie animation, as some of the most incredible work can come from anywhere. I still remember back at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, on opening night that year, heading into the screening to watch a film called Mary and Max. Before going in, all the critics were wondering why they had programmed a stop-motion animated film for opening night of the festival. By the time we walked out, we knew exactly why - it was an amazing, one-of-a-kind creation that left many of us wiping away tears (here's my review from back then). Now 15 years later, Mary and Max...

Australian director Adam Elliot ‘s stop-motion picture Memoir of a Snail has won the top Cristal prize for best feature at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival.

The movie gathers a starry cast led by Succession star Sarah Snook, who lends her voice to protagonist Grace Puddle, a young woman with a difficult life story who finds comfort in the hoarding of snail memorabilia.

Memoir of a Snail is Elliot’s second feature after 2009 animation Mary and Max, and Oscar-winning 2004 short Harvey Krumpet.

In other prizes in the main Competition, Japanese director Shinnosuke Yakuwa’s Totto-Chan: The Little Girl at the Window won the Paul Grimault Award and Latvian filmmaker Gints Zilbalodis’ Flow was feted with the Jury Award.

Flow, which world premiered in Cannes Un Certain Regard to strong reviews, also won Annecy’s Audience Award as well as the Gan prize for distribution offering financial support for the...

Adam Elliot’s oddball Aussie feature Memoir of a Snail has won the Cristal award for best feature film at the 2024 Annecy Film Festival, the world’s leading international animation fest.

The dark dramedy, about a lonely, snail-obsessed hoarder — voiced by Succession star Sarah Snook — recounting her life story to one of her beloved gastropods, is Elliot’s first feature since 2009’s Mary and Max, which also won the top honor at Annecy. An impressive group of Australian A-listers, including Kodi Smit-McPhee, Jacki Weaver, Eric Bana and Nick Cave provide supporting voice work. IFC Films picked up North American rights to Memoir of a Snail ahead of the festival.

Flow, a drama from Latvian animator Gints Zilbalodis (Away), which follows a cat that survives a world-destroying deluge on a boat with a collection of other animals, won this year’s jury award and audience prize, voted on by Annecy attendees.

Adam Elliot with Grace. He says: 'I've always made films about the underdog and people who are misunderstood or perceived as being different' Adam Elliot’s fans have had to wait a long time for his feature follow up to his 2009 “clayography” Mary And Max, with Memoir Of A Snail finally premiering at Annecy International Animation Film Festival last week. The stop-motion animation is in the same tragicomic vein as the rest of his work and charts a series of unfortunate events that befalls young Grace Pudel (pronounced “puddle”) from childhood to middle age. After the death of her paraplegic dad Percy - in the sort of kind of funny, kind of sad circumstances Elliot is a master of, Grace (Sarah Snook) and her pyromaniac twin brother Gilbert (Kodi Smit-McPhee) are sent to foster homes on opposite sides of Australia.

While Gilbert has to contend with a family of cult-like Bible-bashing apple farmers,...

As a small child, motherless Grace started keeping snails in a jar, writing names on their shells and watching their life cycle — mate, breed, die — with loving fascination. “They were my friends,” she muses in voiceover in Memoir of a Snail, which this week had its premiere at the Annecy International Animation Festival. “I knew they’d never leave me, hurt me — or die.” Moments before, we saw Gracie’s huge ovoid eyes, spill over with tears as the aged Pinkie, her only human companion, breathed her final death rattle. “I’m so alone,” says Grace, not for the first time. “Goddamn life! Such a stupid, stupid puzzle!”

Pathos laid on with a shovel, you may be thinking — but you would be wrong. Following 2009’s Mary and Max, Memoir of a Snail is only the second Claymation feature from Australia’s Adam Elliot, who won an Oscar for his short...

Mary And Max “clayography” animator Adam Elliot again proves himself a master at hitting the tragicomic sweet-spot between laughter and tears with his second stop-motion feature. The joy - and, almost as often, the sadness - is there in every detail, from the many and various intricate ‘props’ employed or in the language of the script.

The name of his protagonist is the perfect example. Grace Pudel is an intrinsically enjoyable name to say, it rolls off the tongue with the sort of splash indicated by her surname, which though her dad is French, is pronounced in flat Aussie fashion, to rhyme with “muddle”. Beyond that, “grace” is one of those words that comes positively loaded with positivity. Pudel, by contrast, not so much.

Memoir, also, has a whiff of the grandiose about it that is perfectly cut down by its subject, the snail. This sort of thing is bread.

Calling all amateur malacologists: With “Memoir of a Snail,” stop-motion director Adam Elliot (an Oscar winner for “Harvie Krumpet”) invites us to study snails of every shape and size, starting with a gastropod-hoarding outcast named Gracie Pudel (pronounced “puddle”), who withdrew from the world after an unhappy childhood in which she was bullied and orphaned and shipped off to Canberra to be raised by a pair of negligent swingers.

Fitting squarely on the shelf of grown-up films about misfit kids, Elliot’s latest — which comes 15 years after Sundance opener “Mary and Max” — finds the Australian auteur deeply committed to his dark and surprisingly moving brand of storytelling. Like Edward Gorey’s, his palette is nearly monochromatic; his characters tend to face the camera, à la Wes Anderson, as if posing for gloomy school photos; and his John Waters-esque humor is irreverent enough to encompass everything from disabilities to weird...

Oscar-winning Australian director Adam Elliot is at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival with his long-awaited second stop-motion feature Memoir of a Snail, which world premieres in the main competition.

Set in 1970s Australia, the movie gathers a starry cast led by Succession star Sarah Snook, who lends her voice to Grace Puddle, the unfortunate female protagonist who finds comfort in the hoarding of snail memorabilia after a life punctuated by emotional setbacks.

Recounting her life to her pet garden snail Sylvia, Grace reveals her various trials and tribulations, which range from being born with a cleft palate to separation from her beloved, misfit family as a child and then heartbreak as an adult.

One bright spot in her journey is the figure of Pinky, an eccentric old lady with an exotic past, who teaches Grace to look forward, rather than back.

Snook is joined in the voice cast by Jacki Weaver as Pinky,...

When you’re looking for more than defiant princesses, Minions, and martial arts-wielding animals, indie animation is where you can experience something outside the box. Fortunately, Madman and IFC Films are here to present the Memoir of a Snail teaser trailer, which previews a wonderfully strange-looking animated feature from Academy Award-winning director Adam Elliot.

In the Memoir of a Snail teaser trailer, Grace Pudle is separated from her twin brother Gilbert following their parents’ deaths. Unfortunately for Grace, things don’t get much better after that, and the only one who will listen to her tragic tale is a garden snail named Sylvia.

Here’s the official synopsis for Memoir of a Snail:

“Grace Pudel is a lonely misfit with an affinity for collecting ornamental snails and an intense love for books. At a young age, when Grace is separated from her twin brother Gilbert, she falls into a spiral of anxiety and angst.

"Life isn't about looking backwards, Gracie, it's about living forwards." Madman Films in Australia has unveiled the first trailer for the stop-motion animated film Memoir of a Snail, the latest creation from Australian animation filmmaker Adam Elliot. He won an Oscar in 2004 for his short Harvie Krumpet, but he is best known for his exceptional stop-motion film Mary and Max, which premiered at Sundance 2009. He's back again 15 years later with his second feature, which is premiering at the 2024 Annecy Film Festival before screening at the Melbourne Film Festival soon, too. A bittersweet memoir of a melancholic woman called Grace Pudel - a hoarder of snails, romance novels, and guinea-pigs. Set in 1970s Australia, Grace’s life is troubled by misfortune & loss. After their mom dies during pregnancy, she and her twin brother, Gilbert, are raised by their paraplegic-alcoholic former juggler father, Percy. Despite a life filled with love, tragedy strikes...

“Memoir of a Snail,” directed by Oscar winner Adam Elliot – and voiced by “Succession” star Sarah Snook – has debuted a teaser ahead of its premiere at Annecy.

The film is set as the opening title of the Melbourne International Film Festival in August and will have its Australian commercial release, via Madman, from Oct. 17.

In the film, little Grace Puddle is separated from her twin brother Gilbert following their parents’ deaths. Things only get worse from there, she later admits to a garden snail named Sylvia – the only creature interested in her tragic story.

“I gravitate towards the underdog. People who are perceived as different, marginalized. I am not interested in heroes. It’s probably because I am ultimately making films about myself. I really empathize and identify with my characters,” the director told Variety.

“The truth is, they are all based on real people: they just happen to be my family and friends.

Adam Elliot’s animated feature Memoir Of A Snail featuring Sarah Snook in its voice cast has sealed deals for key international territories, ahead of its world premiere at Annecy International Animation Film Festival next week, for Anton and Charades.

The film has sold to Benelux (Bantam), Spain (Madfer), Switzerland (Pathe), Austria (Polyfilm), Denmark (Angel Film), Norway (Arthaus), Iceland (Bio Paradis), Sweden and remaining Scandinavian territories (Folkets Bio), Taiwan (Hooray Films), Cis (Magic Films), Israel (Lev Cinema), Turkey (Bir Film), Adriatics (McF Megacom), Thailand (Sahamongkol), India (Pictureworks) and airlines (Aardwolf).

Anton and Charades are co-representing sales on the stop-motion feature,...

Writer-director S. Craig Zahler (“Bone Tomahawk”) is set to reunite with his “Dragged Across Concrete” and “Brawl in Cell Block 99” star Vince Vaughn and Oscar winner Adrien Brody (“The Pianist”) for upcoming crime thriller “The Bookie & the Bruiser.”

Anton will introduce the film to international distributors at the upcoming Marche du Film in Cannes. UTA Independent Film Group and Range Media Partners arranged the financing and will be representing the North American distribution rights.

Set in 1959 New York, “The Bookie & the Bruiser” follows a pensive, Jewish fellow named Rivner and an oversized Italian-American tough named Boscolo from the Lower East Side, both of whom served overseas during WWII and returned changed men who no longer fit inside the lives they’d left behind. Uninterested in taking orders from bosses or playing by the rules of polite society, the two friends partner up as a bookmaker and an enforcer and...

Exclusive: The in-demand Sarah Snook has boarded Oscar-winning Australian director Adam Elliot’s upcoming stop-motion drama Memoir of a Snail as the lead voice and narrator.

Snook will voice the feature animation’s protagonist Grace Puddle, a lonely misfit who hoards ornamental snails and is addicted to romance novels.

Paris-based sales and production company Charades and London-based production and financing studio Anton, which announced last Cannes that they were co-selling the movie, have released a fresh image for the production in the lead-up to the EFM where they will show a new promo.

Memoir of a Snail (c) Arenamedia

News of Snook’s casting comes as the Emmy and Golden Globe-winning Succession star sets forth on a 14-week run of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture Of Dorian Gray at London’s Theatre Royal in which she plays all 26 characters.

Memoir of a Snail marks Snook’s first lead voice role in a feature animation.

Exclusive: Paris-based sales and production company Charades and London-based production and financing studio Anton are partnering on the worldwide sales of Oscar-winning Australian director Adam Elliot’s upcoming stop-motion drama Memoir Of A Snail.

The poignant tale of a young lonely misfit is the second feature after the award-winning 2019 animation Mary And Max for Elliot, who won an Oscar for the 2004 short Harvey Krumpet.

The partners have unveiled a first image as well as some first members of international voice cast featuring Jacki Weaver (Yellowstone), Kodi Smit-McPhee (Elvis), Dominique Pinon, Magda Szubanski, and Eric Bana (The Dry).

The lead cast has yet to be announced.

The animated feature is produced by Arenamedia, with Liz Kearney (Paper Planes) as producer, and Robert Connolly (The Dry) and Robert Patterson as Executive Producers.

The film is currently shooting in Melbourne, Australia, with an expected release date...

Australian satirist Barry Humphries, known for his onstage and TV drag persona Edna Everage and for his character Sir Les Patterson, has died. He was 89.

The BBC reported that Humphries had been in hospital in Sydney, Australia, and had been suffering from complications following surgery in March.

“A great wit, satirist, writer and an absolute one-of-kind, he was both gifted and a gift,” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said following the news of Humphries’ death.

“Rip Barry Humphries – one of the greatest ever Australians – and a comic genius who used his exuberant alter egos, Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson, to say the otherwise unsayable. Also an infallibly brilliant Spectator contributor. What a loss,” said former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Twitter.

Rip Barry Humphries – one of the greatest ever Australians – and a comic genius who used his exuberant alter egos, Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson,...

(Welcome to Animation Celebration, a recurring feature where we explore the limitless possibilities of animation as a medium. In this edition: "Mary & Max.")

The internet allows us the ability to connect with people in ways that were previously unthinkable, and while it is still ridiculously difficult to make a true, human connection, the lack of geographical or physical barriers has certainly made it a heck of a lot easier. Social media has given us the opportunity to "reach out and touch" people from opposite ends of the globe, which for many people, can be the difference between life and death. Sometimes I find myself absorbed by the existential worry of how marginalized, disabled, or isolated individuals found community before the advent of the internet. Did they ever feel seen? Did they ever feel like someone else truly understood them for who they are? Did they ever know that they weren't alone in the world?...

The validity of animation as a medium is one that's repeatedly been called into question for all the wrong reasons. From recent comments by Disney CEO Bob Chapek, it's clear that some high-level authorities in the industry have an archaic way of looking at animation. The beautiful medium of animation has led to plenty of powerful and moving stories for all ages, and the ability artists and storytellers have to push the limits of storytelling that conventional live-action stories cannot make animated projects that much more potent.

From the works of acclaimed filmmaker Satoshi Kon to stop-motion animated projects like Adam Elliot's Mary and Max and Guillermo del Toro's upcoming adaptation of "Pinocchio," it's clear that animation should not be overlooked. However, Andrew Stanton, director of Pixar films like "Finding Nemo" and "Wall-e," believes that the medium is sorely underestimated in its potential to tell stories that resonate with viewers of all ages.

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Art-House Animation

If your eyes are tired of the latest cookie-cutter animation from the Hollywood mill, Criterion is featuring quite a line-up of inventive arthouse offerings in the field. With works by Marcell Jankovics, Satoshi Kon, Ari Folman, Don Hertzfeldt, Karel Zeman, and more, the series includes The Fabulous Baron Munchausen (1962), Belladonna of Sadness (1973), Fantastic Planet (1973), Watership Down (1978), Son of the White Mare (1981), Alice (1988), Millennium Actress (2001), Mind Game (2004), Paprika (2006), Persepolis (2007), Waltz with Bashir (2008), Mary and Max (2009), It’s Such a Beautiful Day (2012), Tower (2016), The Wolf House (2018), No. 7 Cherry Lane (2019), and more.

Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel

Neo-Noir

One of the greatest series to arrive on the Criterion Channel thus far is this selection of neo-noir offerings, including Brian De Palma’s masterpieces Blow Out and Body Double,...

The July lineup at The Criterion Channel has been revealed, most notably featuring the new Wong Kar Wai restorations from the recent box set release, including As Tears Go By, Days of Being Wild, Chungking Express, Fallen Angels, Happy Together, In the Mood for Love, 2046, and his shorts Hua yang de nian hua and The Hand.

Also among the lineup is a series on neo-noir with Body Double, Manhunter, Thief, The Last Seduction, Cutter’s Way, Brick, Night Moves, The Long Goodbye, Chinatown, and more. The channel will also feature a spotlight on art-house animation with work by Marcell Jankovics, Satoshi Kon, Ari Folman, Don Hertzfeldt, Karel Zeman, and more.

With Jodie Mack’s delightful The Grand Bizarre, the landmark doc Hoop Dreams, Orson Welles’ take on Othello, the recent Oscar entries Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time and You Will Die at Twenty, and much more,...

(L-r) Genevieve O’Reilly, Keir O’Donnell, John Polson (Photo credit: Shutterstock)

Genevieve O’Reilly, Keir O’Donnell and John Polson have joined the cast of Robert Connolly’s The Dry, the crime thriller which is now shooting in Victoria.

Adapted by Connolly and Harry Cripps from the Jane Harper novel, the film stars Eric Bana as Aaron Falk, a federal cop who returns to his country hometown to attend the funeral of his childhood friend Luke.

The local cops believe Luke killed his wife and child before taking his own life. Falk reluctantly agrees to look into the crime but the investigation opens an old wound — the death of Ellie Deacon, Aaron and Luke’s childhood friend.

When he starts to suspect these two crimes, two decades apart, are connected, he finds himself pitted against the prejudice and pent-up rage of a terrified community.

Irish-born O’Reilly, who plays Falk’s childhood friend Gretchen,...

Eric Bana and Robert Connolly. (Photo: Rebecca Bana)

Eleven years since they first collaborated on Romulus, My Father, Eric Bana and Robert Connolly are teaming up again for The Dry, the feature film adaptation of Jane Harper’s bestselling novel.

Bana will play Aaron Falk, a federal cop who returns to his drought-ravaged hometown after an absence of 20 years to attend the funeral of his childhood friend Luke, whom the local police believe killed his wife and child before taking his own life.

Falk reluctantly agrees to investigate the crime to determine whether it was more than a murder-suicide, which opens an old wound — the death of teenager Ellie Deacon, who was a friend of Falk and Luke.

He begins to suspect these two crimes are connected but as he struggles to prove Luke’s innocence and his own he faces the community’s prejudice and pent-up rage.

Connolly co-wrote...

Indie feature Choir Girl is set to go into production in early April on location around Melbourne..

The film marks the debut of writer-director Michael Wormald, a former editor who directed shorts.The Death and Life of John Vaughan in 2008 and Legacy in 2014.

Choir Girl is a drama set in the 90s about a lonely photographer, Eugene, who becomes obsessed with a fifteen year-old girl who is trapped in the illegal sex trade.

The film, to be shot entirely in black-and-white, is produced by Ivan Malekin of Nexus Production Group and Lucinda Bruce. Daniela Ercoli is the associate producer.

Cast includes Roger Ward (Mad Max), Peter Flaherty (The Leftovers), Krista Vendy (Neighbours), Andy McPhee (Ali.s Wedding), Kym Valentine (Neighbours) and Vca grad Sarah Timm.

Budget is around half a million, with shooting to take place over 24 days, including a stint at Docklands Studios.

Bridget Borgobello is the casting director...

Sean Wilson Sep 16, 2016

With Kubo & The Two Strings now playing, we salute some of our favourite stop motion animated movies...

With Laika's visually sumptuous and breathtaking stop motion masterpiece Kubo And The Two Strings dazzling audiences throughout the country, what better time to celebrate this singular and remarkable art form?

The effect is created when an on-screen character or object is carefully manipulated one frame at a time, leading to an illusion of movement during playback - and such fiendishly intricate work, which takes years of dedication, deserves to be honoured. Here are the greatest examples of stop motion movie mastery.

The Humpty Dumpty Circus (1898)

What defines the elusive appeal of stop motion? Surely a great deal of it is down to the blend of the recognisable and the uncanny: an simulation of recognisably human movement that still has a touch of the fantastical about it. These contradictions were put...

I love the art of stop-motion animation, and I couldn’t be happier that there’s a studio like Laika keeping the art form alive. They recently released the film Kubo and the Two Strings, which is easily one of the best films I’ve seen this year. As a tribute to the art of stop-motion, Vulgar Efendi created a wonderful video that shows us how stop-motion animation has evolved through the years. It starts with the year 1900 and takes us all the way through 2016. It’s 116 years of stop-motion awesomeness in only three minutes! You'll find a full list of films featured in the video below.

The films included are:

- The Enchanted Drawing (1900)

-Fun at the Bakery Shop (1902)

-El Hotel Electrico (1905)

-Humorous Phases of Funny Faces (1906)

-The Cameraman's Revenge (1912)

-The Night before Christmas (1913)

-Häxan (1922)

-The Lost World (1925)

-The Tale of Fox (1930 version)

-King Kong...

The great Charlie Kaufman has made his first foray into the world of animation with the critically praised Anomalisa, which we named one of the best films of 2015. Finally expanding over the next few weeks, to celebrate, we’ve decided to look back at some of the finest animated films that one might not want to show the entire family.

Who said cartoons were just for kids? As this week’s list will demonstrate, some of the finest weren’t necessarily designed with undiscerning young audiences in mind. Crossing genres and styles, these fifteen amazing features should probably be watched after this kids have been put to bed. Of course, there are many great examples beyond these, so please suggest your own favorites in the comments.

Watership Down / The Plague Dogs (Martin Rosen)

Martin Rosen‘s dark adaptations of Richard Adams‘s classic novels, Watership Down and The Plague Dogs,...

Ernie Biscuit

Adam Elliot has toured Ernie Biscuit, his latest stop-motion short, to over 70 festivals, and he's exhausted..

The story of a deaf Parisian taxidermist who accidentally gets on the wrong plane and winds up in the outback, Ernie Biscuit was originally meant to be a feature.

"Everyone really liked the feature script", said Elliot, "but we had a budget of 40 million at one stage (laughs). It's not family friendly enough at that budget."

Development funding from screen bodies ended when Ernie morphed from feature to short, so Elliot financed it himself..

He describes the result as "a bit of an experiment".

"Things have changed. Film's now gone and I've had to learn a lot of new skills. After Mary and Max.[Elliot's acclaimed 2009 feature] we knew we had to get our budget down because things were changing dramatically."

The finished film is a crowd-pleasing charmer. The Melbourne director describes it as a...

Ernie Biscuit

Adam Elliot has toured Ernie Biscuit, his latest stop-motion short, to over 70 festivals, and he's exhausted..

The story of a deaf Parisian taxidermist who accidentally gets on the wrong plane and winds up in the outback, Ernie Biscuit was originally meant to be a feature.

"Everyone really liked the feature script", said Elliot, "but we had a budget of 40 million at one stage (laughs). It's not family friendly enough at that budget."

Development funding from screen bodies ended when Ernie morphed from feature to short, so Elliot financed it himself..

He describes the result as "a bit of an experiment".

"Things have changed. Film's now gone and I've had to learn a lot of new skills. After Mary and Max.[Elliot's acclaimed 2009 feature] we knew we had to get our budget down because things were changing dramatically."

The finished film is a crowd-pleasing charmer. The Melbourne director describes it as a...

Re-Animators: Kaufman & Johnson Brilliantly Translates Kafkaesque ‘Sound Play’ From The Stage To Stop Motion

Springing from the mind that spewed an incredible string of transcendent work from Being John Malkovich to Synecdoche, New York, writer and co-director Charlie Kaufman‘s Anomalisa is yet another wholly original work, vastly different in form, but no less Kaufmanesque, narratively speaking. This go round he’s partnered with Duke Johnson, one of the creative minds behind the stop-motion production studio Starburns Industries (Moral Orel, Frankenhole), to rework a story he’d penned under the alias Francis Fregoli and produced for the stage as a ‘sound play’ back in 2005 for the Theater of the New Ear. The result is an inventive bit of stop-motion brilliance which seizes upon the inherent falsities of its chosen medium and employs them as a driving force in the examination of tedium and the apathetic perception of sameness as one grows old.

Adam Elliot, Oscar winner for the short film Harvie Krumpet and director of the beloved feature Mary And Max, has recently released his latest film Ernie Biscuit. I got the chance to chat with Adam about his films, his characters and his life.Hugo Ozman: Ernie Biscuit is the first film that you have made since Mary And Max came out in 2009. What took you so long to give audiences another film?Adam Elliot:There are quite a few reasons why it has taken me so long to make another film. The main reason is after Mary and Max, I was mentally and physically spent and despite the wonderful successes of the film, I lost my sense of self and became quite depressed. Having to live up...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

He has a funny name. He's got a disability. He is terribly lonely... He is Ernie Biscuit, a deaf Parisian taxidermist. If you are thinking to yourself that his story couldn't be too interesting, you are mistaken. Great storytellers can bring the most unusual characters to life, put him or her in the most unexpected situations and create the most unforgettable stories. And Adam Elliot, director of the short film about Biscuit, is an amazing storyteller. After making his first short film trilogy (Uncle, Cousin and Brother), Elliot won an Academy Award for Harvie Krumpet, his 2003 short film about a man with Tourette's Syndrome. He followed that up with his only feature film to date, Mary And Max, which is about an unlikely friendship between...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

Australian animator Adam Elliot won an Oscar for his short film Harvie Krumpet and went on to direct his much loved feature film Mary And Max. It has since been five long years and Elliot is finally back with a new film - a short titled "Ernie Biscuit". Ernie Biscuit is a "deaf Parisian Taxidermist whose life gets turned upside down and back to front when a dead pigeon arrives on his doorstep". Mr Biscuit was first introduced to the world at the Sydney Film Festival. He then traveled to Europe for the Annecy International Animation Festival in France and Edinburgh International Film Festival in the UK. Next, he will continue his journey around the world by returning to Australia for the Melbourne International Film Festival before...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

First-time writer/director Hugh Sullivan.s time travel comedy The Infinite Man opened at four cinemas- Dendy Newton, Melbourne.s Cinema Nova, Perth.s Cinema Paradiso and Adelaide.s Palace Nova Eastend- last Thursday.

The four-day gross is $10,640, which is in addition to the $21,000 generated by screenings at the Melbourne International Film Festival, CineféstOZ and the Dungog fest.

Executive producer Jonathan Page said, .It.s a good start and points to a new model of releasing smaller films, focussing on a few targeted sites and keeping costs low. I think The Infinite Man is building a cult following and will be watched on other platforms, so if we can make a bit of noise and a bit of money at the cinema then we are on track..

Produced by Hedone Productions. Kate Croser and Sandy Cameron, the film stars Josh McConville, Hannah Marshall and Alex Dimitriades in the tale of...

An early pioneer in stop-motion animation, Ladislas Starevich's strange, touching films work still entertain today, Aliya writes...

Even in this age of digital manipulation, stop-motion animation holds a fascination for movie audiences, and there have been some brilliant examples through cinema’s history. From the year 2000 alone we’ve had Wallace And Gromit’s The Curse Of The Were Rabbit, Corpse Bride, Mary And Max, A Town Called Panic, and Fantastic Mr Fox, to name but a few, and The Boxtrolls is not far away. Not bad, for an animation technique that hasn’t changed much such it was first used in 1897.

Perhaps it has retained its popularity because it requires so much skill. Making a stop-motion movie has always taken months of precise, painstaking work. That’s not to say that modern filmmaking is a walk in the park, but I think we have a clear, romantic view of...

First-time writer/director Hugh Sullivan.s time travel comedy The Infinite Man will be released in the Us by Invincible Pictures.

Sandy Cameron, who produced the film with his Hedone Productions partner Kate Croser, tells If that Invincible specialises in genre fare and has guaranteed a theatrical release in at least three cities, date to be fixed.

The deal was negotiated by international sales agent Shoreline Releasing. By If.s count, at least 20 Australian films have secured Us distribution. this year.

In Australia the comedy which stars Josh McConville, Hannah Marshall and Alex Dimitriades will open on September 18 via Infinite Releasing,. a new banner formed by the producers and Jonathan Page, executive producer of The Babadook, Mary and Max and 100 Bloody Acres.

Cameron says they are treating this release as a pilot before deciding whether to handle films from other producers. Madman Entertainment has acquired the DVD and VoD rights.

In a way I am not sure I have ever felt before, for a figure I do not know personally, I am still trying to comprehend Philip Seymour Hoffman’s passing.

When we grow with artists, we do not just identify with them, or become “fans.” We love these artists, anticipate our experiences with them, and similarly better understand the potential of their means of an expression. Loving an artist indeed becomes a personal venture, especially if one is to believe that art, something that keeps us human, belongs to all of us just as much as it does the artist (to paraphrase a line actually said by Hugh Bonneville in this upcoming Friday’s The Monuments Men). My love for Philip Seymour Hoffman, an icon lost, is directly interwoven with how I began to truly watch films, and learn from them.

To quote A.O. Scott in a bold remark of perfect clarity,...