Sunday Top Ten - Animated Disney films

It feels like it's been ages since I last cobbled together a Sunday Top Ten list... because it has. But if I don't do one now, before the heat of Oscar season really starts beating down upon us, then it'd never get done! So here's a top ten list that a number of people have been asking for.

In anticipation of Frozen's imminent release (which I am very much looking forward to), I've finally joined the sizable flock of Gen-Y-ers on the Internet who have their own distinct ranking of the animated features of Walt Disney Studios. No two lists (and there are a ton of them out there) are quite the same, but they all share one thing in common: No one has an easy time making them.

I've discovered that my own relationship with the iconic studio's 52 theatrical releases – needless to say, the works of Pixar do not count – is a conflicted and perpetually evolving one. As a child of the 90s being raised on the miracle of “home video”, I indiscriminately loved Disney films of all ages, from the antiquated Snow White to their most state-of-the-art releases. Frankly, I couldn't tell that some of these films were made 60 years apart, and the notion of systematically ranking them against each other never crossed my mind for even a split second. It was the only phase of my life when what I felt for the movies was pure, unconditional love.

As my burgeoning interest in cinema (and a nettlesome sense of pretentiousness) began to develop in adolescence, I suddenly found that certain toons I had blissfully smiled through not long ago were failing to pass my new-found discernment. At the same time, new charms and nuances that had flown over my head when I was knee-high began to reveal themselves. The magic wasn't gone from these films – not all of them. The magic was simply changing. Letting a movie win you over a second time but for different reasons is a special sensation.

Weighing a combination childhood nostalgia and that unnameable quality that genuinely speaks to me as an adult was the only way I could come close to sussing out a top ten. I'm sure many readers will cry foul that 'this' film or 'that' film was omitted, but I believe it to be an appropriately diverse and personal list that nicely represents the things I love most about the Disney legacy. And no, I did not have an easy time making it (although long-time readers should easily be able to predict my #1 pick). 

So without further ado, my top ten Disney animated features:

Sunday Top Ten - Underrated films

I'd say that more often than not my preferences in film lean the same way as the consensus opinions – Hey, I don't get paid for original thinking! But even the most sheepish of us have some favourites that are either unappreciated or unheard of by the masses. Thanks to the miracles of the Internet of course, it's become easier to find assenting voices to share in admiring even our most obscure tastes, but in day-to-day conversation I find that certain movies continue to be less revered than they ought be.

For this list, I realize that it could be entirely composed of esoteric foreign masterpieces, but that's because nearly all foreign films are under-appreciated. The same idea even applies to domestic efforts that are really tiny and independently produced. So to make things a little easier for me to narrow down, I decided to limit myself to the works of studios and filmmakers with higher profiles (I might do a list of foreign titles another time).