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Best Adult animation Movies

Ranked by how strongly each film carries the visual signature of adult animation cinema — measured across 2,336 indexed frames from 33 films, against a 408,752-frame catalogue baseline. Not by box office, and not by vote.

Adult animation films over-index on tunic, clouds and boy — the objects that make the genre recognisable before a line is spoken.

  1. 1

    Grave of the Fireflies (1988)

    Isao TakahataDP Nobuo KoyamaIMDb 8.5TMDB 8.4See in full on FrameThrower →

    In the final months of World War II, 14-year-old Seita and his sister Setsuko are orphaned when their mother is killed during an air raid in Kobe, Japan. After a falling out with their aunt, they move into an abandoned bomb shelter. With no surviving relatives and their emergency rations depleted, Seita and Setsuko struggle to survive.

  2. 2

    The Wind Rises (2013)

    Hayao MiyazakiDP Atsushi OkuiIMDb 7.8TMDB 7.8See in full on FrameThrower →

    Jiro dreams of flying and designing beautiful airplanes, inspired by the famous Italian aeronautical designer Caproni. Nearsighted from a young age and unable to be a pilot, Jiro joins a major Japanese engineering company in 1927 and becomes one of the world's most innovative and accomplished airplane designers. The film chronicles much of his life, depicting key historical events, including the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, the Great Depression, the tuberculosis epidemic and Japan's plunge into war. Jiro meets and falls in love with Nahoko, and grows and cherishes his friendship with his colleague Honjo.

  3. 3

    Tales From Earthsea (2006)

    Goro MiyazakiIMDb 6.3TMDB 6.5See in full on FrameThrower →

    Something bizarre has come over the land. The kingdom is deteriorating. People are beginning to act strange... What's even more strange is that people are beginning to see dragons, which shouldn't enter the world of humans. Due to all these bizarre events, Ged, a wandering wizard, is investigating the cause. During his journey, he meets Prince Arren, a young distraught teenage boy. While Arren may look like a shy young teen, he has a severe dark side, which grants him strength, hatred, ruthlessness and has no mercy, especially when it comes to protecting Teru. For the witch Kumo this is a perfect opportunity. She can use the boy's "fears" against the very one who would help him, Ged.

  4. 4

    Wolf Children (2012)

    Mamoru HosodaDP Ryo HoribeIMDb 8.1TMDB 8.2See in full on FrameThrower →

    After her werewolf lover unexpectedly dies in an accident while hunting for food for their children, a young woman must find ways to raise the werewolf son and daughter that she had with him while keeping their trait hidden from society.

  5. 5

    Princess Mononoke (1997)

    Hayao MiyazakiDP Atsushi OkuiIMDb 8.3TMDB 8.3See in full on FrameThrower →

    While protecting his village from rampaging boar-god/demon, a confident young warrior, Ashitaka, is stricken by a deadly curse. To save his life, he must journey to the forests of the west. Once there, he's embroiled in a fierce campaign that humans were waging on the forest. The ambitious Lady Eboshi and her loyal clan use their guns against the gods of the forest and a brave young woman, Princess Mononoke, who was raised by a wolf-god. Ashitaka sees the good in both sides and tries to stem the flood of blood. This is met by animosity by both sides as they each see him as supporting the enemy.

  6. 6

    My Life as a Zucchini (2016)

    Claude BarrasDP David ToutevoixIMDb 7.8TMDB 7.8See in full on FrameThrower →

    Courgette (Zucchini) is an intriguing nickname for a 9-year-old boy. Although his unique story is surprisingly universal. After his mother's disappearance, Courgette is befriended by a police officer Raymond, who accompanies him to his new foster home filled with other orphans his age. At first he struggles to find his place in this strange, at times, hostile environment. Yet with Raymond's help and his new-found friends, Courgette eventually learns to trust and might find true love.

  7. 7

    Persepolis (2007)

    Vincent Paronnaud, Marjane SatrapiIMDb 8.0TMDB 7.9See in full on FrameThrower →

    In 1970s Iran, Marjane 'Marji' Satrapi watches events through her young eyes and her idealistic family of a long dream being fulfilled of the hated Shah's defeat in the Iranian Revolution of 1979. However as Marji grows up, she witnesses first hand how the new Iran, now ruled by Islamic fundamentalists, has become a repressive tyranny on its own. With Marji dangerously refusing to remain silent at this injustice, her parents send her abroad to Vienna to study for a better life. However, this change proves an equally difficult trial with the young woman finding herself in a different culture loaded with abrasive characters and profound disappointments that deeply trouble her. Even when she returns home, Marji finds that both she and homeland have changed too much and the young woman and her loving family must decide where she truly belongs.

  8. 8

    Fantastic Planet (1973)

    René LalouxDP Boris BaromykinIMDb 7.7TMDB 7.6See in full on FrameThrower →

    Slaves and masters dominate the narrative of the faraway world of Ygam. Set around the lifespan of Terr, a minute human shaped Om slave, and pet, of the giant blue alien Draags. Escaping into the wilderness and with a device used for intellectual advancement of the Draags, Terr finds refuge and support from fellow Oms and using the learning tool, he finds that knowledge is power and then sets to use the new found knowledge to revolt against the Draag masters...

  9. 9

    Akira (1988)

    Katsuhiro OtomoDP Katsuji MisawaIMDb 8.0TMDB 7.9See in full on FrameThrower →

    2019. 31 years after being destroyed during World War 3, Tokyo (now 'Neo-Tokyo') has been rebuilt and is a thriving metropolis. Shotaro Kaneda is the leader of a biker gang. His friend Tetsuo is injured in an accident and taken to a top-secret government facility. He develops telekinetic powers but decides to use them for evil rather than good. He has the same powers as Akira, the force that destroyed Tokyo in 1988, and now it appears that history will repeat itself.

  10. 10

    Pink Floyd The Wall (1982)

    Alan ParkerDP Peter BiziouIMDb 8.0TMDB 7.9See in full on FrameThrower →

    Rock star Pink Floyd is a tortured soul. Because of his childhood, he has always tried to make meaningful emotional connections to other living creatures. That childhood includes not having a male role model with his father having been killed in the war, his overprotective mother smothering him, and an oppressive school system quashing his natural creativity. Being a rock star, he is often wanted more because of what he is than who he is. The most recent failure in that true connection to someone or something else is his marriage, when on tour, he discovers that his wife back home is cheating on him. His response is to go in the opposite direction, by building a figurative wall around him to isolate himself from the rest of the world, but not before showing graphically his feelings on different gut levels. The question becomes if he or anyone else can do anything to tear down the wall in a meaningful way.

What adult animation films are made of

How much more often each element appears in a adult animation frame than in an average frame from the catalogue. A ratio, not a share — tunic is not in most frames, it is simply far more common here than anywhere else.

  • tunic3.1×
  • clouds2.9×
  • boy2.3×
  • child2.2×
  • snow1.9×
  • girl1.6×
  • smoke1.6×
  • eyes1.5×

How adult animation films are shot

Weaker signals than the objects above, and worth saying so: most dramatic genres skew dark and night-heavy, so these numbers separate adult animation from the catalogue far more than they separate it from its neighbours.

  • 12%unknownvs 4% baseline
  • 14%high anglevs 6% baseline
  • 11%low anglevs 5% baseline
  • 28%widevs 20% baseline
  • 15%closeupvs 21% baseline

What breaks the pattern

Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay (2018) is the least typical film here — it carries the least of what the rest of this list is made of. Which is either a failure of the genre label, or the most interesting film on the page.

Method

Every frame in the FrameThrower catalogue is tagged for shot size, lighting, time of day, camera angle, colour and the objects visible in it. This page aggregates those tags across 2,336 frames from 33 films carrying the adult animation label, and compares each figure to the same measurement across the whole catalogue (408,752 frames). Films are ranked by how closely they match the theme’s over-indexed elements, weighted by how distinctive each element is; one film per series. Only films with at least 20 indexed frames and 500 TMDB votes are listed.

Machine-readable: /api/list/adult-animation

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These are real movie frames, shown at reduced resolution. All rights remain with their respective owners; they appear here for study, commentary and education under fair-use principles. How these are meant to be used