Animation

Did you know that the very first animated short was created all the way back in 1906? It was called Humorous Phases of Funny Faces and it was a silent animated cartoon directed by James Stuart Blackton. At the time it aired, one of the greatest animators of all time, Walt Disney, was just five-years-old.

By the time he was 18, Disney was a commercial illustrator and just a few years later in 1923, Walt and his brother, Roy, moved out to California and founded what became Disney Bros. Studio. Five years later Mickey Mouse was born, making his debut in Steamboat Willie, an animated short film directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks.

It would be nearly 10 years later before the world would get it's first fully animated feature film. It was in 1937, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs pioneered a new form of family entertainment. It cost $1.5m to make and unsurprisingly, was a critical and commercial success earning more than $8 million during its initial release. In today's money that is around $148,842,286.

But more than all of the success, it is the shoulders on which the cartoon world we know today was built. Every advance made in the genre has been because of that first feature film. A classic in the truest sense, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs changed the world.

76 years after the first animated feature from Disney, along came the second highest-grossing box office movie in history – Frozen. Not only did the movie generate $1,267,483,831 (that's Billion!), it also spawned the highest-grossing movie of all time – Frozen II, which netted a whopping $1,447,065,229 at the worldwide box office. Clearly, there is no stopping Disney.

But while the mega studio may still be going strong after nearly 100 years, it is by no means the only animation studio to take home the spoils. Originally a rival company but now one that is a subsidiary of Disney, is Pixar. It began in 1979 as part of the Lucasfilm computer division before its spin-off as a corporation in 1986, with funding from Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who became its majority shareholder. Pixar has produced 23 feature films, beginning with Toy Story (1995) which is also the first fully computer-animated feature film. To date, its most commercially successful animated movie has been The Incredibles 2 (2018) which took $1.242 billion at the box office.

But for those who prefer a more authentic feel to their animated movies, you don't have to look much further than the Anime offerings. Many are still hand-drawn and are widely recognised as some of the finest animated works ever created. Founded by Hayao Miyazaki, Studio Ghibli are masters at Anime movies and the studio even took the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2003 for Spirited Away. It was the first non-English language movie to win this award.

Even the list of Oscar Nominees for Animated Feature in 2021 shows a beautifully diverse range of styles that continue to capture the imagination. From Pixar's Soul (winner) and Onward to Wolfwalkers from Irish studio Cartoon Saloon to the Chinese-American co-production of Over The Moon from Glen Keane to A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon from Britain's Aardman Animations – there is an animated movie to tug at every heartstring.