Best Animated Feature: 1982

My Nominations: Flight Of The Dragons. Hey Good Lookin. The Last Unicorn. The Plague Dogs. The Secret Of Nimh.

While I may be biased given the fact that I grew up in the 80s, I’ve been known to say that the decade was a golden age for animated TV shows. On the Feature front, it was less impressive but acted as a gateway towards the modern era. 1982 is an unusually strong year for Animated films, especially if I include TV films. This goes against Academy rules, but screw it. Flight Of The Dragons is a film I remember fondly and was one I enjoyed more than many of the more famous big screen releases, and features a cool title song and a cast including John Ritter and James Earl Jones. One which more people remember, and more fondly, is The Last Unicorn – which too has a strong cast and score, with Mia Farrow, Jeff Bridges, Christopher Lee, Alan Arkin, and Angela Lansbury all contributing.

Hey Good Lookin is for some a retread of ideas already covered by Bakshi in earlier movies – hardly surprising given it is an overhaul of a previous live action/animated mash-up. It’s a lesser Bakshi film – but there wasn’t anyone making movies like this at the time, and hardly anyone since.

The Plague Dogs is the lesser known spiritual follow up to Watership Down, and is an even more uncompromising watch directed more at older viewers than unsuspecting children. My winner though, is a film which was frequently the choice forced upon us in the last days before half term or end of term at school – The Secret Of Nimh – Don Bluth’s first, and arguably best movie since moving on from Disney, and one of the films which arguably forced Disney to up their game. Often frightening and violent, though not on the same levels as The Plague Dogs, it’s a refreshing and exciting story about mice and, well, super-rats. And family.

My Winner: The Secret Of NIMH

Let us know your winner in the comments!