Animated features from every studio and era, judged as films first and technical achievements second. Great animation serves story; these reviews hold it to that standard.
AnimatedStar Trek: Lower Decks rates 5 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Mediocre, and a good try. A genuinely clever premise, the most stable production in modern Star Trek, and a show whose comic style and comic content are…
AdventureStar Trek: Prodigy carries no rating here because I have not watched it, and barely knew it existed. That turns out to be the point. Its second season holds a perfect hundred percent with critics and ninety-six with audiences, and…
AdventureStar Trek: The Animated Series rates 7 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Twenty-two episodes, atrocious Filmation animation, and writing good enough that it holds up anyway. The first Star Trek to win an Emmy, and the Emmy is…
AnimatedWhat If...? Season 1 (2021) rates 7 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. An anthology is the correct form for a franchise this size, because each episode can end somewhere unrecoverable. The Doctor Strange episode is the darkest thing…
AdventureNausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984) rates 9 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Miyazaki made it in about ten months for the equivalent of a million dollars, and its success paid for Studio Ghibli the following…
AnimatedWarner Bros. finished Coyote vs. Acme, shelved it for a tax write-off, and refused to sell it at a sane price for eighteen months. Ketchup Entertainment released it anyway, and the film is holding three weekends deep. Rated 9 out…
AnimatedTom Hanks performs motion capture for six different roles including the boy, the conductor, the boy's father, the hobo, the narrator, and Santa Claus. The film's central technological achievement and its central technological problem are the same thing.
AnimatedCharlie Brown directs the Peanuts gang in a Nativity pageant after rejecting the commercialism of the season. A Charlie Brown Christmas is Bill Melendez's 1965 American animated television special depicting Charlie Brown's depression at the commercialization of the Christmas season…
AnimatedBillie Mae Richards voices Rudolph. The special is technically stop-motion puppet animation instead of claymation, executed by Tadahito Mochinaga's animation team at MOM Production in Tokyo.
AnimatedChuck Jones directs the animated Dr. Seuss special about a sour creature plotting to steal Christmas from the Whos in Whoville. How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
AnimatedA spoiled postman exiled to a frigid island town befriends a reclusive toymaker, and they invent the Santa tradition together. Klaus is Sergio Pablos's 2019 Spanish-British-American animated film depicting a spoiled wealthy postman exiled to a remote frozen island town…
AnimatedSanta's bumbling son Arthur must deliver a forgotten present before sunrise, using an antique sleigh and his grandfather's wisdom. Arthur Christmas is Sarah Smith's 2011 British-American animated Christmas comedy from Aardman Animations depicting the modern operation of Santa's high-tech global…
Professional ghostwriting for executives, founders, coaches, and authors who want to get the book done right. 113+ books authored. 54+ ghostwritten for clients.
Ready to discuss your book?
BOOK YOUR PRIVATE CONSULTATIONNo pitch. No pressure.
© 2026 Richard Lowe. The Writing King. All rights reserved.
