A Glean movie guide
Animation for Grown-Ups
Beyond the cartoons.
Masterpieces of mature storytelling, from psychological thrillers to war documentaries.
Handpicked for this guide
The movie list
- 01
Perfect Blue
A haunting psychological thriller that blurs the line between reality and a pop star's fractured identity.
Rising pop star Mima quits singing to pursue a career as an actress. After she takes up a role on a popular detective show, her handlers and collaborators begin turning up murdered. Harboring feelings of guilt and haunted by visions of her former self, Mima's reality and fantasy meld into a frenzied paranoia.
- 02
Anomalisa
A deeply human stop-motion drama exploring the isolation of a man who perceives everyone as identical.
An inspirational speaker becomes reinvigorated after meeting a lively woman who shakes up his mundane existence.
- 03
Grave of the Fireflies
A devastating and beautifully rendered account of two siblings struggling to survive in WWII-era Japan.
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.
- 04
Akira
A landmark of cyberpunk cinema featuring visceral action and complex political themes in a dystopian Neo-Tokyo.
A secret military project endangers Neo-Tokyo when it turns a biker gang member into a rampaging psychic psychopath that only two teenagers and a group of psychics can stop.
- 05
Waltz with Bashir
A visually striking documentary that uses animation to reconstruct a soldier's suppressed memories of war.
An Israeli film director interviews fellow veterans of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon to reconstruct his own memories of his term of service in that conflict.
- 06
Persepolis
A poignant and stylish coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of the Iranian Revolution.
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.
- 07
It's Such a Beautiful Day
A minimalist yet profound exploration of mortality and the human mind through surreal vignettes.
Bill struggles to put together his shattered psyche.
- 08
Ghost in the Shell
A philosophical sci-fi classic that questions the nature of consciousness in a world of cybernetic bodies.
In the year 2029, the barriers of our world have been broken down by the net and by cybernetics, but this brings new vulnerability to humans in the form of brain-hacking. When a highly-wanted hacker known as 'The Puppetmaster' begins involving them in politics, Section 9, a group of cybernetically enhanced cops, are called in to investigate and stop the Puppetmaster.
- 09
Flee
A gripping animated documentary following a man's harrowing journey as a refugee from Afghanistan to Denmark.
Recounted mostly through animation to protect his identity, Amin looks back over his past as a child refugee from Afghanistan as he grapples with a secret he’s kept hidden for 20 years.
- 10
Paprika
A kaleidoscopic journey into the world of dreams where a stolen device threatens to merge fantasy with reality.
When a machine that allows therapists to enter their patient's dreams is stolen, all hell breaks loose. Only a young female therapist can stop it and recover it before damage is done: Paprika.
- 11
Mad God
A dialogue-free, experimental descent into a grotesque and meticulously crafted stop-motion hellscape.
A figure known as "The Assassin" descends from the heavens into a nightmarish pit full of monsters, titans, and cruelty.
- 12
Mary and Max
A bittersweet and darkly comedic tale of an unlikely pen-pal friendship spanning two decades.
A tale of friendship between two unlikely pen pals: Mary, a lonely, eight-year-old girl living in the suburbs of Melbourne, and Max, a forty-four-year old, severely obese man living in New York.