10 great British animated feature films

A quarter of a century after its release, Chicken Run (2000) remains the highest-grossing stop-motion film of all time. It continues to stand as a beacon, not just for an art form that some assumed was obsolete in the wake of CGI animation but also for the British animation industry as a whole and its most successful studio, Aardman.

To say that such success was unprecedented in the UK is an understatement. It took 50 years of stop-start development for the first British animated feature film, Animal Farm (1954), to emerge, and it certainly didn’t open the floodgates. Before that there had been a couple of technical precedents: educational and training films that scrape into feature-length when screened together, but these were primarily intended as series. 

More intriguing were a couple of near misses. Anthony Gross and Hector Hoppin’s Round the World in 80 Days went into production as a feature in 1938 but had to be abandoned, with the completed scenes released as a short with support from the BFI’s Experimental Film Fund in 1955. Signal Films was a stop-motion studio that emerged to produce prestige stop-motion cinema commercials after World War II, and it announced an ambition to adapt Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Le Petit Prince into a feature, but sadly it was never realised.

In looking at a list of British animated features that made it to the screen it’s striking how many are anomalies to the mainstream offer, foregrounding darker themes, targeting adult audiences and using alternative methods. These highlights help reveal what a distinctive, intriguing and engaging animation industry the UK has.

Directors: John Halas and Joy Batchelor

Britain’s first animated feature film required unusual circumstances to be realised, with covert CIA funds backing an enterprise that the commercial industry would not. An adaptation of George Orwell’s allegorical “Fairy Story” was seen as perfect political fodder in the agency’s cultural Cold War, if a few tweaks could be made along the way.

John Halas and Joy Batchelor had founded a small cartoon studio within an advertising agency in 1940, and by 1950 their talents and industry had helped them grow into Britain’s leading studio. They were chosen to make Animal Farm because a UK origin added a perceived authenticity to the project, though they had no direct contact with their mysterious clients. The film was a big opportunity for John and Joy and they grasped it with both hands, commercially and creatively, at a scale that they were sadly never able to reach again.

Director: Joy Batchelor

Though funded for broadcast on American television, this Gilbert and Sullivan adaptation had a limited theatrical release in the UK, making it arguably Britain’s second animated feature film. And it’s a case worth arguing, because it’s another landmark for Joy Batchelor, a leading female creator in the industry and co-director of the country’s first animated feature.

The fire that had burned so bright through the diverse talents of Joy’s early career had dimmed somewhat 30 years in. Her husband and business partner John Halas had risen to become not just a spokesperson for their company but for the whole art and industry, often overshadowing Joy’s contribution. As sole director on Ruddigore she had her last real opportunity to conduct a production team on a feature, though at a fraction of the production means of Animal Farm. The resulting film is an enjoyable cross between Saturday morning cartoons and light opera, with many delightful flourishes.

Director: George Dunning

There is no way this film should be as good as it is. It emerged from a UK-produced animated kids series featuring The Beatles that was considered too laughable to be screened domestically. The Fab Four were initially sniffy about the whole affair, but were swung by the fact that it could help them fulfil their commitment to make a third and final feature film in their deal with United Artists without hanging around on film sets. They didn’t even need to provide their own voices, just a token live-action cameo at the end.

But what a trip. Visual splendour in Technicolor; twisted perspectives; curiously distorted caricatures of people you know and love; and moments when not much happens and you wish it would all be over. That such a gloriously messy and engaging contraption emerged is credit to the bafflingly creative mind of director George Dunning, the razor-sharp design of Heinz Edelmann, and the conviction of a teeming grab bag of creative talent from across the British animation industry.

Director: Martin Rosen

Martin Rosen had no experience of animation when he embarked on adapting Richard Adams’ best-selling book to the screen. Driven by his belief in the epic story of rabbits and men, he raised finance from unconventional City sources and gathered the required knowledge and skills around him at a small London studio off Warren Street, appropriately enough.

He initially engaged John Hubley as director, a legendary figure in animation from spells at Disney, UPA and on an extraordinary bunch of independent short films. But ultimately Rosen’s vision could not be shared, and Hubley was removed, with Rosen taking on the mantle of director himself. Right or wrong, it was this autonomy that kept the project free of interference. It’s why the film wasn’t scared of a little violence and darkness, which presented issues for audiences who had expectations of animation as “kid’s stuff”. And it’s a big part of the reason the film is still an engaging watch.

Director: Mark Hall

Few stories have been adapted into film as many times as Kenneth Grahame’s classic. Cosgrove Hall were a growing Northern powerhouse of UK animation, producing children’s series like Chorlton and the Wheelies (1976 to 1979) and Danger Mouse (1981 to 1992) from their Manchester studio. 

With a £1 million budget and two years of development, The Wind in the Willows was a calculated investment to profit on Grahame’s book falling out of copyright (then 50 years after the death of the author). The success of the film was built on bringing together a strong voice cast, skilled animators and state-of-the-art stop-motion puppets. Sophisticated articulation and latex prepared to a secret recipe enabled a depth of expression, movement and performance to match David Jason’s iconic rendition of Mr Toad, for example. Five series of 20-minute television episodes followed, but another legacy was Mackinnon & Saunders, who provided puppets and expertise for Fantastic Mr Fox (2009) and Frankenweenie (2012), as well as their own productions.

Director: Jimmy T. Murakami

This adaptation of Raymond Briggs’ tragicomic tale of a retired couple experiencing the (literal) fallout of a nuclear attack has obvious connections with the celebrated Christmas special The Snowman (1982). Both were made by TVC London, working with the same author, and involving veteran animation director Jimmy T. Murakami. The success of The Snowman helped producer John Coates build a long-running creative relationship with Briggs, and the commercial case for this feature-length follow up with Channel 4 and the National Film Finance Corporation.

But the film is also filled with the spirit of invention of TVC’s earlier feature, Yellow Submarine. A range of techniques and experiments are thrown at the production, from the 3D model backgrounds for 2D cel-animated characters, to the sketchy daydream interludes, to computer animation. This cornucopia of creativity perhaps diminishes the clarity of Briggs’ book, but both successfully walk the tightrope of humour, horror and quiet outrage at the lunacy of the government “Protect and Survive” civil defence advice in the event of a nuclear attack.

Director: Dave Borthwick

The 1993 Christmas television debut of The Wrong Trousers was the breakthrough moment for Wallace & Gromit, Aardman and Nick Park. Meanwhile, from another part of Bristol, a dark cousin was also broadcast as part of the BBC’s Animation2 initiative.

Dave Borthwick and the bolexbrothers crew had begun to explore mixing stop-motion animation of puppets with pixilation, in which human actors are moved frame-by-frame as if puppets themselves. The magical realism of the fairytale provided the right backdrop to explore character relationships across the techniques and a 10-minute Tom Thumb short was screened at Christmas 1988 under a ‘Nursery Crimes’ banner. Offering a compelling glimpse of the genius of the idea and the innovative skewed vision of its creators, it was a successful calling card for the expansion to 60-minute feature. Festival success, critical acclaim and a limited run at the ICA before its Christmas television showing didn’t translate into the success of Aardman, but the film remains a cult classic.

Director: Nick Park and Steve Box

While The Wrong Trousers remains Nick Park’s masterpiece, Wallace & Gromit’s feature-length debut is still a cracking contribution to their growing canon. It’s revealing that there was a decade between their previous half-hour special A Close Shave (1995) and this expanded outing, and that wasn’t just because Chicken Run came in-between. Feature films are very different beasts than their shorter cousins. The adjustment to narrative and character development to sustain the running time is not easy, and a significant growth in production is required. But the commercial market for feature films is a completely different animal, where a box-office gross of over $190 million can still be seen as a disappointment to investors. 

It’s credit to co-directors Nick Park and Steve Box and Aardman’s producers that they managed to retain so much of the homespun charm that was required for the humour to work in the face of test screenings and the notes of investors DreamWorks. The “world’s first vegetarian horror movie” remains a perennial treat. 

Director: Phil Mulloy

Not for the faint-hearted, Phil Mulloy’s unique onslaught on animation first came to real prominence with his Cowboys series of shorts in 1991. Two decades later and Goodbye Mr. Christie maintains the stripped-back aesthetics and scatological, darkly comic humour of the earlier work but is expanded into a complex narrative. The irascible, self-centred Mr Christie digs his way to hell, kills God in the form of a spider, and brings the entire world into danger while being followed by assorted members of his family and a TV documentarian, who all have their own issues to deal with. Computer-generated voices make the dialogue a relentless, stilted onslaught, carrying the willing viewer further into the madness (and likely sending the unwilling packing).

Goodbye Mr. Christie grew out a series of short films from 2006, and the feature was the first in a trilogy, followed by Dead but Not Buried (2012) and The Pain and the Pity (2013).

Director: Neil Boyle and Kirk Hendry

Adaptation has long been a crutch of the animated feature film, with few original screenplays in this list. Translating from book to screen so often comes with compromise, but Frank Cottrell-Boyce’s screenplay takes Michael Morpurgo’s 1999 children’s book and successfully adjusts and tailors it into an outfit that feels fresh and new. 

A skilled animation team are given the time and space to unpack the story about Michael, a 12-year-old boy stranded on a South Pacific island, and his encounter with Kensuke, a Japanese WWII survivor, and fill it with natural magic. Animation is filled with anthropomorphic animals, but here the relationship between the humans and the flora and fauna around them teeters successfully on the side of credibility as it is built on observation and respect. Even Morpurgo himself said he preferred the film to the book, though feel free to enjoy both.