11 Best Animated Movies On Amazon Prime

Everyone can agree that an animated feature-length film is something special. Just imagine all the work that goes into producing a film roughly 90 minutes long or more in which every setting, character, and detail had to be created from scratch. Debuting and developing almost in tandem with live-action filmmaking, animation has impressed and thrilled for decades, be it a movie made with hand-drawn cel-style animation, stop-motion and manipulation of physical objects, or the uncannily realistic tools of CGI.

Long and widely thought of as kid stuff, animation transcends labeling and pigeonholing, and films made with ink, pen, paint, clay, and computers can be for everyone. Amazon's Prime Video service offers a large catalog of animated movies of various styles, tastes, and audience levels, with cartoon tales just waiting to delight viewers raging in age from toddlerhood to advanced adulthood. 

Updated on April 3, 2023: Here are the most exceptional animated movies currently available to stream on Amazon Prime.

Norman Bridwell's many storybooks about Clifford the Big Red Dog have proven irresistible to millions of children, their attention captured by the image of a house-sized canine colored a deep shade of scarlet and the promise of the adventure and awkward situations he finds himself in. Clifford also happens to be very friendly and absolutely adoring of his human family, particularly young Emily Elizabeth. 

A spinoff and finale to PBS Kids' "Clifford the Big Red Dog" series, "Clifford's Really Big Movie" allows the pooch to speak, but in this adventure, the stakes are high. After overhearing a conversation about the presumably staggering cost of feeding such a giant dog, Clifford feels guilty and joins a carnival, intending to win a contest where the prize is free food for life. The dog runs away and joins this circus, where he easily becomes the star, but then that sweetheart gets homesick and will do anything to get back to Emily Elizabeth.

• Starring: John Ritter, Wayne Brady, Jenna Elfman
• Director: Robert Ramirez
• Year: 2004
• Runtime: 74 minutes
• Rating: G
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 53%

There are many dark, dystopian films in the anime tradition that take place in a future where technology has run wild, allowing for the rise of an overreaching police state and blurred lines between man and machine. Most, if not all, of those movies made post-1995 owe a debt to "Ghost in the Shell," Mamoru Oshii's masterful, transfixing version of Masamune Shirow's comic. The film available on Amazon Prime Video is "Ghost in the Shell 2.0," a careful remastering personally led by Oshii and made from the original mid-'80s prints. "Ghost in the Shell" is set in the once far off year of 2029, where cyborgs live among people and both forms of life can connect their brains to the internet. Motoko Kusanagi, an officer in a secret cyber-crime police force, desperately tries to hunt down a mysterious criminal known only as the Puppet Master, a hacker who taps into cyborg brains' so as to carry out his nefarious bidding.

• Starring: Mimi Woods, Abe Lasser, Richard George
• Director: Mamoru Oshii
• Year: 1995
• Runtime: 83 minutes
• Rating: NR
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 96%

A little bit of sweetness helps the medicine go down, and so the film adaptation of "The Lorax," Dr. Seuss' poignant fable about environmental responsibility, is a brightly-colored, action-packed, and somewhat ridiculous romp. In the barren and manufactured city of Thneedville, a kid named Ted gets a crush on a kid named Audrey. To win her love, he must obtain a rare and special tree. That puts him into contact with the greedy and decidedly non-green businessman who made Thneedville so bleak in the first place. It also teams him up with an adorably blunt and mustachioed guardian of the forest known as the Lorax.

• Starring: Danny DeVito, Ed Helms, Taylor Swift
• Director: Chris Renaud
• Year: 2012
• Runtime: 86 minutes
• Rating: PG
  
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 54%

Charlie Brown and his band of "Peanuts" frenemies travel a long way from their quiet, small-town neighborhood in "Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown." This feature-length adventure movie is as exciting as it is gentle. Charlie Brown's contingent all go to the same summer camp in the mountains, and hurriedly prepare for an annual river rapids race against the undefeated bad kids who will do whatever it takes to win. To lead his friends to victory — and safety — good ol' Charlie Brown will have to dig deep and find confidence, as well as evade the bullies' many dangerous acts of sabotage.

• Starring: Duncan Watson, Greg Felton, Stuart Brotman
• Directors: Bill Melendez and Phil Roman
• Year: 1977
• Runtime: 72 minutes
• Rating: G
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 50%

It was a tall order, but the makers of "Shark Tale" somehow created a mob movie for kids, one that's way more fun than its Rotten Tomatoes score would indicate. Set in an underwater society where fish and sea creatures talk, interact, and commit unspeakable crimes, "Shark Tale" uses a lot of big-name celebrity voices and fish puns to present a harrowing, ridiculously "Goodfellas"-esque story. 

A criminal underling of a shark named Frankie accidentally dies, inspiring a tiny fish named Oscar to shoot his shot and act like the tough guy he's always wanted to be. Oscar teams up with Frankie's scaredy-fish brother and convinces their community that he bravely killed Frankie. The story takes off, Oscar becomes much more highly regarded, but Frankie's father, crime boss Don Lino, hears it too, prompting him to order a hit on the suddenly much more fearful Oscar.

• Starring: Will Smith, Robert De Niro, Renée Zewllweger
• Director: Bibo Bergeron, Vicky Jenson, Rob Letterman
• Year: 2004
• Runtime: 90 minutes
• Rating: PG
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 35%