Best animated movies and cartoons of the 80s

American and Japanese animation invade Spain

The 1980s is one of the most remembered because it represents an explosion of traditional animation in the cinema . Driven by the success of new directors who have been smashing the box office since the mid-’70s, theaters are filled with spectacular cartoons that rival each other in size, talent and budgets. These are the years of the great Don Bluth and the money of Steven Spielberg, who began in those times an unbridled career as a producer with films that he distributes through his Amblin Entertainment label.

Curiously, Disney at the beginning of the decade is chaining failures and discreet receptions, and the few films that it releases do so without raising too many passions, without being the popular phenomena that Americans used to in decades like the 50s or 60s. If there were few alternatives and competition, off the Pacific coast a new empire of animation was born with the creation of well- known labels such as Studio Ghibli . It will be in those 80s when we begin in Spain to discover extraordinary stories all linked to a traditional way of making movies that, unfortunately, computers and 3D have been cornering for a long time.

These are the best cartoon movies of the 80s:

The Secret of NIMH (1982)

Based on the novel Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, this film is the premiere directed by Don Bluth , one of the most renowned animators in the industry and who worked on some Disney classics such as Sleeping Beauty , Robin Hood or Los Rescatadores and that in the 90s rounded off his career with the unforgettable Anastasia. This fable of the brave little mouse began a prodigious decade of the American.

The Magic Cauldron (1985)

Walt Disney’s 25th animated film in its history, it is a good example of the scant repercussion that some North American productions obtained with their premieres in those years. The Magical Cauldron was not appreciated until years later, when its initiatory story directed by Ted Berman and Richard Rich began to take hold among cartoon fans. It barely raised 22 million dollars compared to the 44 that cost a production that tells us how the King of Evil wants to get hold of the Magic Cauldron and our protagonist Taron has to avoid it at all costs.

Basil the Mouse Detective (1986)

Walt Disney returns to the fray with a movie that was more successful than The Magic Cauldron, but not enough to create a franchise with more installments, or TV series and spin-offs. It has the peculiarity that it begins to use 3D effects in certain scenes and it is, for many, one of those movies that smacks of our earliest childhood. Basil the Super-Detective Mouse is a fun movie where our protagonist has to find a toymaker that Professor Rattigan has kidnapped.

The Castle in the Sky (1986)

First film of the newly created Studio Ghibli with Hayao Miyazaki at the helm in the direction. Although it is not the best of the Japanese, it already shows many of the virtues that the productions of this Tokyo-based studio will have in the future. The plot tells the story of Muska, a secret government agent, and Sheeta, his companion, who must prevent a mysterious magic stone from falling into the hands of a group of soldiers with rather dubious intentions.

Fievel and the New World (1986)

Universal showed the world what Steven Spielberg could do when he started producing cartoon stories as well, and in this case, it’s the second movie with Don Bluth at the helm. Fievel’s mousy epic on his arrival in the US will be the axis of one of the most important films released in that decade, with the Russian exodus during the years of the 1917 Revolution as the background of its argument.

Transformers The Movie (1986)

Based on the television series that was also so successful in the 1980s (and now considered a true classic), it came to theaters adopting the same animation techniques that we had been seeing in Japanese productions since the 1970s. On this occasion, the story of robots that transform into vehicles has the extraordinary contributions (in the English version) of the voices of Eric Idle (member of Monty Python) in the role of Wreck-Gar, Leonard Nimoy (the Spok of Star Trek ) in Galvatron’s and the great Orson Wellen as Unicron.

The Brave Toaster (1987)

Disney gives a twist to his classics and, we don’t know if he wants to or not, he created one of those films that are a cult today despite the fact that at the time of the premiere it went quite unnoticed. There are no talking animals here, but eight years before Toy Story was released , Americans dreamed up a world in which appliances talked when humans couldn’t see them. The same that connection had something to do with the fact that John Lasseter and Joe Ranft participated in The Brave Toaster as responsible for the story and the script.

In Search of the Enchanted Valley (1988)

Don Bluth’s third film as director is executive produced by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas , which is enough of a boost to make it an instant hit. The story of Littlefoot looking for a better place to live was the starting point for one of the most prolific franchises in film history, with 13 different installments. That success was helped by the explosion of home formats and video stores in the 1980s and 1990s, where most of the following sequels arrived directly without going through movie theaters.

Oliver and his gang (1988)

Both In Search of the Enchanted Valley and this one presented by Disney, faced each other on the same weekend in November 1988. Although the success was due to the film signed by Don Bluth, the misadventures of the stray dogs that wander for New York they ended up imposing themselves over time. It is one of the most remembered films of the decade whose story mixes comedy with certain doses of drama. Not surprisingly, this is a free version of the famous novel Oliver Twist by Mark Twain.

Who cheated on roger rabbit? (1988)

What to say about one of the masterpieces of Robert Zemeckis. Although this is a live action movie, it is the first where cartoons are incorporated into the scene with moving shots. Until then, it was only possible with fixed frames, but the work of the director of Back to the Future made us believe that the cartoons really had life. Bob Hoskins and Christopher Lloyd got Who Framed Roger Rabbit? be an absolute classic as relevant today as the first day it hit theaters.

The Little Mermaid (1989)

We reached the tipping point where Disney managed to hit the right key . Thanks to a superb score by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, Mickey Mouse’s empire resurfaced, stringing together a series of virtually unprecedented box office successes. The adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s tale is considered the moment in which the multinational company that now owns the rights to Star Wars and Marvel took flight to become the giant it is today. Although it was released in the US in 1989, it did not arrive in our country until a year later, in 1990.

My Neighbor Totoro (1989)

The story of the two sisters (Satsuke and Mei) who go to live in the countryside and meet some strange elves is surely one of the masterpieces of Studio Ghibli. Not in vain has it been considered by Empire UK magazine as one of the 100 best films in the entire history of cinema (ranked 41). Once again we have Hayao Miyazaki at the helm of the direction of a true masterpiece that must be seen if at the time (or throughout these 33 years) you could not enjoy it.

All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989)

If the decade began with The Secret of NIMH , the only way to end it properly was with Don Bluth’s fourth animated film at the helm. With Los Perros van al cielo , the North American closes his particular circle of animal adventures and, of the four that he premiered in the 80s, it is surely the one that achieved the worst public and critical results. However, its passage through the VHS format raised it to the top of the best-selling movie lists . Its plot, which mixes the adventures of several dogs around the city to the rhythm of jazz, is one of the most remembered by young people of the 90s. A true classic.