25 Greatest Warner Bros Movies Ever

25. The Iron Giant

If the best indicator of great, complete animations is universal appeal and emotional heft, The Iron Giant deserves to be considered up there with the best that Disney, Pixar and Studio Ghibli ever managed.

It's your typical coming of age story: boy meets big alien robot, boy befriends big alien robot, the government gets wind and tries to kill the big alien robot... It's classic stuff. And the film's success comes down to Brad Bird's knack for story-telling, for gut-punching emotional impact and for hugely charming characters.

He took Ted Hughes' poem, stripped away the original idea of Pete Townsend to do it as a musical and kept a tight story with a very simple, very compelling central message. The animation is lovely (particularly on the robot), and Vin Diesel proved years before Groot that there's an intangible depth of emotion to his gravelly tones that's just right for heart-breaking monsters.