30 Animated Movies That Are Not for Children

30. Cheatin' (2013)

Animator extraordinaire Bill Plympton helmed Cheatin’ pretty much by himself, handling directing, writing, production and animation duties (only bringing on additional help to handle the digital colourisation and compositing of his work), and delivering what can easily be considered one of the most original animations this century.

We follow Elle, a voluptuous woman who seems unable to escape the attention of drooling, slavering, simian men, until she finds Jake, a drooling, slavering, simian man whose attention and affections she can not only stand but returns in full. What follows is a bawdy love affair constantly challenged by the advances of other women, which takes an unexpected dip into science fiction with body swaps and electrical reanimations.

The sketch drawing style contains an innovative plasticity that constantly plays with proportion and perspective, forcing us to pay attention and creating the space for beautiful and comedic compositions in equal measure; think Looney Tunes meets Charles Demuth. And no opportunity is wasted to sculpt an indelible image.

The sexual politics of the film may be a bit shaky at times, as most of the women in this film only want to get cracked open by the Neanderthalic male protagonist. However, the brilliance of Cheatin’ is that it manages everything without a line of dialogue, conveying all narrative detail visually - the sound design of the animated world, the score, and the squeaks and grunts of Plympton’s characters filling the space where dialogue might otherwise go.