10 Animated Films You May Not Have Seen (But Should)

Waltz With Bashir is an Israeli animated film, which differs significantly from the other films on this list in that it is presented as a documentary rather than a traditional feature film. The movie depicts director Ari Folman's search for the lost memories he experienced as a soldier during the 1982 Lebanon War.

In many ways, the film is a war documentary, but it also tells a compelling story in a completely non-traditional way. The animation is realistic and graphical, which helps to illustrate the story in a way that makes it look more like a comic book graphic novel than an animated film.

The animation features dark contrasts, and looks similar to rotoscoping, but was done in an entirely new way. The animation was done via Adobe Flash cutouts coupled with classic cel animation. The process used 2,300 original drawings, and sliced each one into hundreds of segments, which were them moved in relation to one another, creating an illusion of movement.

Putting aside the incredible animation technique pioneered for the film, the story describes the horrors of the conflict, post-traumatic stress, and the guilt of carrying out a horrific act. The film concludes by dissolving the animation into live-action footage of the aftermath of the Sabra and Shatila Massacre.