8. Rango (2011)
The second team-up between Johnny Depp and Gore Verbinski on this list, the fact that Rango is the first non-Pixar film to win the Best Animated Feature Oscar since 2006 should give an indication of its quality. Set against painterly backdrops, but with an offbeat humour that doesn't come from anywhere in this universe, Rango is the film that would probably happen if John Lasseter and the Pixar brain-trust took a meeting whilst tripping absolute balls. See, Rango is about a lizard who wants to be an actor that finds himself in an existential crisis when he gets lost in the desert, searching for the meaning of life but instead finding an old dusty town modelled on every Western ever, only populated by talking owls and rodents that ride wild boars like horses. Then the lizard becomes sheriff. With unapologetic allusions to all the Western tropes ever conceived, and with references to films like Chinatown and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Rango is an affectionate tribute to the Western, and to the American desert, a beautifully-realised piece of animation as well as a frequently hilarious comedy.