20 Best Films Of 2021
9. The Mitchells Vs. The Machines
It's little surprise that The Mitchells vs. the Machines is one of the year's very best animated films, given that it's produced by The Lego Movie duo Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, and feels in its bones like a film spun from their creative wheelhouse.
While its concept - of a dysfunctional family struggling to co-operate in order to prevent a robot apocalypse - couldn't sound more typical for Hollywood animation, a thoughtful and hilarious script counts for a lot, as does the film's eye-meltingly beautiful animation style.
As with most of Lord and Miller's own movies, there's an energetic playfulness and self-aware tone pervading throughout, which combines with constant laugh-out-loud moments and well-earned emotion to ensure this is the year's most crowd-pleasing animation for sure.