30 Animated Movies That Are Not for Children

Written, directed, animated, and narrated by Don Hertzfeldt, It’s Such A Beautiful Day is a unique and singular work even among adult animations.

It is a film of three chapters, in which protagonist Bill suffers from a degenerative illness and moseys his way through life and its many situations in a surreal world. The hand-drawn stick figure animation is framed by circular “spotlights” that focus and divide the subjects and scenes, and is intercut with colours, life images, and effects that give it an unusual texture and depth, as Bill faces the death of his loved ones and the breakdown of his body and mind, and tries to get his life in order.

The story is told through voiceover, much in the way a children’s story is brought to life, yet the subject matter is anything but. Far from a depressing shuffle around its themes, though, Beautiful Day treats death and existence with offbeat humour and irreverence, squeezing every drop out of its seemingly simple yet deceptively complex form of animation and storytelling. It is such an unusual work that it’s difficult both to describe and to quantify succinctly, and so it really is just better to go see it for yourself.