Film-Forward

Animated

The Boy and the Heron | TIFF 2023

Without a doubt, the 82-year-old Hayao Miyazaki pulls out all stops visually in perhaps his most beautiful movie.

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

An animated adaptation of six Haruki Murakami short stories, featuring ghostly figures, anthropomorphic animals, and natural disasters.

Suzume

Suzume, like many characters in children’s stories, is an orphan who one day discovers that there is much more to the world than she ever imagined.

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio

A classic story told with a fresh coat of paint, and a passion project that pays off in full.

Eternal Spring

First, and most simply, this documentary retells the 2002 hijacking of state-owned TV channels in Changchun, China, through animation.

Inu-oh

This animated film transports viewers to a time when music was of paramount importance to storytelling.

The Deer King

A grand sweeping epic fantasy with beautiful animation and many moving parts and levels of intrigue.

Marcel the Shell with Shoes on

With one large gaping eye and two feet wearing the titular pink shoes, Marcel is a stop-motion animation/live-action hybrid that could have been dreamed up by a feverish René Magritte.

Charlotte

The strengths of this animated biopic are its visuals and Keira Knightley’s performance.