Sherilyn Connelly

The original story was called "The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter," but Takahata's title puts the focus where it belongs.

The picture is beautifully rendered in pencils and watercolors, with some CG, giving it an appropriately timeless storybook look, even though it's set in a mostly modern world of buses and 3-D glasses.

An all-too-rare example of steampunk done right — which also acknowledges that, however pretty such industrial imagery might seem from afar, actually living in such a world would be kind of horrible.

Though never sentimental, the picture is hopeful about breaking the cycle of violence.

Many independent animated films in recent years have adopted a hand-drawn and/or collage-heavy aesthetic, but few are quite as heartfelt and charming as Ann Marie Fleming’s Window Horses: The Poetic Persian Epiphany of Rosie Ming.

Twinsters is a heartwarming true story that might not have happened without social media, so score one for modern technology.

Ignacio Ferreras's traditionally animated Wrinkles is a beautiful, subtle horror movie about the rigors of old age, made all the more horrifying because it will happen to all of us fortunate enough to live a long life.

Makoto Shinkai's lush mindbender Your Name has many elements that are familiar on their own but here combine to create something unique.

In the end, Right Now, Wrong Then is a two-piece puzzle that's less than the sum of its parts.

Novice actor Hwietat is terrific in the lead role, and even if we go in knowing the historical backstory, we still discover it all from his point of view — and never stop wondering how the wolf will survive.

Tension between the city and the country has been a fertile topic for as long as there've been cities, and Alê Abreu's phantasmagoric The Boy and the World explores the eternal conflict in a familiar yet wholly original way.

Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return fails to make us care about the characters or their journeys, and the animation is shoddy and occasionally creepy.

It has some interesting visuals, but A Silent Voice demands investment in the redemption of someone who’s impossible to root for.

It’s notable that since her hair is cut short and she’s wearing male clothes, none of the men suspect that she’s not a boy despite her chosen male name being only slightly less conspicuous than “McLovin.” Being evil is not the same thing as being intelligent or observant.

Birdboy: The Forgotten Children is its own unique, damaged creature.

Keiichi Hara's episodic anime Miss Hokusai is a lovely biopic, even if it never quite picks up and focuses on a single thread. (Then again, neither does life.)

Greenwood brings his usual A-game, generating great chemistry with Purnell in their ad hoc paternal relationship, but she's the revelation.

Charles Hood's Night Owls is a mostly satisfying two-hander that never quite lives up to its full potential.

As compelling as an individual thread or scene might be, the picture as a whole lacks forward momentum, as is often the case with films with asynchronous timelines.

Postman Pat: The Movie is one of the best family films to come down the pike this year.

At its most beautiful, Yonebayashi's picture is about the magic of female friendship at its purest.

Sinking Into the Sea is fun, but an hour of just Rudolph and Watts in the recording studio would be no less buoyant.

Like much of the anime that influences its source series, the picture is continuity-heavy and not particularly accessible to newcomers, but for the faithful, Rainbow Rocks does, in fact, rock.

While it has its moments, Miguel Arteta's comedy relies too much on gender-shaming and emasculation jokes.

That the most vicious homophobes are often closet cases is not news, but Dolan seems less concerned with that self-evident fact and more about creating a mood of unease.

To Be Takei is never less than joyful — much like the man himself.

Jean-Loup Felicioli and Alain Gagnol's superhero story Phantom Boy is no April and the Extraordinary World — but still fine for what it is.

Ultimately, Advanced Style presents these women not as objects of curiosity, but as what they truly are: role models.