Animated Movies for Adults

Identity, memory and the need to connect, explored through animation that can make inner lives visible. Eight films for grown-up movie nights, from intimate memoir to unsettling science fiction.

Content guidance: For mature audiences. These films include war and displacement, mental-health themes, violence, nudity and sexual content. Perfect Blue includes sexual violence and disturbing imagery. Check individual content guidance when choosing.

• Persepolis (2007)

  A sharp, personal coming-of-age memoir about keeping hold of yourself through political upheaval and life between cultures.

• Mary and Max (2009)

  An unlikely pen-pal friendship finds tenderness in loneliness and the small rituals that make connection possible. Warmth with substantial emotional weight; includes depression and suicide themes.

• Anomalisa (2015)

  Stop-motion turns an ordinary business trip into an intimate, uncomfortable study of loneliness and the desire to feel seen. Includes explicit sexual content.

• Flee (2021)

  An animated documentary where memory, displacement and the search for a safe place to belong become inseparable. Emotionally intense; includes sexual threat and brief real war footage.

• Perfect Blue (1998)

  A disorienting psychological thriller about performance, public identity and the pressure of being watched. Includes sexual violence and disturbing imagery.

• Ghost in the Shell (1995)

  A cyberpunk investigation that keeps returning to a deeply human question: what makes a self when bodies and memories can be altered? Includes violence and nudity.

• Fantastic Planet (1973)

  Surreal worlds and strange scales turn science fiction into a provocative meditation on power, otherness and coexistence. Includes violence and nudity.

• Waking Life (2001)

  A drifting, conversational dream of a film, using restless animation to explore consciousness, meaning and how we connect. Best for a reflective night.