The Triplets of Belleville

Rated 5.0 While last year’s Spirited Away won the Best Animated Film Oscar, this French masterpiece outdoes it on every level. While this year’s Finding Nemo is a true delight, this one stands as the year’s best animated film. Inventive, funny, engrossing and just plain weird, Triplets of Belleville qualifies as one of the year’s more unique films. It tells the story of a granny, her morose grandson and three former singing stars banding together to defeat a slave driver. If that sounds strange, it is, and it’s bloody brilliant. Done with old-school animation, and featuring little to no dialogue, it is the sort of movie experience that leaves you feeling exhilarated and in awe. There has never been a film remotely like it.