'The Lego Movie' Shoots Its Way into The Top 5 Animated Movies of All Time

In light of The Lego Movie’s success, we’ve taken a look at some of the best computer-animated films out there. Based on Rotten Tomatoes ratings, combined with Metacritic ratings (the most accurate way we could think to rank them) the latest Lego romp finds itself in some pretty prestigious company indeed…

To be clear: films included in this top 5 are computer animated, rather than the complicated, classic style of animation employed in films like Pinocchio from 1940. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of animation cells and Zerox, but we’re going for a modern slant with this list. So without any further ado, let’s see where The Lego Movie fits in with its contemporaries.

Toy Story 1,2 & 3: 95.1/100

Of course, Toy Story is a prominent member of this particular club, but considering this is a top five, we couldn’t let three slots be dominated by the same franchise. So Toy Story counts as one entry. Ratings for Pixar’s most famous project on Rotten Tomatoes are 100%, 100% and 99% for 1, 2 and 3 respectively.

Over on Metacritic, the films got 92, 88 and 92 in the same order. With some pretty impressive maths, that works out as an overall rating of 95.1/100. And if you're annoyed about us combining all three films, then you can shut up. Anyway, it's not like it dropped a because as a result...

The memorable folks of Toy Story

Finding Nemo: 95/100

Beaten by the entire Toy Story series by 0.1 (it was close, huh) is Finding Nemo, the memorable tale of a Pacific Salet Water Clownfish’s Marlin embarks on an epic journey, accompanied by forgetful fish Dory, who is getting her own movie soon with Ellen DeGeneres set to reprise the role.

The New York Times called it the "latest flood of wizardry from Pixar" at the time. Does gushing count as a water-based pun?

Damn: ruined it.

Fishy fun in Finding Nemo

Up: 93.5/100

Up is probably the first (modern) animated film to make every adult that watches it, cry. Every time they watch it. It’s ridiculous. 78-year-old Carl sets out to fulfill his lifelong dream to see the wilds of South America, and does so by tying thousands of balloons to his home. Russell, an intrepid, inquisitive and extremely naïve – yet loyal - adventurer, inadvertently becomes a stowaway.

But when they reach their destination, Carl and Russell find both end of the spectrum have been heightened. Not only is their new environment beautiful, but the predators than inhabit it are more ferocious then they could ever have imagined.

The weird and wonderful world of Up

The Incredibles: 93.5/100

A family of superheroes, each with their own unique superpower, are forced to forgo their suburban city lives (as part of the Superhero Protection Program) and save the world, which is threatened by Syndrome, a jilted former fan of Mr. Incredible. What’s not to like? The Incredibles boasted a great cast (Samuel L. Jackson, Jason Lee, etc.,) and built upon the superhero genre with great effect.

And to this day, Jackson is still quizzing Pixar about doing a sequel. "I keep asking the guys at Pixar why we didn't make The Incredibles 2," the actor said. "Personally I think they raised the bar so high that they are worried about making one that's not as good as the first one. But that happens too - you don't live up to the expectations of the first one."

This film needs a sequel. Keep asking Sam.

Family matters in The Incredibles

Lego Movie: 90.5/100

At the top of this list is Toy Story, the first of which came out in 1995 – which is nearly 20 years ago. That’s mental. So have some sympathy for The Lego Movie, which manages to squeeze into the top 5. Plenty of ideas have been explored within the genre over the past 20 years, so the fact that Phil Lord and Christopher Miller managed to keep things fresh in 2014 is a pretty big achievement. And with more reviews yet to be filed, The Lego Movie could even rise further up this list.

The building blocks of animation in The Lego Movie