78
votes
Accepted
Animated movie with fight scene in Big Ben
Possibly Disney's The Great Mouse Detective (1986)? The movie ends with a fight inside Big Ben in which the villain's cloak gets caught between some gears.
Also ...
74
votes
Accepted
Animated science fiction movie where a protagonist has a glowing round map on his hand
Titan A.E. fits the description, except it was released in 2000. The plot synopsis presented in the linked IMDB entry mentions a ring passed down from the protagonist's father and the search for the ...
- 945
73
votes
Accepted
Animated movie about a giant metal robot that comes to Earth and befriends a boy
The Iron Giant sounds like it fits
Set during the Cold War in 1957, the film is about a young boy named Hogarth Hughes, who discovers a giant metallic robot who fell from space. With the help of ...
- 51.4k
34
votes
Movie with flying ship and color changing hair
Are you thinking Howl's Moving Castle?
Sounds like it could be your film. Sofi is a teenage girl who is aged by a spell, and she reverts on occasion into her younger self, typically when she's with ...
- 995
32
votes
Weird 2D animated bug movie, possible lost media
Is this The Happy Cricket?
When you wrote that the bug had an instrument, I thought it had to be a cricket.
This movie was made in 2001, and I've never seen it - So I'm combing through the sparse free ...
- 2,783
30
votes
Accepted
Animated film about giants abducting/eating children, and a girl being rescued by a benevolent older giant
This is surely the BFG (The Big Friendly Giant), an animated film released in 1989 based on the children's story by Roald Dahl.
The older giant takes care of a young orphan girl named Sophie, and ...
- 61.8k
29
votes
Accepted
Animated film/TV series where fantasy sorcery was defeated by appeals to mundane science
This is the Rankin-Bass straight-to-video film The Flight of Dragons (1982). It aired as an ABC Saturday Night Movie on August 2, 1986.
I believe this image is from a videotape cover.
From the ...
- 1,296
24
votes
Accepted
Weird 2D animated bug movie, possible lost media
You might be remembering the 2001 Brazilian animated movie O Grilo Feliz. The English-language version is titled The Happy Cricket. It is mostly 2D animation with some 3D mixed in.
Wikipedia ...
- 978
22
votes
Accepted
What is the earliest usage of the “Lightspeed” animation and why is it used so heavily?
A similar and extremely famous and influential special effect is the "beyond the infinite" or "through the monolith" effect from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1969). It doesn't have any ...
- 6,995
20
votes
Accepted
Old animated Disney movie that explained math problems
I think this might be what you remember:
Donald in Mathmagic Land
Specifically, it goes into things like the Golden Ratio and pentagrams. In fact, From the description in the wiki, it seems like the ...
- 6,214
20
votes
Animated show where a slave boy tries to escape and is then told to find a robot fugitive
This sounds like episode 1 of Star Trek: Prodigy, which is a CGI animated series. It commences on a planet which is some kind of colony of enslaved laborers, the chief PoV character is a young non-...
- 20.1k
17
votes
Accepted
Animated movie where young boy is transported to another world and travels with a burly warrior and a owl like wise man
Sounds like the 1992 cartoon series Mighty Max, an action adventure cartoon starring a boy named Max that had a magical cap that let him open portals to other locations. He was accompanied by a giant ...
- 7,188
15
votes
Accepted
Animated movie with a train that visits planets?
Since you say it was a movie, I believe what you saw was Galaxy Express 999: Can You Live Like a Warrior!? (1979) which was expanded from episodes 12 and 13 of Galaxy Express 999.
The movie quickly ...
- 120k
15
votes
Accepted
Heavy Metal-ish animated picture with kidnapped princess
This is almost certainly 1983's Fire and Ice. Plot summary from Google:
This fantastical animated movie by cult filmmaker Ralph Bakshi finds the villainous Nekron and his mother, Queen Juliana, ...
- 1,157
14
votes
Accepted
Animation: floating island, flying pests
Skywhales from 1983.
The story begins with a man warning the tribe of approaching skywhales. The drummers then warn everybody of the hunt as everyone get prepared to set "sail". Except one man is ...
- 216k
14
votes
Animated movie with a train that visits planets?
I am guessing this is the anime series Galaxy Express 999, which is about a train that visits different planets (also possibly one of the anime films based on it). It is part of the continuity of ...
- 20.1k
14
votes
Accepted
Old cartoon or anime about three superheroes living in a space ship and doing jobs for a Greek god
Many elements of this sound similar to Space Sentinels (1977). Three humans have been turned into superheroes and fight threats to Earth from their spaceship hidden in a volcano. They have a robot ...
- 120k
14
votes
Accepted
Animation which involves a spherical floating robot and a little girl
According to a quick internet search, this is the background animation for the music track "Canon-D" from the arcade game Pump It Up Exceed 2
YouTube video: Canon D BGA for Pump it Up Exceed ...
- 256
13
votes
Animated movie with fight scene in Big Ben
Honorable mention for the climactic clock-tower fight in Lupin the Third: Count of Cagliostro:
- 20.1k
13
votes
Accepted
Is the demon Luci two-dimensional?
His head is, but not his body.
As can be seen in studio notes shared on Facebook, Luci’s body is able to move any direction it needs to (including going on all fours with all limbs visible, which ...
- 2,036
13
votes
Accepted
An animated film where the enemy's minions fuse with their weapons
I suspect this is Quest for Camelot
.... A decade later, Ruber's griffin attacks Camelot, stealing Excalibur. Merlin's pet falcon, Ayden, attacks the griffin, causing the sword to fall into the ...
- 216k
13
votes
Accepted
Early '90s CGI short film about insects living inside a computer
I just started searching for a VHS tape that I remember seeing as a child and I remember it containing the short you are looking for. After a lot of digging through the Mind's Eye series and spinoffs, ...
- 196
13
votes
Accepted
Strange 3D Animal Movie Set in Venice?
I'm guessing this is Pet Pals (2009).
Summary: "The Wicked Crow Witch has a terrible plan in mind: tarmacking the lagoon of Venice, thus turning it into a town like all the others. Will the six ...
- 3,203
12
votes
Accepted
Help me find sci-fi animated short film with a killer effect for FTL transition and journey
I believe the film you're looking for is the title sequence for IFCC (Independent Festival of Creative Communication) 2017. It showcases a pilot in full space suit, walking towards a ship that ...
- 376
12
votes
Accepted
90's US animated show, underwater lab is caving in, robot survives and is looking for "Joan"
I think it actually is Captain Future. Specifically an episode that translates to something like The Underwater Trap. I was able download a German version of it (it's apparently a cult classic there)...
- 1,016
12
votes
Accepted
An animated movie or series (anime?). A huge spaceship found in a desert and the whole of humanity is trying to fix it
Super Dimension Fortress Macross (1982–1983)...?
From Wikipedia:
Super Dimension Fortress Macross (Japanese: 超時空要塞マクロス, Hepburn: Chōjikū Yōsai Makurosu, lit. "Super Spacetime Fortress Macross&...
- 107k
12
votes
Animated space movie with an all-women crew who are killed except for one who has a son
You may be thinking of Gall Force: Eternal Story (1986). It's the first film in a series.
From TV Tropes:
Gall Force is a group of science fiction anime OAV series made starting in 1986 by the studio ...
- 107k
12
votes
Accepted
A video poem/story about a stranded astronaut digesting himself
This describes a comic, The Suit by Scott Base, exactly.
And finally my eyes. So I never know if we make it home.
There are several animated versions on YouTube; this one appears to be from the ...
- 1,525
11
votes
Accepted
Animated film about a society's offering for gods
This is Kaena: The Prophecy.
The film begins with an alien ship crash landing on a desert planet. The alien survivors, known as Vecarians, are quickly killed by the planet's predatory native ...
- 6,308
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible