Wheat & Tares

The philosophies of men mingled with the philosophies of women.

Animated Movie 2023 | Fix

The influence of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) fully materialized in 2023. Movies like TMNT: Mutant Mayhem and Nimona moved away from the polished "Pixar look" and embraced 2D textures, sketch lines, and non-photorealistic rendering. Animation is finally embracing style over realism.

While American studios pushed stylistic boundaries, 2023 also marked a powerful resurgence for Japanese animation on the global stage. —the legendary director’s first film in a decade—won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. Unlike conventional narratives, the film operates as a dreamlike, semi-autobiographical meditation on grief, legacy, and the choice between retreating into a fantasy world or embracing a flawed reality. Its hand-drawn artistry, in an era dominated by CGI, served as a reminder of animation’s roots in painterly labor. Meanwhile, Makoto Shinkai’s Suzume became the fourth-highest-grossing anime film worldwide, using the director’s trademark hyperrealistic skies and rain-slicked streets to explore trauma following the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake. Both films demonstrated that anime’s cultural influence is no longer niche; it is a central pillar of global animation. animated movie 2023