15 Animated Movies No Child Should Watch
Nowadays, we’re used to animated movies being made for many demographics, with both children and adults having their own movies to choose from. However, not everyone got the memo, and there are plenty of parents taking their kids to movies that, for all intents and purposes, weren’t meant for them.
With too much time on the internet, kids might be curious about these movies and ask their parents to show them the film. And considering some of these movies have colorful anime characters, or even cure bunnies, you could be fooled into thinking they’re fine. They’re not, and consider this list next time you show your kid a movie.
Watership Down
Despite its talking rabbits and family-friendly appearance, Watership Down contains brutal violence, death, persecution, and disturbing imagery. The film was controversial partly because audiences associated animation with children, while its actual story was considerably darker.
Grave of the Fireflies
Grave of the Fireflies follows two children struggling to survive during World War II, confronting starvation, death, and the devastating consequences of war. Its original release was even paired with My Neighbor Totoro, making the contrast particularly startling.
Perfect Blue
Perfect Blue follows an actress whose career change becomes entangled with stalking, violence, sexual exploitation, and a terrifying breakdown between reality and fantasy. Its R rating reflects material that makes it emphatically unsuitable for younger children.
Akira
Akira may look like an elaborate futuristic cartoon, but its story involves political unrest, government experimentation, body horror, violence, and apocalyptic destruction. The film’s mature subject matter and disturbing imagery put it firmly beyond typical children’s animation.
Anomalisa
Anomalisa uses stop-motion puppets to tell an intensely adult story about loneliness, alienation, relationships, and sexuality. It includes graphic sexual content, drinking, smoking, and strong language, making its seemingly harmless animation style particularly deceptive.
The Plague Dogs
The Plague Dogs follows two dogs escaping an experimental laboratory, with the story confronting animal experimentation, suffering, death, and humanity’s treatment of animals. It was explicitly conceived as adult animation rather than children’s entertainment.
Fritz the Cat
Fritz the Cat was never intended as children’s entertainment. Ralph Bakshi’s adaptation of Robert Crumb’s comics is packed with sexuality, drugs, racism, political satire, and profanity, becoming the first animated feature released in the United States with an X rating.
When the Wind Blows
When the Wind Blows follows an elderly British couple attempting to survive a nuclear attack while clinging to their ordinary routines. Its deceptively gentle presentation gives way to a devastating story about nuclear war and its aftermath.
Waltz With Bashir
Waltz With Bashir uses animation to reconstruct director Ari Folman’s memories of serving in the 1982 Lebanon War. The film deals with combat, trauma, memory, and civilian suffering, making it a serious adult war drama rather than conventional animated entertainment.
Persepolis
Persepolis adapts Marjane Satrapi’s autobiographical graphic novels about growing up during the Iranian Revolution and Iran-Iraq War. Its story tackles political repression, religion, adolescence, exile, addiction, and identity through an intentionally stark animated style.
Mary and Max
Mary and Max is a stop-motion story about an unlikely friendship between an Australian girl and an isolated New Yorker. Beneath its quirky presentation are loneliness, depression, bullying, mental illness, and suicide, making it far heavier than its visual style suggests.
Belladonna of Sadness
Belladonna of Sadness takes inspiration from European folklore but turns its material into an intensely adult psychedelic experience. Sexual violence, exploitation, witchcraft, and disturbing imagery dominate its story, leaving little doubt that this is animation intended for mature audiences.
Fantastic Planet
Fantastic Planet presents a surreal world where enormous blue aliens keep humans as pets and treat them as inferior creatures. Its unsettling imagery, political themes, violence, and depiction of humanity’s oppression make it considerably stranger than typical children’s science fiction.
Waking Life
Waking Life uses rotoscoped animation to follow a young man through a series of philosophical conversations about consciousness, dreams, existence, and mortality. Its unusual structure and abstract subject matter are aimed much more toward adults than children.
Heavy Metal
Heavy Metal is an anthology built around science fiction, fantasy, violence, sex, drugs, and dark humor, adapting material from the magazine of the same name. Its deliberately adult content makes the colorful animation particularly misleading for younger viewers.