Stop-motion animation is one of the oldest and most labor-intensive animation styles. There aren’t many studios that are crazy enough to do this kind of work. It’s my favorite style as it’s truly three-dimensional art coming to life. You can see the brains and hands that put all of this in motion as it dances around in front of you. With modern technology aiding in the design of sets and puppets and expanded possibilities of scene complexity, it’s stunning what can be accomplished. Over the holiday I’ve had the time to dive into three great works.

Wendell and Wild– This is the latest show from legendary animation director Henry Selick. Based on a book by Clay McLeod Chapman, Wendell and Wild are two demons who convince 13-year-old Kat to summon them to the land of the living. The pair is stuck managing a more powerful demon’s balding head and they have much greater ambitions with the living. Kat feels responsible for her parents’ death and that makes her an easy mark to agree to the pact. Thankfully Kat has some good people looking after her and they help her manage her own crisis as well as her rotting hometown.

This show falls firmly into Selick’s wheelhouse as you can see many of his other shows (Coraline being the biggest one) peaking through here. Great visuals and animation that looks very clean. The story feels pretty rote and doesn’t do much that’s new. It’s still a good story but of these three movies, this is my least favorite.

Missing Link– Mr. Link is a sasquatch who finds Sir Lionel Frost, a great explorer, to help him find his long-lost family. Frost quickly agrees to help Link in the hopes that this will make him the envy of all of his peers. A rather selfish and egomaniacal man, Frost comes to learn a few life lessons in this globe-trotting adventure. The duo doesn’t travel alone after a wild run-in with compatriot adventurer Adelina Fortnight.

This is largely a buddy/fish out of water story and it works really well. Link, Frost, and Fortnight are different personalities who work as great foils to each other. It reminded me a bit of Indiana Jones and the Mummy movies (the ones with Brendan Fraser) but with one main cast member being a different species. The voice acting is great and it’s really funny.

This is a Laika Studios production who are responsible for some of my all-time favorite stop motion pictures, Paranorman and Kubo and the Two Strings. Stunning animation. The backgrounds are so rich and colorful that it makes you want to step through the screen. I had this on my list for a while, I regret not watching it sooner.

Pinocchio– Officially titled Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, this show is simply stunning. It’s a del Toro production done with animation. They went as far as lighting the sets to look like his live-action movies. There are a handful of monsters and they look like they came from The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth (in fact, you can run these movies in a row for a theme night). Just unending artistic beauty from top to bottom in every frame. The thing that really struck me is that the characters (puppets, actually) don’t look like they were made for a movie. It’s like they were living their lives and some camera guys with microphones showed up in this small town in Italy after the World War ended and decided to follow them around. Perfect voice casting as well.

Oh yeah, the story. Most people know the Disney version of this show and many of the big beats from the source material are used here, like Pinocchio getting manipulated into joining the circus and the whale swallowing Cricket and Geppetto. This is a rather deep dive into what it means to live a life. Why we do the things we do and how we treat ourselves and each other. This isn’t for young children. It’s pretty complex, it has a lot of scary imagery and it’s two hours long. I’d say ten, maybe twelve-years-old and up.

The Wood Sprite brings the puppet that Geppetto made in the grief of losing his son to life in an attempt to heal his heart and take away his crushing loneliness. She puts Cricket in charge of being Pinocchio’s guiding light. Together they attempt to raise Pinocchio. Mistakes are made by Cricket, Geppetto, and Pinocchio but they do come together in this gorgeous story of love and family. This adaptation is so touching to me in ways that the Disney version never reached.

This is my favorite film of 2022.