Aardman (or Aardman Animation) was founded byPeter LordandDavid Sproxtonin 1972. They had wanted to direct an animated feature, but instead wound up working on shorter form content for the BBC and on several music videos (most notablyPeter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer”). By the late 1980s they had broken through to the mainstream with “Creature Comforts,” a short film by star animatorNick Park. Park took “man on the street” interviews with non-professionals and turned them into animals in the zoo. It established Park as a singular talent; his sense of design and comedic timing was staggering. The short won him an Oscar in 1990.
In 1989 Park would also introduce his most famous characters – absent-minded inventor Wallace (voiced byPeter Sallis) and his dog Gromit. That initial short, “A Grand Day Out,” is a little rough around the edges but very clearly brilliant; it too was nominated for an Oscar, the same year that “Creature Comforts” was nominated. So Park wound up losing to himself. In the years that followed, he would take the characters elsewhere, with the Hitchcockian “The Wrong Trousers” (another Oscar winner and a favorite ofGore Verbinksi, whose climactic train chase inThe Lone Rangerwas modeled after the one at the end of the short) and theTermintor-ish “A Close Shave” (another Oscar winner).
After “A Close Shave,” Aardman entered into an uneasy alliance with DreamWorks Animation. They had been courted by other American studios (including Disney) but chose to go withJeffrey Katzenberg, the brash executive who had turned Disney Animation around in the late 1980s. After their first big hitChicken Run, the relationship began to sour. Reportedly Katzenberg was unhappy with how British the Aardman productions were, and the two companies ended up splitting prematurely. And it began the company on a somewhat rocky path through Hollywood – in the years since the DreamWorks split they have worked with Sony, Lionsgate and now Netflix, who rescued the secondShaun the Sheepmovie from the crumbling Lionsgate deal.
Aardman was never going to make movies that appealed to the most people possible. Their movies are tiny, handcrafted jewels, full of character, detail and personality. They shimmer and sparkle depending on how you look at them (and for how long). And each one should be treasured as such. It’s with this sense of celebration that we look back at Aardman’s feature output – to the movies that worked brilliantly and the ones that didn’t quite stick the landing. Behold, every Aardman Animation movie ranked thus far.
8. The Pirates! Band of Misfits (2012)
It’s unclear what, exactly, went wrong here.The Pirates! Band of Misfits(titledThe Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!overseas), based on the beloved series of children’s books byGideon Defoe(who also wrote the screenplay), has a winning voice cast that includesHugh Grant,David Tennant,Martin Freeman, andSalma Hayek, and was directed by the hugely talentedPeter Lord, who co-founded the studio. Also pirates! Everybody loves pirates! But whew boy is this a slog. The meandering plot sees our titular band of Pirates (led by Grant) kidnapping Charles Darwin (Tennant) and his pet Dodo, the last one on earth. They also want to enter a science competition and are attempting to avoid Queen Victoria (Imelda Staunton) and her anti-pirate cause. Weirder than the plot itself was that the American version of the movie, besides having some different voice actors, was clearly censored to avoid some of the ruder gags in the original British cut. (There was also backlash against a leprosy joke that was eventually changed.) While the movie was nominated for the Best Animated Feature Oscar (it ultimately lost to Pixar’sBrave), it remains utterly forgettable and the very bottom of the Aardman barrel. This one is for completists only.
7. Early Man (2018)
The most interesting thing aboutEarly Manis its development history. To explain: back when Aardman had a partnership with DreamWorks Animation (more on that in a minute), they developed an animated caveman story withJohn Cleese. When Aardman and DreamWorks went their separate ways, DreamWorks continued developing the project, which became the very popularChris Sanders/Kirk DiMiccocomputer-animated filmThe Croods(the sequelcomes out next month). Aardman, clearly still enamored with the stop-motion possibilities of Neanderthals, returned to the idea withEarly Man. They probably should have left well enough alone.Eddie Redmayneplays Dug, a caveman who is mistaken for a soccer star and brought to a Bronze Age city led by an evil tyrant (Tom Hiddlestondoing a bad French accent for some reason). Nothing inEarly Manreally works, despite it being directed byNick Park, whose “Wallace & Gromit” shorts and feature are the epitome of narrative efficiency – the other cavemen characters are never developed and mostly anonymous, the humor largely falls flat, and its aggressive English tone and references are off-putting and obnoxious. Why everyone involved thought this was a good enough idea to circle back to is beyond comprehension and the movie’s abysmal box office performance led to Aardman’s follow-up premiering direct-to-Netflix.
6. A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon (2019)
This is, basically, Aardman’sE.T.An unexpected sequel toShaun the Sheep Movie(itself a spin-off of a character from “A Close Shave”), it maintains the silent film aesthetic of the first film while widening the scope and the amount of characters, mostly via the introduction of a cute alien creature and the kind of commotion that causes. First-time feature directorsRichard PhelanandWill Becherhandle themselves gamely, especially given the complexity of the animation and visual effects, warmly bringing to life the characters and then putting them through their paces. If the movie suffers from anything, it’s just the lack of surprise. The first film was such a shock; it was an animated film whose purity and purpose weren’t diluted by weird corporate agendas or unnecessary overhauls to the basic format.A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon(that title? chefs kiss) is a perfectly wonderfulShaun the Sheepsequel, but it was also a little too much of the same. Still … we wouldn’t be mad at a third movie.
5. Flushed Away (2006)
Flushed Awayis, in many ways, a breakthrough film for Aardman. It was their first fully computer-animated film, utilizing a process that had first been implemented on theWallace and Gromitmovie, where the CGI models were rendered in a way that made them look like the studio’s stop-motion figures (complete with fingerprints from invisible animators). And it was the movie that made the studio understand just how toxic their relationship with DreamWorks and Katzenberg had become. Supposedly DreamWorks wanted to exert more control over Aardman onFlushed Away, which resulted in the movie being the final film of the DreamWorks partnership. (According to a New York Times report at the time, DreamWorks was spooked by the dismal box office performance of theWallace and Gromitmovie.) It’s a shame, too, because there is a lot to love aboutFlushed Away, from the charming aesthetic to the London underground setting to the voice cast, led byHugh Jackman, that includes Kate Winslet,Ian McKellan,Jean Reno,Andy SerkisandBill Nighy. While the story is a little scattered, it’s at times deeply funny and directorSam Fellwould go on to direct the masterfulParaNormanfor Laika before returning to Aardman for the upcomingChicken Run 2. And it’s worth wondering what would have happened had Aardman simply been left alone to make their movie, how much better it would have been.
4. Arthur Christmas (2011)
With their second fully computer-generated film, Aardman partnered with Sony Pictures Animation and adopted a sleeker, more traditional look. This time they didn’t mimic their stop-motion efforts; instead they attempted to compete with the DreamWorks and Pixar films that were on the market at the time. (The film was developed in England and animation was handled stateside, with teams from Aardman and Sony working together.) Their attempt didn’t workexactly(the film was a box office disappointment), but it was warmly received by critics and remains an unsung Christmas classic.Arthur Christmasis the story of the Claus family, led by Santa (Jim Broadbent) but featuring his two sons Steve (Hugh Laurie) and Arthur (James McAvoy) and, of course, Grandsanta (Bill Nighy). The story takes place when Arthur decided to help one overlooked child, breaking away from Santa’s high-tech operation (shades of Disney’s “Prep and Landing” Christmas specials) and going old school with his grandpa, a sleigh, and some mischievous reindeer. It’s a gripping (and ultimately very sweet) story about acceptance and tradition, with both Sony and Aardman putting in stellar work. It’s also worth noting that it is the only Aardman feature directed by a woman (Sarah Smith, who also co-wrote the screenplay), who worked alongside an American Disney vet (Barry Cook, who directedMulan). In a way their partnership is, like the rest of the movie (both the production and the narrative), about melding the old and the new, the legacy and the next generation.
3. Shaun the Sheep Movie (2015)
Shaun the Sheep began as a character in Nick Park’s “A Close Shave,” before becoming the star of a long-running television series (also created by Park) and, now, a major motion picture.Shaun the Sheep Moviemaintained the aesthetic established in the television show, keeping the action largely silent (a budget-saving measure for the small screen but a stylistic choice for the big screen) and the humor both clever and gentle. The story, concocted by writer/directorsMark BurtonandRichard Starzak, sees the mischievous barnyard animals of Mossy Bottom Farm leave the farm and head into the city, while the farmer also finds himself there under even sillier circumstances. There’s not much in the way of stakes or emotional payoff, but as a series of delightful, increasingly complex set pieces,Shaun the Sheep Movieis an absolute joy. Just because this is one of the simpler Aardman productions doesn’t it make it any less inventive or impressive. And by the end of the movie you’re taken aback that a film aimed at younger kids can be such a deeply held celebration of the pure, elemental power of animation (in this case stop-motion animation). What a triumph.
2. Chicken Run (2000)
For Aardman’s first full-length feature (and their first in a doomed partnership with DreamWorks), they wentbig. Directed by Nick Park and Aardman co-founder Peter Lord,Chicken Runtook the framework ofThe Great Escapeand applied it to a rural English chicken coop.Mel Gibson(whoops) plays the headstrong American rooster who lands in the coop and starts training the rest of the chickens to escape, all while under the nose of the suspicious dim-bulb farmers (played byMiranda RichardsonandTony Haygarth). The script, by American screenwriterKarey Kirkpatrick(based on a story developed by Lord and Park) is ridiculously clever; familiar enough that nobody gets lost but with enough surprises to verify that you’re never bored. But the true thrill of watchingChicken Runis in the visuals. The way that Lord and Park stage the action, and the way that they are able to wring a number of secondary jokes out of sight gags or visual puns, is astounding. And for a fairly esoteric project, it was a sizable hit making $225 million on a budget of $45 million and a sequel film (sans Gibson) currently in production.Chicken Runwas a true marvel and one that should have given them an amount of autonomy from DreamWorks that they rightful deserved. That never happened. But the movie is still a masterpiece.
1. Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)
The Wallace and Gromit short films always hopped between genres, from aJules Verne-ian space adventure to a Hitchcockian thriller. For their debut feature, creator Nick Park, working with directorSteve Box, chose to lampoon classic, fog-drenched horror movies from British studio Hammer. Instead of some unsightly creature, though, Wallace and Gromit would be facing down the Were-Rabbit, a hulking beast that is eating the blue ribbon-worthy vegetables in a small English hamlet.Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbitis a true masterpiece, an unparalleled technical and storytelling accomplishment that only Aardman and its team of incredibly patient wizards could have wrestled to the ground one incremental movement at a time. With the added runtime Park, Box and their collaborators were able to expand the world beyond merely Wallace the hapless inventor and his much smarter canine sidekick Gromit; we getRalph Fiennesas Lord Victor Quartermaine, a heat-seeking socialite and hunter, andHelena Bonham Carteras Lady Campanula Tottington, an heiress whose produce is being devoured (so she calls in Wallace and Gromit). Not only are there tons of sight gags, puns, and cheeky British wordplay (all of which you’d expect from an Aardman production), there are actuallythrillsandtwists. It appropriates the mood of a horror movie without making anything explicitly scary, which was perhaps one source of contention between Aardman and DreamWorks executive Jeffrey Katzenberg. (In the following, independently produced short film, people actually are killed.)
This was the film that began to fracture the relationship between Aardman and DreamWorks, with Katzenberg demanding changes and insisting that the film was too esoterically English. And while the movie wasn’t the runaway blockbuster that many expected it to be (perhaps putting too much emphasis on the popularity of the characters, especially stateside), it was rapturously received by critic and deservedly won the Best Animated Feature Oscar at the Academy Awards (Box and Park put little bowties on their statues). It’s a straight-up masterpiece.
For even more animation goodness, check outmy ranking of every Disney animated movie ever made.
