I love animation. So much so that I studied it for four years at university and came out with an honours degree on the subject. So you can imagine how disheartening it is the fact that the majority of westerners (generally, at least) think the following:

“Cartoons are for children”

This basically causes a catch-22 effect; Western audiences think it because the animated shows and movies they see advertised are targeted exclusively to children and families for the most part. This leads to studios becoming reluctant to make animated movies for anyone other than children and families because they don’t think they’ll find a large audience – and to be honest, likely wouldn’t – due to the aforementioned audience perspective. My own brother even asks me every so often “Are you still watching cartoons?”.

The world of animation just generally isn't on the radar of most westerners outside of Disney.

As an aside, I do acknowledge we've had quite a few adult animated tv shows show up in recent years, but considering most of them are witty short-form comedies with the same target audience; those are still sitting in their own little niche. Plus, Letterboxd is for movies.

As far as I'm concerned, animation is imagination and creativity in its purest form. With animation, you could create literally ANY type of film or story, and I look forward to the day we break the cycle on that perspective.

In the meantime, here are some examples of animated movies that treat the form more than something just targeted at children and families. Or, at least they do as far as I can tell... I haven’t seen them all yet! But I'm working my way through them. Possibly with the exception of Urotsukidoji because I’d like to walk away from this with my sanity and dignity intact thank you very much.

PS – Feel free to send me suggestions or recommendations.
____________________________________________
BONUS INFO BASED ON COMMENTS AND THIS LIST CATCHING FIRE:

► Please note that this list is very much vibe-based and from my own perspective. It's is not an exact science, and while they don't always have to be, I do lean towards films that are more off the beaten path, or lean into artistry and experimentation a bit more. You might argue that WALL-E or The Lion King might be more suited to this list than Song of the Sea for example, but in my vibe-check they wouldn't. Disney and Pixar won't show up much on here, as much as I love their movies.

► I don't want to dillute the list with too much of one thing, and this is why I haven't added *checks notes* almost every single anime movie ever made. If this was a list of all adult-oriented animated movies it would be 98% anime and I don't want that. I have plenty anime on here, but defintiely going for a balance - anime is it's own thing entirely.

► Quite a few of these films are perfectly fine to be watched by children, of course, but I don't think any of them are explicitly targeted at children.

► I've also had a few comments - including, weirdly, one extremely hateful one which I deleted - along the lines of "this list is bullshit, no one thinks animation is for children anymore, get a grip". And to that I can only say I very much disagree. I see the perspective every day in the mainstream. And consider this; when was the last time you sat down in the cinema to watch a film and saw a trailer for an animated movie that wasn't child friendly? The mainstream perspective is very much still there and the medium still gets discredited and overlooked.