The 13 Best Live

Former pro wrestler John Cena is a big guy. He should not be a natural scene partner for a tiny yellow cartoon bird with an adorable speech impediment. And yet, in Coyote vs. Acme, the two trade lines and it feels like the most natural thing you’ll see at the movies this year. While the Oscars keeps animation in its own, separate category, there are movies, like Coyote vs. Acme, that gleefully blur the lines. Combining cartooning with live-action cinematography in the same frame takes technical wizardry, but the effort typically pays off. Some films utilize the contrast between the two mediums to highlight the wonder of a reality that’s more vibrant than the one we’re used to. Others take the opposite approach, pretending cartoon characters are just another actor for a metatextual disconnect. In either case, it’s hard not to get drawn in.

After finally catching the once-shelved Coyote vs. Acme on the big screen, you may find yourself itching to watch more of these live-action/animation hybrid movies. Now, technically, any movie that has stop-motion or CGI (so, every modern blockbuster) could qualify, since those are animation styles. In most of those movies, though, the animation is trying to pass for reality. In movies like Coyote vs. Acme, the difference between a cartoon Bugs Bunny and flesh-and-blood Will Forte is kind of the point. With this definition in mind, we’ve rounded up a dozen examples across more than a century of cinema history that illustrate how wonderful it is when reality and illustrations meet on the big screen. There are fewer live-action/animation movies than you might expect, but still enough that recommending everysingle one would be enough to drive somebody loony. We wouldn’t want that, would we?

This short film, created by Little Nemo cartoonist Winsor McCay, is one of the very best dinosaur movies, a groundbreaking work of animation and one of the first examples of incorporating the medium into live-action. In its original form, McCay was on a vaudeville stage while the film played behind him, and he tried to get Gertie, a sassy brontosaurus, to follow his commands to perform tricks rather than bother other prehistoric creatures. When it became a film, a live-action prologue set up the premise. Gertie the Dinosaur technically doesn’t blend live-action and animation as later films would — the two mediums are never onscreen at the same time — but the intention is there. Gertie had so much charm and personality that it was obvious that the mixing of mediums could be much more than just a parlor trick. ➽ Streamingfor free on YouTube

Animation and live-action didn’t truly interact until Max Fleischer invented the Rotoscope, a device that allowed animators to trace and draw over footage. Over the course of more than 100 Out of the Inkwell shorts (renamed Inkwell Imps halfway through the run), Koko the Clown would spring from the page and into real life, evading his illustrator’s hand, battling a fly, or even towering over cityscapes. While a lot of the shorts are fully animated, the parts where this cartoon interacts with the real world were the most exciting then and are still a delight now.

Also worth checking out are the Alice Comedies, a series of 56 shorts Walt Disney made in the 1920s that are essentially the inverse of Out of the Inkwell. Child actors who played Alice appeared in an animated environment, whereas Koko the Clown intruded on the real world. ➽ Streamingfor free on YouTube

No cartoons have played with live-action better than Looney Tunes, and it all started with this 1940 classic. You Ought to Be in Pictures treated cartoon characters, in this case Porky Pig and Daffy Duck, as just other actors who worked and lived in the Hollywood studio system. Animated stars! They’re just like us! You Ought to Be in Pictures doesn’t make too much hay over the fact that Porky is an animated pig. He’s just an actor trying to get out of his contract with studio boss Leon Schlesinger (playing himself) so that he can make a go at a career in features alongside Bette Davis. The mundane way the short treats its animated characters, contrasted with their appearance and their cartoony physiques, is a hoot. ➽ Streaming<a href="https://tubitv.com/tv-shows/200230648/s11-e12-the-egg-collector-sniffles-takes-a-trip-you-ought-to-be-in-pictures” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank”>for free on Tubi

Although this Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly musical only has one sequence with animation, it’s one of the most beloved and still dazzling examples of the form. While telling a story to some kids about how he got a medal, Kelly’s character spins a yarn about a mean king who outlawed singing and dancing, with Jerry of Tom & Jerry guest starring as the monarch. It’s only when Kelly teaches him how to dance that the king changes his decree. Kelly, a supremely talented showman and dancer, already possesses the ability to move his body in ways that seem impossible to most of the audience. He has such dynamism that he’s almost a cartoon himself, too rhythmic and too charming to be real. Pairing Kelly with an actual cartoon character makes what he can do seem even more fantastical. ➽ Streamingfor free on Tubi

Practically perfect in every way, Mary Poppins (Julie Andrews) represents joy and fun in a frequently dreary world. So while her flying umbrella and magical bag are astounding, it makes sense that she — with the help of an absurdly cartoonish Cockney-accented Dick Van Dyke — can leave the mundane real world behind and transport her wards to an animated wonderland when they leap into Bert’s street paintings. The whole movie has plenty of flair, but the animated sequences just feel magical, and Mary Poppins smartly uses them to deliver a warmth and fantasy live-action cannot. ➽ Streaming onDisney+.

No movie has done live-action and animation together better than Who Framed Roger Rabbit,which builds on the idea of “cartoons as actors” that You Ought to Be in Pictures helped invent almost 50 years earlier and drops them into a compelling neo-noir. Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which was directed by Robert Zemeckis with animation overseen by Richard Williams,takes every aspect of itself, even the zany silliness of cartoons, completely seriously, while never losing sight of the fun. (Coyote vs. Acme does the same with the legal drama, so Roger Rabbit comparisons are natural and high praise.)

The quality of the animation is unparalleled, as is the care that went into creating its alternate version of 1940s Hollywood. A plethora of famous cartoons, from different studios, cameo, and it doesn’t feel gratuitous; each familiar face is a natural bit of world-building. (Bugs and Mickey even share the screen.) And the movie is an excellent reminder that the toons are only half of the equation. Without Bob Hoskins, who plays grizzled PI Eddie Valiant absolutely straight, this would be a far lesser film. ➽ Streaming onDisney+

You have to admire legendary animator Ralph Bakshi’s gusto, which makes Cool World a fascinating, worthwhile watch. It’s just unfortunate that it’s not good. The movie boasts entirely original characters, Lovecraftian vibes, a young Brad Pitt, and explicit horniness. It is too horny: The central conflict comes from a perpetually gyrating “doodle” who tries to sleep with a human man and, by doing so, unwittingly ushers in an eldritch apocalypse. This sounds interesting, but in practice, it’s a crude mess, somehow both incomprehensible and kind of boring. However! Cool World is not a failure because it tried to do something original rather than something recognizable; it is a noblefailure because everything else about it is insane. ➽ Streamingfor free on YouTube

For ’90s kids, Space Jam is perhaps the live-action and cartoon hybrid movie, which is perhaps a shame because the mashing of the mediums is hardly the most interesting combination of totally disparate things in the film. Space Jam is essentially a sequel to two Super Bowl commercials for Nike, and it throws NBA stars, Looney Tunes, sneakers, hip-hop culture, aliens, and Bill Murray together. Bugs Bunny being in the real world is frankly not as baffling as Michael Jordan’s detour into minor-league baseball. With everything Space Jam has going on, it feels like one of the first movies to treat animation as simply another piece of IP that can be thrown into the pot rather than something special on its own. That said, compared to the dreadful Space Jam: A New Legacy, the ’90s movie is downright reverent. ➽ Streamingfor free on YouTube

Typically, stop-motion animation’s main job was to look realin otherwise live-action movies. King Kong was supposed to be a real giant gorilla, not a cartoon one. Elf, however, deliberately taps into a cartoonish side of stop-motion by emulating the look of Rankin/Bass Christmas Specials.When Will Ferrell’s Buddy is at the North Pole, he gets sage advice from a stop-motion snowman and says farewell to cute woodland critters. It’s a very clever way to quickly and sweetly characterize the magic of the North Pole, contrasting it with the relative mundanity of the Big Apple as Buddy begins his holly-jolly fish-out-of-water journey. ➽ Streaming on VOD

Looney Tunes: Back in Actionis a much better and more competent film than Space Jam, which might actually be why the commercial turned feature overshadows it so much. After they both get fired by Warner Bros., Daffy Duck and Brendan Fraser go on a road trip to save the day from the Acme Corporation, and the resulting spy-spoof adventure almost feels like a feature-length Looney Tune episode that just happens to be partially live-action. The mash-up of styles is so natural that it almost works too well, making Back in Action simply charming compared to Space Jam’s unholy conglomeration of, like, a dozen things that shouldn’t (and don’t really) work together. Still, it works, and Coyote vs. Acmeis very much more in the vein of Back in Action than Space Jam. ➽ Streaming on VOD

Though this list is about big-screen animation and live-action crossovers, we’d be remiss not to acknowledge that the small screen combines the two a lot. Shows like Blues Clues, Space Ghost Coast to Coast, and Lizzie McGuireregularly mixed the mediums, while others like South Park, Family Guy, and SpongeBob SquarePants would occasionally toss in live-action elements as a goof. In a way, the episodic nature of TV makes it easier to do random live-action gags as one-offs rather than committing to the medium-blending in a feature. The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie serves as a theatrical nod to the TV crossovers. Sure, the live-action when SpongeBob and Patrick leave the ocean signifies how different the land is from Bikini Bottom, but really it’s an excuse to have a climactic battle on David Hasselhoff’s back. ➽ Streaming onParamount+andPluto TV

Animation is a medium, not a genre (and certainly not one that’s just “for kids”), but Enchanted takes advantage of how ubiquitous classic Walt Disney Animation princess movies are. The way Enchanted contrasts the fairy-tale kingdom Amy Adams’s Giselle hails from with the real world once she arrives in New York City actually goes further than the other movies of the aughts that poked fun at Disney’s happily-ever-after shtick. (See Shrek.) By using two mediums to highlight the warm absurdity of the fairy-tale tropes, Enchantedcheekily celebrates what only animation can do. ➽ Streaming onDisney+

If Who Framed Roger Rabbitwas a 1980s take on Hollywood’s golden age, Chip ’n Dale: Rescue Rangers is a 2020s take on 2020s Hollywood — a world full of fandoms, unnecessary reboots, and disastrous CGI. Unlike the previous year’s Space Jam: A New Legacy, which framed the Looney Tunes transformation from traditional animation to realistic (?) CGI as an unabashed upgrade, Rescue Rangersthoughtfully pokes fun at the idea, as Dale’s “CGI surgery” is presented as a vain effort to stay relevant. Notably, the movie attempts to reclaim CGI as animation, since characters like Seth Rogen’s dead-eyed fantasy dwarf and the shocking Ugly Sonic cameo are portrayed as cartoon actors the same way the hand-drawn ones are. Rescue Rangers is a hair too in on its own joke to be the masterpiece Roger Rabbit is, but modern culture (and modern animation) are also too in on their own joke, making it a perfect fit for the times.

Besides, that’s part of the appeal of this type of movie. When animation and live-action meet, self-reflexively drawing attention to the form is only natural. Occasionally, this medium mixing tips into gimmick territory. More often, though, whether you’re watching real people instruct a cheeky brontosaurus to do tricks or make a legal motion on behalf of an injury-prone coyote, it’s magical. ➽ Streaming onDisney+

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Some honorable mentions that didn’t make the list for whatever reason: Monkeybone, Mad God, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, The Incredible Mr. Limpet, Tom & Jerry, The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, WALL-E, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Pixels, Once Upon a Studio,andWander to Wonder. Also, Space Jam: A New Legacy isn’t on the list, but that’s because it sucks.A note about one deliberate omission: Disney’s 1946 movie Song of the South. It speaks to how charming the mixing of mediums is that it still feels a little magical to watch James Baskett stroll through an animated landscape, admiring flowers and smiling at bluebirds while singing “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah.” In reality, the use of animation to depict this imagined halcyon South is racist and downright sinister.The first-ever example was a two-minute short from 1900 titled The Enchanted Drawing, though the animation is so rudimentary that it’s more akin to an editing trick.

The 13 Best Live-Action Animation Hybrid Movies