I'm not sure if this is going to be a regular thing, but I felt like writing up a list of my all-time favorite animated movies. Why 21? It's like having 20 great movies on a list, but with one more!

#21: Robin Hood
Perhaps not the Disney film with the greatest budget, but certainly one with heart and humour to make up for it. The opening "Whistle Stop" and "Oo-de-lally" numbers remain as infectiously fun as they were when I was eight, and the laid back charm of the film is enduring.

#20: The Rescuers Down Under
Proving that the sequel can sometimes outdo the original, this film featured the return of Bernard and Bianca from the first Rescuers movie and sent them on a mission to save a young boy in Australia from the clutches of George C Scott! Along the way they're aided by a lot a seagull pilot named Wilber played by John Candy and other memorable characters. It didn't have songs but it didn't need them. The amazing eagle-flight sequence near the beginning of the film remains one of my favourite animated moments to this day.

#19: Chicken Run
There are few enough great stop-motion animation films, but I felt I had to include one on my list, and this 2000 adventure-comedy from Aardman studios, (the same creative minds behind Wallace and Grommit) centering on the escape attempts of chickens imprisoned on a poultry farm, had the most going for it in my humble opinion. With plenty of great British humour, a turn by Mel Gibson as a cocky (no pun intended) American rooster and fantastic animation, this one rules the coop.

#18: The Sword in the Stone/The Jungle Book
Okay, I'm cheating with this, but I consider them to be on the same level and I really couldn't bring myself to cut either. In a way the two films are very similar since they both belong to that regrettably small category I like to call the Disney Boy's films. One the tale of young King Arthur's childhood upbringing and interactions with the wizard Merlin, the other the story of a boy raised in the jungle who needs to be returned to his own people. Both were charming, classic movies and both deserve their spot here.

#17: Hercules
Few Disney films are as unabashedly fun as this loose retelling of the Herculean myth. And by loose retelling, I mean that it ignores pretty much every part of the myths entirely. And it works. With style, wit and more pop-culture gags then you can throw an amphora at, this one makes it for knowing how to have fun. High notes include the zesty "Zero to Hero" number, the training montage of "One Last Hope" and the reluctant ballad "I Won't say I'm in Love" as well as any scene or line delivered by Hades, probably the funniest Disney villain of the all.

#16: The Thief and the Cobbler
Whether the Miramax release, or the Uncobbled cut, this amazingly animated movie has a visual style like no other. Set in the ancient city of Baghdad, the movie tells the tale of a cobbler named Tack and the chain of events set off by a bumbling thief that lead to the loss of the magic three golden balls that protect the city. The plot is hard to describe, but involves a Princess named Yum-Yum, an evil blue-skinned Vizier named Zig-Zag, an army of One-Eyed warriors and several of the most imaginative animated sequences ever created, blending optical illusions with sight gags, and all capped off by running internal musings from the thief, voiced by a Jonathan Winters. It's different, it's strange and it's also spellbinding tale of the First Arabian Night.

#15: Aladdin
And speaking of Arabian Nights, we can't forget this Aladdin. Boasting a great assortment of songs and spectacle, Aladdin was another of the great early 90's movies produced during the second Disney renaissance. A young thief from Agrabah comes into possession of a magic lamp and the genie inside of it, and uses its powers as well as his own wits to win the heart of Princess Jasmine and defeat the evil vizier Jaffar. But what really made the movie, as we all know, was the casting of Robin Williams as the Genie. A role that inspires countless knock offs to this day, the Genie was the archetypal wise-ass, pop-culture referencing cartoon sidekick, and absolutely no one has ever pulled it off as well. In his own words, "You ain't never seen a friend like me.

#14: Treasure Planet
A neglected modern animation classic, Treasure Planet is a retelling of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, but set in a sort of retro-19th century science-fiction environment where canvass-masted spaceships fly through the very breathable reaches of space. Rebellious teenager Jim Hawkins receives a star-map from a dying alien and it leads him to Treasure Planet. On the voyage to the mysterious world he is befriended by a very cool Long John Silver (here a sort of humanoid cyborg puma-man) who teaches him about friendship and self-reliance. Another film I rank in the Disney Boy movies category for its well-executed themes and examinations of what it is to be a young man searching for meaning and maturity.

#13: The Hobbit (Rankin-Bass)
My introduction to Middle Earth was this 1977 Rankin-Bass adaptation of the Hobbit, featuring many songs adapted straight from JRR Tolkien's lyrics and starring the voices of Orson Bean as Bilbo Baggins and John Huston as Gandalf. The animation is very decent, especially for the 70's, and the characters all had interesting and often very faithful designs. The songs, (sung by Glenn Yarbrough) are often quite beautiful, and in my opinion it's a great retelling of the classic fantasy story and a great family film. (Provided that your kids or younger siblings aren't afraid of Orcs. My oldest brother and I used to hide from them behind the couch when they came out.)

#12: Monsters Inc.
In the Monster World, power is provided by harnessing children's screams. But with the shrinking window of innocence in human children, the monsters are facing an energy crisis. Good thing they have Top Scarer James P Sullivan and his assistant Mike Waksowski on the job. A worthy follow-up to Toy Story and A Bugs Life, this energetic Pixar romp through the world behind your closet door was fun and smart, but the interplay between John Goodman and Billy Chrystal as Sully and Mike was what really made the movie. It also features one of the most subtle and heartfelt endings of any of the movies on this list.

#11: The Emperor's New Groove
Forget everything you thought you knew about Disney movies. This uproarious action-comedy set in ancient Mesoamerica breaks all the rules, creating a fast paced, Looney-Toons like buddy movie about a self-centered young Emperor being transformed into a Llama and attempting to undo the curse with the help of an honest peasant. With great turns by the late Eartha Kitt as the scheming Yzma, Patrick Warburton as her lovable henchman, John Goodman as the gruff farmer and David Spade as the Emperor, this film can make me laugh at any time.

#10: Beauty and the Beast
Fact: Beauty and he Beast is the only animated movie to have ever been nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award. I think that says as much as needs to be said.

#9: Up/Wall-e
I really couldn't choose between these two, so I cheated and included them both. Since everyone and their uncle went to see them, I don't really need to describe them. Both were incredible to look at, amazingly well done and featured funny and often heart-wrenching stories. True classics each.

#8: The Prince of Egypt
I try to fit in plenty of non-Disney movies in this list, and they don't come much better then this biblical epic by Dreamworks. Featuring an all-star voice-cast with Val Kilmer as Moses, Ralph Fiennes as the Pharaoh, with Jeff Goldblum, Patrick Stewart, Steve Martin, Sandra Bullock and Michelle Pfeiffer among others. The songs were well done, the animation style original, and the Parting of the Red Sea still remains a crowning moment of awesome for CGI effects.

#7: Meet the Robinsons
A vibrant, touching and fun-filled movie about a young orphan inventor named Lewis who is whisked to the future by a boy named Wilbur in order to help him stop the diabolical plan of the diabolical Bowler-Hat guy. Or more accurately, the hat's plan. Didn't get any of that? Go watch it. Stuffed with wacky characters, slapstick humour and the most retro-looking future since the Jetsons, Meet the Robinsons is a great film with a message I always try to take to heart: No matter what happens, Keep Moving Forward.

#6: Finding Nemo
While my personal favourite Pixar movies are rate slightly above this, I must admit that I think Finding Nemo is their all-around best. When a worrying Clownfish father named Marlin loses his son Nemo, he embarks on an incredible voyage through the Australian coral reef, into the sea and finally to a dentist's office in Sydney in an effort to rescue him. The animators created one of the most convincing, beautiful and realistic renditions of the ocean world ever seen, and the story will always resonate as strongly with parents as it will with kids.

#5: The Great Mouse Detective
Another of the underrated Disney films of the 80's and one of my personal favourite animated films, the Great Mouse Detective is the story of…the Great Mouse Detective. Basil of Baker street, to be exact, a sort of rodent Sherlock Holmes who is hot on the trail of his nemesis, Professsor Rattigan, voiced by the one and only Vincent Price, who claimed that the sewer rat…er, over-sized mouse was his favourite character that he had ever played. Simultaneously ominous and cheerful, and perfectly capturing the feel of foggy Victorian London, the highlight of the movie is the climax inside and out of the Big Ben clock tower, which featured some of the first use of CGI in an animated film.

#4: The Incredibles
I love Superheroes. I love Pixar. Take Superheroes and Pixar, throw in a dash of Brad Bird and a great retro-artistic sensibility, and you get pure, undiluted awesome. Able to examine themes both mature and often subversive without ever becoming too heavy or serious, the movie blends action, humour, spectacle and a great plot with a family of superheroes we can all root for. Almost as much about family as it is about comic book action, the Incredible's does a fantastic job of capturing that special blend of closeness and craziness in the Parr family's interactions that we all know comes with being part of one. And

#3: Ratatouille
My favourite Pixar film (and the second by Brad Bird) is about a Rat named Remy and his aspiration to become a great French chef. No other Pixar film as managed to immerse  me so fully in its world, which is incredible because it has the most realistic setting of any of them; a restaurant in Paris.

#2: Sleeping Beauty
At the lofty number 2 position stands my penultimate favourite, Disney's Sleeping Beauty. I've always admired the incredible detail in this movie, and especially how the animators tried to replicate the look of 14th and 15th century tapestries and paintings. Prince Phillip is the first proactive Disney Prince, Aurora/Briar Rose is a winning damsel, and anyone who isn't entertained by the Three Good Fairies or intimidated by Maleficent must be working awfully hard not to be.

#1: The Iron Giant:
I. Frigging. Love. This. Movie. When a 50-foot tall, metal eating alien robot crash-lands on earth, he's taken care of by a young boy named Hogarth Hughes who goes to great lengths to keep his friend's existence a secret. Everything about this movie rocks, from the design of the Iron Giant to the perfectly captured feel of 1950`s America. This hilarious, heart-warming and action packed movie has everything you could ask of an animated film,. Great animation, great acting, great action, great jokes and an ending that has never once failed to tear me up inside and then make me smile.

Special Mentions:
The animated sequences from Enchanted
Although Enchanted had only about 12 minutes of animated footage, each and every frame was a small nugget of golden glee. From the designs of the characters which seemed to perfectly straddle the line between caricatures of the actors and original looks, to the buoyant energy in every movement, the animation was so good you wished that the whole film had been animated.

The first four minutes of the animated GI Joe movie
Everything that I ever loved about GI Joe is distilled into the first four minutes of the original animated movie. Cobra shows up in a massive airborne base to disrupt the 4th of July celebrations in New York, and try to blow up the Statue of Liberty. GI Joe stops them. Crammed in between are more awesome moments of PG-rated animated action then you can blast an 80's power ballad at. Which they nearly do, because the whole thing is set to a rockin' extended version of the GI Joe theme song.

There you go.