I love Halloween but I’m rubbish with scary movies – here are my 7 animated movie picks for spooky season

The best animated Halloween movies for squeamish screamers like me

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I adore Halloween; the costumes, the pumpkin carving, the opportunity to cause public disorder and write it off as seasonal trickery. Everything about the spooky season calls to some of my dearest passions – well, everything except thebest horror movies, that is.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m impartial to a good ghost story, few and far between as they seem to be in Hollywood these days, and I will gladly puzzle my way through a mind-bending sci-fi flick likeIt’s What’s Inside.However as soon as things veer too far into gratuitous gore or traumatic thrillers that hit just a bit too close to home, I’m tapping out – I’ll leave that to my wonderful colleagueRowan Davies, who has spent much of this month reporting on the best horror movies to watch this Halloween from different genres.

Instead, I’m impartial to the lightly creepy but family-friendly side of Halloween movies, broadly characterized by some excellent animated movies. Here are my top picks forTechRadar’s Halloween Week.

The Nightmare Before Christmas

RT Score:95%Director:Henry SelickRuntime:76 minutesWhere to stream:Disney Plus (US, UK, AU)

Part Brothers Grimm fairytale, part art film,The Nightmare Before Christmasis a genre-defining animated Halloween movie conceived by Tim Burton – though we owe a lot of its production and creativity to the lesser-credited director Henry Selick. Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King of ‘Halloween Town’ feels unfulfilled by his role and yearns for something new, and stumbles upon ‘Christmas Town’. What begins as a somewhat well-meaning attempt to share his discovery with his loyal subjects quickly spirals into a hostile takeover of the festive season, the kidnapping of Santa Claus, and a frighteningly close call with a bogeyman.

It’s a visual delight, effortlessly blending its raw, scratchy and stuttering animation with a soft, whimsical playfulness that only stop-motion animation can achieve. It’s macabre, it’s evocative, but most importantly it’s also fun and inventive, creating a timeless world that generations since and those to come will delight in.

Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

RT Score:95%Directors:Nick Park and Steve BoxRuntime:85 minutesWhere to stream:Netflix (US), Prime Video (UK)

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A modern classic, Aardman Animations’ iconic British stop-motion animated comedy duo returns for another slapstick jaunt inWallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. This time, cheese-loving inventor Wallace has turned his talents to a new business venture; pest control. Joined as ever by his long-suffering beagle, Gromit, the duo is employed by Lady Tottington (Helena Bonham Carter) to prevent a plague of rabbits from pillaging the town’s crops. Of course, things never quite go to plan when there’s one of Wallace’s clever contraptions involved, and taking down a giant were-rabbit certainly wasnotpart of the plan.

Packed with plenty of delightful Britishisms, Wallace and Gromit’s first feature-length adventure didn’t quite stick the commercial landing Aardman’s then-parent company Dreamworks had hoped for. Still, the movie has seen international acclaim and stands among the most popular family-friendly Halloween movies of all time.

Coraline

RT Score:91%Director:Henry SelickRuntime:100 minutesWhere to stream:TheRokuChannel and Tubi (US), rent onAppleTV andAmazonVideo (US, UK, AU)

Another Henry Selick masterpiece and based on Neil Gaiman’s 2002 novella,Coralinesees its eponymous character discover a secret “Other World” within her new home. With her real parents busy with work, Coraline is lured to this vibrant world by her parents’ button-eyed doppelgängers. Unbeknownst to her, however, all is not as it seems, and she must outsmart and outmaneuver these evil entities to save her family.

Featuring the immense vocal talents of the likes of Dakota Fanning, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French and more, it’s not just a star-studded cast that makes the magic of Coraline come to life; Selick assembled a fantastic team of visual artists and techniques to render the hauntingly beautiful and unique aesthetic of the film. It features the talents of Japanese illustrator Tadahiro Uesugi as a concept artist, credited with conceptualizing the vibrant color palette of the “Other World” as well as designing sets and backgrounds, and the crew also 3D printed thousands of models for everything from facial expressions to set pieces. The resulting film is a technical and visual masterpiece that stands the test of time.

Corpse Bride

RT Score:84%Directors:Tim Burton, Mike JohnsonRuntime:77 minutesWhere to stream:Max (US), rent on Apple TV and Amazon Video (US, UK, AU)

You guessed it, another stop-motion masterpiece. The movie centers around Victor (voiced by Johnny Depp), a nervous soon-to-be groom to Victoria (Emily Watson), with the two being initially brought together in an arranged engagement before falling madly in love. Following a disastrous wedding rehearsal, Victor accidentally weds himself to a corpse while rehearsing his vows, reviving a woman called Emily (Helena Bonham Carter) who was murdered on the night of her elopement in the process. He’s subsequently whisked away from his impending nuptials to the Land of the Dead to fulfill his obligation as her husband, and with Victoria waiting for him in the world of the living, takes action to reunite with his real bride.

Tackling some more mature, tragic themes of love, loss, resentment and abandonment,Corpse Brideis a visual feast that combines CGI visual effects with highly detailed and painterly set and character design.

The Secret of NIMH

RT score:93%Director:Don BluthRuntime:82 minutesWhere to stream:The Roku Channel (US), Prime Video (US, UK)

This is a title I only discovered while researching this article, but it’s quickly risen the ranks of my all-time favorite animated movies. While it’s not a true Halloween movie in the traditional sense that applies to the movies I’ve listed above, Don Bluth’s directorial debut is a surprisingly dark animated movie that tackles themes of animal testing, housing crisis and loss. Its protagonist, widowed field mouse Mrs. Brisby, must protect her ailing and bed-bound son Timothy from the impending destruction of their home, a cinder block in a farmer’s field. To do so, she enlists the help of a group of highly intelligent rats who have mastered the use of human technology after being the subject of human experimentation to try and move the entire home to safety.

Sprinkle in a touch of betrayal, some tragic deaths and a glimmer of magic, and you’ve got the recipe for an instant classic. Despite this dourness, however,NIMH’sgutsy cast of countryside wildlife creatures sparkles in a classic display of 1980s animation duplexity. If you enjoy Bluth’s other, perhaps better-known classics likeAn American Tail, The Land Before Time, All Dogs Go to HeavenandAnastasia,it’s sure to delight.

Spirited Away

RT score:96%Director:Hayao MiyazakiRuntime:125 minutesWhere to stream:Max (US), Netflix (UK, AU)

OK, this one also might not be considered a true Halloween movie, but I challenge you to argue that the crown jewel of Ghibli animation isn’t eerie and haunting enough to be considered a spooky season classic. While moving to the countryside, 10-year-old Chihiro and her parents make a wrong turn and land themselves in trouble when they discover a seemingly abandoned amusement park. In truth, the eerie ghost town is, well, a literal ghost town, through which Chihiro meets a host of whimsical characters on her quest to reunite with her parents.

Poignant and poetic,Spirited Awayimaginatively and hauntingly explores themes of adolescence, generational conflict, consumerism, and nostalgia through the lens of its child protagonist, resulting in a splendrous and thought-provoking piece of modern animation. Oh, and that one scene with the giant-headed crone wailing for her missing child gave me nightmares for about fifteen years.

Frankenweenie

RT score:88%Director:Tim BurtonRuntime:87 minutesWhere to stream:Disney Plus (US, UK, AU)

If you’ve experienced the pain of losing a pet, you’ll understand the plight ofFrankenweenie’sprotagonist, a young Victor Frankenstein. Grappling with grief, Frankenstein turns his burgeoning scientific talents to resurrect his beloved dog, Sparky. Unfortunately, his classmates aren’t exactly discerning with his discovery, using Frankenstein’s research to reanimate a host of creatures and, in their fervor, create monstrosities.

Like many films in this list,Frankenweenieleans on the natural eeriness of stop-motion animation, but with the added flair of being shot in black and white to pay homage to Burton’s original 1984 short film of the same name. Much likeCoraline, it’s a technical masterpiece, with human hair being used to create the eerie, uncanny puppets and Swiss watchmakers being employed to create the tiny nuts and bolts used in Sparky’s model.

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Josephine Watson (@JosieWatson) is TechRadar’s Managing Editor - Lifestyle. Josephine is an award-winning journalist (PPA 30 under 30 2024), having previously written on a variety of topics, from pop culture to gaming and even the energy industry, joining TechRadar to support general site management. She is a smart home nerd, champion of TechRadar’s sustainability efforts as well and an advocate for internet safety and education. She has used her position to fight for progressive approaches towards diversity and inclusion, mental health, and neurodiversity in corporate settings. Generally, you’ll find her fiddling with her smart home setup, watching Disney movies, playing on her Switch, or rewatching the extended edition of Lord of the Rings… again.

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