Mention animation, and I’m sure Disney princesses, anthropomorphic animals and brooding villains spring to mind. Due to its history, it still considered to be a medium of film used to tell stories for children, and anything by Disney, Pixar or Dreamworks is automatically marketed with kids in mind. However, in recent years, this trend appears to be changing. Animated films no longer serve the sole purpose of transmitting simple, fairy-tale morals, like “chase your dreams” and “you can be anyone you want to be”; characters are no longer embodiments of good and evil, but are in fact becoming more complex and multifaceted. Animation is moving away from its traditional target audience, and is developing layers that both young adults and adults are able to relate to and appreciate.

Perhaps the best example of this is Pixar’s 2015 release, Inside Out. Although producers asserted that themes of emotional complexity and the difficulties of growing up could be understood by young audiences, many critics – and normal moviegoers—left the cinema questioning whom the movie was really for. Although simple enough on the surface, with wonderful animation, engaging characters, uncomplicated humour and a clear story, the emotional depth of the film went straight over the heads of children—supposedly the film’s target audience. Instead, it was the adults, twenty-somethings and teenagers who were in fact engrossed by its careful, insightful exploration of human emotions. Animations like Inside Out, and many other of Pixar’s offerings in the past, are redefining the concept of a ‘family film’; no longer are they simplistic movies pandering to, and perhaps belittling, the intelligence of young audiences, but instead they appeal to and can be understood in different ways by people of all ages. By creating a movie that both adults and children can watch, enjoy and get things out of together, Pixar skilfully use animation as a tool to foster mutual discussion of complex themes, which helps to bridge the age gap between adults and adolescents, and bring parents and their children closer together.

Furthermore, animation is no longer constrained to the family film genre—rather, it is developing as a medium to express stories explicitly targeted towards adults. Anomalisa, the R-rated stop-motion animated film that became the first animated winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice International Film Festival, is a clear example of this. It suggests that animation can be used as a method to tell haunting, deep and artful tales that consider mature, adult themes, and expresses the dramatic potentialities of a medium that can be used to illustrate subtleties of narratives in ways that have not been explored before, transcending the boundaries of film as we know it. While some may presume that using animation limits the spectrum of human emotion that a filmmaker can depict, films like Anomalisa prove them wrong. While it perhaps is true that animation cannot show facial expressions and body language in the same way that live-action can, it does not fail completely at depicting emotion—rather, it does so in a different way, creating a new perspective on the human experience.

Will animation continue to break out of its traditional confines? The answer is uncertain. Hollywood studios are often primarily concerned with making money, and animated movies targeted directly at children are still more lucrative; Minions, for example, made $124 million domestically in its opening weekend, compared to Inside Out’s $91.1 million.  Anomalisa, despite gaining high levels of critical acclaim, only made $2 million against a budget of $8 million. However, monetary concerns aside, these films have shown that it is possible for animation to engage with the audience in a novel manner and tell stories in a new way, putting it out there as a medium that deserves greater attention. Hopefully, this experimentation will continue, and studios will not fall back to relying solely on films about princesses and talking animals, simply because they make money.