Studio Ghibli-productions (Japan)

Studio Ghibli has made many of the worlds best animated movies, so they're well worthy of a place in this list. I could write an essay on how beautiful Porco Rosso (1992) is, or how Castle in the Sky (1986) captures the very nature of a perfect fantasy journey. But you must experience them for yourself, all of them, and it'll be like devouring an enormous slice of Japanese culture.

My personal favorite is Pom Poko (1994), which follows the lives of a group of tanuki (raccoon dogs) who are trying to save their forest from an ongoing suburban development project. The movie is often overshadowed by more popular Ghibli-films like Spirited Away (2001) or Princess Mononoke (1997), so I thought I could at least mention it here. It also has one of the best soundtracks of the whole bunch, though that's always tough to decide because the music in these films are pure heaven.