Friday, September 9, 2011

Greatest Animators of All Time

As you may or may not be aware, Pat Smith and I held a contest to discover who is the greatest animator of all time. We solicited people's top five lists starting in July and we've gotten some wonderful lists. I myself was amazed at the wonderful balance between studio animators and indie animators. Also there were a number of people left off the list that should have been there. Such as:

Ralph Bakshi

John Kricfaluci

Michel Ocelot

Konstantin Bronzit

Mike Judge

Tom Moore


But this event was such a big success that we're going to hold it again in a couple of years – and maybe do a best animation director. In any case, here are the results, read 'em and weep:

Hayao Miyazaki 9


Milt Kahl 8

Bill Plympton 7

Joanna Quinn 7


Nick Park 6

Aleksandr Petrov 6

Bill Tytla 6

Richard Williams 6


Tex Avery 5

Frédéric Back 5

Ward Kimball 5

Glen Keane 5

Norman McLaren 5


Ken Harris 4

Winsor McCay 4

Chuck Jones 4

Yuri Norstein 4

Rod Scribner 4

Frank Thomas 4

Jim Tyer 4

Koji Yamamura 4


Paul Driessen 3

Caroline Leaf 3

Jan Svankmayer 3


Alexander Alexeieff 2

James Baxter 2

Don Bluth 2

Bruno Bozzetto 2

Art Davis 2

Walt Disney 2

Michel Gagné 2

Emery Hawkins 2

Ollie Johnson 2

Yoshinori Kanada 2

John Lasseter 2

Fred Moore 2

Bob McKimson 2

Michaela Pavlatova 2

Masaaki Yuasa 2


Hideaki Anno 1

Mark Baker 1

Preston Blair 1

Bruce Bickford 1

Brad Castor 1

Osvaldo Cavandoli 1

Bobe Cannon 1

Sylvain Chomet 1

Cyriak 1

Tissa David 1

Michael Dudok de Wi t 1

Paul Fierlinger 1

Atsuko Fukushima 1

William Hanna & Joe Barbera 1

Eric Goldberg 1

François Giraud 1

Paul Grimault 1

Mitsuo Iso 1

Zlatko Grgic 1

Ray Harryhausen 1

Jim Henson 1

Don Hertzfeldt 1

Marcell Jankovics 1

Pavel Koutsky 1

Una Marzorati 1

Takashi Murakami 1

Koji Morimoto 1

Muto 1

Victor Navone 1

Go Nagai 1

Shinya Ohira 1

Katsuhiro Otomo 1

Shinji Otsuka 1

Yasuo Otsuka 1

Janet Pearlman 1

Sergio Pablos 1

Virgil Ross 1

Henry Selick 1

Tatsuyuki Tanaka 1

Phil Tippett 1

Isao Takahata 1

Jiri Trnka 1

Simon Tofield 1

Satoro Utsunomiya 1

Carlo Vinci 1

Don Williams 1

Karol Zeman 1



4 comments:

  1. Great list.

    (But Bob McKimson only gets two?!)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sad no one thought of Marc Davis...sniff.

    ReplyDelete
  3. For what its worth I listed Bob McKimson for the actual animation he did under Bob Clampett. As a director, well, he did some funny shorts, but I never considered him the strongest of the three Warner's had at the time (other two being Freleng and Jones).

    ReplyDelete
  4. Did you actually count all my honorable mentions? Geez, I didn't expect that...

    ReplyDelete