Often joked about as a stoner flick for its psychedelic wah-wah soundtrack and trippy visuals, Fantastic Planet could do that job for sure – but it’s also a hell of a well-crafted animated film if you choose to take it that way. Based on a 1957 novel and meticulously animated for a decade up to its release in 1973, it was made by a largely female team – rare at the time – at the Jiří Trnka Studio in Prague, using lush cutout animation to bring to life the alien flora and fauna of the planet Ygam. The sci-fi plot, though not often considered the most compelling aspect of the film, follows a young boy named Terr as he fights to escape the subjugation of the human species by the Draag, a group of giant blue aliens that kill his mother and enslave him. – Lina Fisher
