1. Creature Comforts - Later, Nick Park's 1989 A Grand Day Out introduced to the lovable inventor Wallace and his silent companion Gromit. Although they can be taken with societal, technological, and other overtones, Creature Comforts does a good job explaining the animals situation superficially, but also explores the London ideal of living. Culled from the Ray Bradbury book The Illustrated Man, Comforts takes the retro-futurism of the stories and applies it to the London Zoo and clay. As a master of the silent gesture, Park is able to bring several animated subjects into one conversation, sometimes using only body language.
2. The Thief of Bagdad - Many times over, Thief has been cited on best of lists for both fantasy and film work. Douglas Fairbanks certainly created an amazing adventure sparkled with aesthetically amazing carpet rides, sorcerers, monsters, and other grandiose images which could've only been done with film making ingenuity back in 1924.
3. Häxan - Dotted with horrifying images, one of Denmark's most important films is another early effects-ridden classic. In English, the title is Witchcraft Through the Ages, and it is sort of a historical look at stop-motion visual descriptions of Satanic beings. They seduce, terrorize, accost, and hinder all right in front of you, and then explore the impact of such ways on modern society.
4. Equinox - By singlehandedly introducing not only a revolution in stop-motion monster movies, but cleverly patched cult story lines, director Jack Woods took the film world by the balls and said "this is weird." Woods had some of the best clay-human interactions in Equinox. The settings also usually were wrought with obstacles such as houses or rocks which not only the real actors, but moving models had to deal with.
5. The Stolen Airship - This 1967 Chezch film is modeled loosely after Jules Verne's voyage/adventure MO. Apart from combining live action in with animation, it many times combines the animation with stop-motion paper cutouts. At times, it employs all three. Against the stark, 'mustard scale' background, the dream of flying is realized for a group of boys who, marred on an island, must fight to survive against pirates and themselves, all whilst their society contrasts that of the adults, anchored by the symbolic balloon.
5. The Stolen Airship - This 1967 Chezch film is modeled loosely after Jules Verne's voyage/adventure MO. Apart from combining live action in with animation, it many times combines the animation with stop-motion paper cutouts. At times, it employs all three. Against the stark, 'mustard scale' background, the dream of flying is realized for a group of boys who, marred on an island, must fight to survive against pirates and themselves, all whilst their society contrasts that of the adults, anchored by the symbolic balloon.
