Curator Watchlist
A striking post-apocalyptic animated sci-fi with strong atmosphere, inventive creature design, and a great premise, but the storytelling is thin and the worldbuilding often feels more suggestive than fully satisfying. It’s worth it for viewers who like bleak, stylized genre animation and don’t mind a short,… Read more
Where to watch: Buy
Wed · 1h 19m
Director: Shane Acker
Starring: Elijah Wood, Christopher Plummer, Martin Landau
When 9 first comes to life, he finds himself in a post-apocalyptic world. All humans are gone, and it is only by chance that he discovers a small community of others like him taking refuge from fearsome machines that roam the earth intent on their extinction. Despite being the neophyte of the group, 9 convinces the others that hiding will do them no good.
Shane Acker
Elijah Wood, Christopher Plummer, Martin Landau
A striking post-apocalyptic animated sci-fi with strong atmosphere, inventive creature design, and a great premise, but the storytelling is thin and the worldbuilding often feels more suggestive than fully satisfying. It’s worth it for viewers who like bleak, stylized genre animation and don’t mind a short, somewhat rough-edged ride.
9 is the kind of animated film that arrives with a vivid image and a strong mood first, then builds a story around that mood. The ruined world, stitched-together characters, and mechanical threat give it a memorable identity, and the film’s design work does a lot of heavy lifting. It has a handmade, slightly ragged quality that can be appealing if you like your sci-fi strange and tactile.
What holds it back is that the movie often feels like a feature-length setup for a richer story than it actually delivers. The mythology is intriguing, but the emotional beats are broad and the pacing can feel rushed, especially when it shifts from mystery to action. Some viewers will find that brevity a strength; others will feel the film never quite cashes in on its best ideas.
Still, there’s real value in its atmosphere and ambition. It’s a good pick for anyone curious about darker animated genre work from the late 2000s, especially if they enjoy films that are more about tone, design, and apocalyptic imagery than clean narrative satisfaction.
Lydie 💜 (4★) · 3428 likes
Wow the LittleBigPlanet movie is dark EDIT 09/03/2020: can people please stop liking this review. I will leave it up but I would like people to stop giving it likes because it is not funny or good
Madison 🎭 (2.5★) · 1591 likes
oh to be in 2009 again watching my coraline dvd and seeing the trailer for this and being confused but intrigued
Framesofnick (3★) · 1507 likes
Kids movie where dolls fight for their lives after the world ends in a terrifying way somehow still less scary than happy feet
TheWorstCritic (3★) · 1460 likes
WHY CANT THIS MOVIE BE BETTER. ITS SO COOL. BE BETTER. FUCK.
ellie🫧 (3★) · 815 likes
i can’t explain why but 9 is exactly how i would picture elijah wood to look like if he was an inanimate object
Shares the post-human worldbuilding and animated sci-fi setting, but with more emotional clarity and visual grace.
A similarly eerie stop-motion fantasy from the same era, with a stronger sense of menace and tactile design.
For viewers who respond to stylized animation and bold visual imagination, even though its tone is much warmer.
Another animated sci-fi that leans into unease, identity, and a distinctly off-kilter visual style.
For its apocalyptic scale, kinetic action, and influential dystopian energy.
A more cerebral take on artificial life, technology, and human identity in a futuristic world.
Offers multiple dark, machine-driven sci-fi stories with the same fascination for collapse and resistance.
Not tonally similar, but a good pick for viewers who like animated adventure with a strong sense of journey and discovery.
A classic environmental post-apocalypse with creatures, ruins, and a determined lead navigating a broken world.
For its mythic conflict, monstrous imagery, and serious approach to survival and violence.
An older animated fantasy with melancholy atmosphere and a distinctive, slightly haunted quality.
A visually ambitious action-adventure built around machinery, invention, and large-scale destruction.
post-apocalyptic survival, artificial life, machines vs. humanity, found family, fear and resistance, identity and purpose, dark adventure, scientific hubris
post-apocalyptic, animated sci-fi, dark fantasy, dystopian, thriller, creature design, survival, found family, bleak mood, 2000s animation