The 2000s was an exciting decade for animated movies. It saw the traditional hand-drawn animation style being replaced by computer-generated animation. It was also a period in which Disney’s reign as the best in the genre was challenged by some terrific movies from other studios.
While there were a number of iconic animated movies to come out of the decade, like Finding Nemo and Shrek, there were also even more movies that audiences forgot about or never knew about in the first place. Even die-hard animation fans might have trouble recalling these lost movies from the 2000s.
Updated on November 28th, 2021 by Colin McCormick: Looking back on the animated movies of the 2000s, there are a number that have cemented their status in the genre as true classics. Then there are those special movies that might have been overlooked when initially released only for their reputation to grow in the years since. But even with so many notable animated movies to come out of the decade, there are still many that have never managed to find an audience and remain obscure entries in the genre.
20 Dinosaur (2000)
- Available to stream on Disney+
Disney had huge hopes for its 2000 CGI feature Dinosaur. The movie follows a herd of dinosaurs making a long and dangerous journey to find a new home after there’s was destroyed. The naturalistic visuals of the movie were praised at the time but critics felt the story was lacking.
Despite the movie being meant to usher in a new exciting age for the Disney animated movies, Dinosaur cemented the fact that the Disney Renaissance era had ended and marked a period of underperforming and poorly received movies for the studio.
19 Everyone’s Hero (2006)
- Available to rent on Apple iTunes
Much like Field of Dream and Moneyball, Everyone’s Hero is a love letter to baseball. However, it takes a much more bizarre approach to exploring the sport. Set during the Great Depression, this is the story of a young boy who discovers a talking baseball. Together, they attempt to retrieve Babe Ruth’s bat (which can also talk) from the clutches of a thief.
Everyone’s Hero was directed by the late actor Christopher Reeve, and it features the voice talents of Forest Whittaker, Whoopi Goldberg, and Robin Williams as the manager of the Chicago Cubs. Regardless, the premise is so strange that the movie failed to attract much of an audience.
18 Space Chimps (2008)
- Available to stream on HBO Max, HBO, Max Go, DIRECTV and Spectrum On Demand
NASA’s experiments in space travel in the 1960s that involved sending chimpanzees into orbit played into the classic sci-fi movie The Planet of the Apes. However, Space Chimps was a much less iconic take on that compelling true story.
The movie features the voice talents of Andy Samberg as the grandson of the first chimp sent into space. He leads a new set of chimps on a space-bound mission where they face off with aliens on a strange new planet. Perhaps the B-movie title played a role in the lack of interest in Space Chimps.
17 The Wild (2006)
- Available to stream on Disney+
There have been several examples of animated movies from competing studios releasing movies with similar premises. Such was the case with Disney’s The Wild which shared more than a few similarities with Madagascar.
The Wild is about a lion who lives in the New York Zoo. By accident, he is sent to Africa, a land he is not prepared to survive in. His friends – an anaconda, a giraffe, and a squirrel – team up to help him find his way home. As it came out a year after Madagascar became a huge hit, The Wild was all but ignored.
16 Clifford’s Really Big Movie (2004)
- Available to stream on Prime Video
Clifford the Big Red Dog recently had the distinction of getting his own live-action movie that brought the lovable giant dog to life. But it was not the first attempt to bring the popular children’s character to the big screen.
Clifford’s Really Big Movie finds the large dog running away from home and joining a traveling animal show. His end goal is to win a lifetime supply of his favorite doggie treats. There was the sense that the movie would have been better served as a television special rather than a movie as it failed to find a large audience.
15 Sinbad: Legend Of The Seven Seas (2003)
- Available to stream on Tubi TV
Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas was designed to be DreamWorks Animation’s big summer blockbuster for 2003. It was a rousing adventure, headlined by a well-established character, that had big-time celebrity voices such as Brad Pitt, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Michelle Pfieffer. Instead, it turned out to be an expensive flop.
The hand-drawn animated movie opened just a few weeks after Pixar’s Finding Nemo, which captured the attention of families in a major way. The movie didn’t even earn back half its $60 million budget domestically.
14 Recess: School’s Out (2001)
- Available to stream on Disney+
Recess was an animated series focusing on the experience of six elementary school students. While Recess was by no means a ratings smash, it did well enough that Disney attempt a full-length feature film version.
Recess: School’s Out finds the pint-sized heroes battling an evil school administrator who wants to eliminate summer vacation. The movie earned decent reviews but came and went from theaters quickly. The target audience just wasn’t large enough to make it a hit.
13 Barnyard (2006)
- Available to stream on Tubi TV and Pluto TV
For a time in the ’00s, Nickelodeon made a concerted effort to break into the motion picture business with a series of animated films that included Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius and The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie. But unlike those movies, Barnyard failed to make an impression.
The plot centers around an irresponsible, hard-partying cow named Otis who learns to develop some maturity when he and his fellow bovines work to stop a kid who engages in the bizarre practice of cow-tipping.
12 Igor (2008)
- Available to stream on HBO Max, HBO, YouTube Free, Max Go, DIRECTV and Spectrum On Demand
Igor certainly has an interesting premise. It builds a story around Igor, the famed assistant of Dr. Frankenstein, referred to here as Doctor Glickenstein. John Cusack provides the voice of the character, who yearns to step out of the background and into the spotlight by becoming an evil scientist, just like his boss.
The movie seems to attempt the kind of dark weirdness which could have made for an unusual and interesting animated movie, similar to some of Tim Burton’s notable movies. However, the balance wasn’t quite pulled off and the most ended up disappointing.
11 Treasure Planet (2002)
- Available to stream on Disney+
Disney came up with the clever idea of taking Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic novel Treasure Island and turning it into a science-fiction adventure. Treasure Planet follows teen Jim Hawkins as he travels the galaxy, following a map that promises to deliver a bounty of riches.
Treasure Planet did not perform nearly as well as most other Disney animated features. Given its $140 million budget, the domestic box office take of $38 million cemented it as one of the most notable box office bombs of the 2000s.
10 Spirit: Stallion Of The Cimarron (2002)
- Available to stream on Peacock and Peacock Premium
Though it received an unexpected sequel this year, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron was another animated movie that had high hopes of being the next big hit only to be largely overlooked when it was released.
Spirit is a wild Mustang who is captured and sold to the U.S. Cavalry. After escaping the clutches of a mean colonel, he seeks to reunite with others of his kind. Despite the beautiful imagery of the movie, it was not the kind of feel-good, fun adventure most animated movie audiences look for.
9 Fly Me To The Moon (2008)
- Available to stream on The Rocku Channel, Hoopla, VUDU Free, Tubi TV and Plex
It’s surprising that Fly Me to the Moon isn’t more well-known if only for its bizarre premise. Based on the real historical event, it follows three talking houseflies who stow away on Apollo 11 on the historic voyage to the moon.
The movie is a noticeably lower-scale production than the likes of Pixar and DreamWorks. It also takes its premise to some strange places with a group of Soviet flies attempting to sabotage the mission and it even includes a cameo from Buzz Aldrin.
8 9 (2009)
- Available to stream on Starz Roku Premium Channel
With Tim Burton as one of the producers, it’s no surprise that 9 was a stranger and darker animated story than others movies in the genre. The central character is a burlap doll named #9. He makes his way through a post-apocalyptic future where mankind has been wiped out by a sentient machine.
9 deals with heavy ideas, such as how fear can influence decision-making. There’s even a religious vibe running through the story, which suggests life was made by a Creator to serve some unknown purpose. Obviously, 9 was a tough sell to the masses.
7 Home On The Range (2004)
- Available to stream on Disney+
Home on the Range is a 2004 Disney film that follows the exploits of a group of dairy cows. In order to prevent the foreclosure of the farm on which they live, the cows must hunt down a notorious cattle rustler so they can collect the bounty on his head.
Traditional hand-drawn animated movies had drastically decreased in popularity by the time Home on the Range was released. In fact, as a result of the mediocre performance of this movie, Disney largely stepped away from that style of animation for a number of years.
6 The Road To El Dorado (2000)
- Available to rent on Apple iTunes
The Road to El Dorado seemed poised to be DreamWorks’ big splashy Disney-like adventure. With stars Kevin Kline and Kenneth Branagh leading the movie and original songs by Elton John and Oscar winner Tim Rice, it seemed like a winner.
It tells the story of two con artists who come into possession of a map that will allegedly lead them to El Dorado, a rumored city of gold. Sadly, with lukewarm reviews and a poor box office performance, The Road to El Dorado was one of the first notable bombs of the 21st century.
5 Doogal (2006)
- Available to stream on The Roku Channel and Hoopla
Featuring a big cast including Jon Stewart Whoopi Goldberg, and Chevy Chase, Doogal is the tale of a shaggy dog trying to save some magic diamonds and defeat an evil sorcerer.
The movie is a strange mix of its bizarre story and juvenile humor that made for a bewildering final product. After gaining terrible critical reception, the movie all but disappeared when it was released and it is unlikely it has gained much of an audience since then.
4 Atlantis: The Lost Empire
- Available to stream on Disney+
The ambitious sci-fi Disney adventure Atlantis: The Lost Empire features the voice talents of Michael J. Fox as an adventurer who decides to continue his grandfather’s search for the lost city of Atlantis. The film follows him on this journey.
Viewers didn’t seem to know what to make of this atypical Disney movie. The characters didn’t break into song, as was then common in the studio’s animated fare, and there were no cutesy animal sidekicks. However, the movie’s reputation has improved in the years since.
3 Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters (2007)
- Available to buy on Amazon Video
Aqua Teen Hunger Force ran for 11 successful seasons as part of Cartoon Network’s “Adult Swim” block of programming. The show followed the adventures of a meatball, a milkshake, and a package of French fries and had a passionate cult following with its unabashedly absurd humor.
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters continued the outrageous style of the show in a big-screen tale in which the characters battle a demonic piece of exercise equipment. Given the small release, few people beyond the die-hard fans of the show remember the movie.
2 Valiant (2005)
- Available to stream on Disney+
Yet another rare animated movie to be based on a true story, Valiant takes the rather surprising approach of making a family-friendly cartoon set in the midst of the battles of World War II. It uses the format to tell the admittedly interesting story of carrier pigeons used during the war.
Ewan McGregor does the voice of the title character, a carrier pigeon whose job is to deliver important communications on behalf of the Allied forces. When one of his colleagues is captured by an Axis falcon, Valiant mounts a mission to save him.
1 Teacher’s Pet (2004)
- Available to stream on Disney+
Teacher’s Pet is based on a short-lived cartoon that ran on Saturday morning television about a dog who can talk and read. He consequently decides to pose as a human and attend school with his owner. The movie simply told the same story from the show in a big-screen version.
Though the show had a reasonable fanbase, its popularity failed to grow beyond that when the movie was released. It came and went from theaters without much notice and the cartoon remains a more obscure one from the era.