Sightlines · a viewing thread

Hand-Drawn Myths and Fairy Tales

Watch these as a run of traditional 2D animation that reaches back into folklore — Celtic selkies, Islamicate djinn, West African sorcery, English rabbit-lore — each rendered in a distinct storybook line.

A film-literate animation canon of arthouse and festival darlings, mostly gentle and family-facing, with Watership Down the lone gut-punch that asks you to be ready.

• Song of the Sea (2014)
• The Secret of Kells (2009)
• Azur & Asmar: The Princes' Quest (2006)
• Kirikou and the Sorceress (1998)
• Watership Down (1978)
• Wolfwalkers (2020) — The Tomm Moore / Cartoon Saloon film that completes the Irish folklore run you started with Song of the Sea and Secret of Kells — same hand-drawn Celtic line, wolf-lore instead of selkies, and the one to finally pull down if those two landed.
• The Breadwinner (2017) — The overlooked Cartoon Saloon companion to Kells and Song of the Sea, trading Celtic myth for a Kabul girl whose survival is braided with a storybook-illustrated folktale — same 2D storybook craft, a harder, braver world.