Song of the Sea (2014)

The studio's most beautiful film and its saddest. Ben and his little sister Saoirse grow up in a lighthouse off Ireland's north-west coast, and Saoirse, who has never spoken, turns out to be a selkie like the mother who vanished. Their escape home from Granny's house in Dublin on Halloween night passes through a whole folklore of the old Irish otherworld: Macha the owl witch, who drains away feelings and turns their owners to stone, the stone giant Mac Lir and the Great Seanachaí, whose endless beard holds every story. Lisa Hannigan voices the mother and sings over Bruno Coulais and Kíla's score, and the songs carry the film's grief without sentimentality. It won the European Film Award for animation and was Oscar-nominated.