Yellow Submarine

Sure, some of the puns and in-jokes sound a little dated, but any movie that strings together lines from Shakespeare merely as a throwaway comic riff is, in my book, a film for the ages.

If the result seems less a coherent story than a two-hour pot high, Submarine is still a breakthrough combination of the feature film and art's intimacy with the unconscious.

Here are all the ingredients of a novel entertainment.

This 1968 Beatles musical gets somewhat plot heavy near the end, but it's a marvel of innocence and free association, blending several animation techniques in a loose narrative full of gentle bad puns and flowing visual segues.

The animation is imaginatively conceived, but stiffly executed.

There's such a wide disparity of graphic styles from sequence to sequence. Some of them, though, still look terrific.

An endlessly inventive picture that blends 1960s psychedelia with such diverse styles as pop art and Art Deco to create the fantastical world of Pepperland and its bizarre inhabitants.

A unique and often brilliant animated film that pictures the Beatles as towering and often god-like gentlemen who have the power to change worlds...

Whether it was a case of inspiration or coincidence, most of Yellow Submarine's more creative and graceful visuals are those that complement the songs.

even without the Beatles-endorsed drugs of the time, it's still fascinating to watch

The 1968 animated classic by the Beatles as their declaration of independence.