20 Best Animation movies like Balance (1989)

Joe Gardner is a middle school teacher with a love for jazz music. After a successful gig at the Half Note Club, he suddenly gets into an accident that separates his soul from his body and is transported to the You Seminar, a center in which souls develop and gain passions before being transported to a newborn child. Joe must enlist help from the other souls-in-training, like 22, a soul who has spent eons in the You Seminar, in order to get back to Earth.

Bruno is making his way through the city searching for its soul. Driven by his curiosity, a challenging imagination and his wild reflection on reality he is lifting the old dusty curtain on the city's crusted perception.

Buta the sword for hire is recruited by the Tufugu Pirates on their voyage to seek a stockpile of treasure. On board he discovers a child Kitsune locked away below deck. After some misunderstandings and with the promise of more money, the two of them go on their own adventure.

A chance encounter proves fateful for 2 robots mining on a desolate planet.

Death Billiards is one of the four anime works that each received 38 million yen (about US$480,000) from the "2012 Young Animator Training Project." Just like in 2010 and 2011, the animation labor group received 214.5 million yen (US$2.65 million) from the Japanese government's Agency for Cultural Affairs, and it distributed most of those funds to studios who train young animators on-the-job. An old and a young man find themselves in a mysterious bar where they have to play a game of billiard. The bet: their lives.

After a hurricane levels his city, a young man wanders into a mysterious library where books literally come to life.

A few naked women and children are bathing in a river. They are being secretly observed by a group of men who, at one point, decide to approach them in a violent manner, as if inspired by the behaviour of hippopotamuses.

When dad has to unexpectedly step in for mom to do his daughter Zuri’s hair before a big event, what seems like a simple task is anything but as these locks have a mind of their own!

A young boy comes of age in the most peculiar of circumstances. Tonight is the very first time his Papa and Grandpa are taking him to work. In an old wooden boat they row far out to sea, and with no land in sight, they stop and wait. A big surprise awaits the boy as he discovers his family's most unusual line of work. Should he follow the example of his Papa, or his Grandpa? Will he be able to find his own way in the midst of their conflicting opinions and timeworn traditions?

When Pia plays a mysterious vinyl record single, she suddenly knows how to travel through her own life. Made in collaboration with the Netherlands Film Fund, Pathé and SNS Reaal Fonds.

A small bird with a fear of flying tries to avoid heading South for the winter.

A group of logs is about to freeze to death in a cold, icy desert. When they realize only themselves are possible fuel for a warming fire things start heating up.

Set in 1980s Toronto, a young boy shuffles between the homes of his recently divorced parents.

In a desolate future, one small town has survived because of a large windmill dam that acts as a fan to keep out pollution. The dam's operator, Pig, works tirelessly to keep the sails spinning and protect the town, despite abuse from classmates and an indifferent public. When a new student joins Pig's class, nothing will be the same again.

Split-screen, bilingual stop-motion film, in which two neighbours turn to technology in their search for companionship and acceptance.

A boy finds a strange creature on a beach, and decides to find a home for it in a world where everyone believes there are far more important things to pay attention to.

Emily finds herself disconnected from the world around her. She goes on a journey through her memories and relives different moments from her life. Emily must look to her past so that she may fully embrace the present.

A surreal trip through the subconscious of a stifled musician as he struggles to sing.

A short tale about the demons that slumber deep in the human soul and have the power to push people into the abyss of blind hate, fury and rage.

An old bear goes out every day to a busy street corner. Through a tin marionette theater of his own making, the bear will tell us his life story.

This Oscar-winning animated short film tells the story of one man's love life as seen through the eyes of his best friend and dog, Winston, and revealed bite by bite through the meals they share.

Reality quickly unravels when antisocial Yukiteru is called into a death match against 11 other mentally scarred individuals. Each player has a prophetic device tuned to their personality, giving them control over their future—and the fate of their foes.

Charley, a cyborg vampire who does the Vatican's dirty work, is the thrall of the local vampire playboy Johnny Rayflo. As the two fight crime—and each other—hilarity, violence and sacrilege ensue! But can Charley resist his own desperate cravings for blood? Find out as the devilish duo go up aginst a childlike vampire princess, a mysterious branch of the Unitarian Church...and one another.

Ebenezer Scrooge, a skinflint visited by the spirits of Christmas past, present and future one fateful Christmas Eve. It's up to them to help the old crab see the error of his ways. And they do, to the delight of Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim.

A hapless country doctor describes with breathless urgency a night-time summons to attend a young patient. Events soon take on a surreal aspect as "unearthly horses" transport him instantaneously to the bedside. The doctor, preoccupied with personal distractions and grievances against those he is employed to care for, fails to find what is revealed to be a vile, fatal wound. He is humiliated by the villagers, who are "always expecting the impossible from the doctor," and doomed to an endless return trip, losing everything.

A happy little potter is approached by a huge hand which wants him to sculpt its statue. The potter refuses, wanting nothing more than to be left alone with his only friend, a potted plant. As the hand's request gives way to bribery, demands, and threats, the potter becomes more desperate to escape its clutch, leading to tragedy.

A weathered Sheriff returns to the remains of an accident he has spent a lifetime trying to forget. With each step forward, the memories come flooding back. Faced with his mistake once again, he must find the strength to carry on.

A little girl is taken on a mind-bending tour of her distant future.

Ryan is a 2004 animated documentary by Chris Landreth about the Canadian animator Ryan Larkin, who in later years lived on skid row in Montreal following a history of drug and alcohol abuse.

In the far future when the continuity of the history has been lost, humans live in an ever more deteriorating completely artificial and enclosed world. The sea and the sky have disappeared, and the only window to "living" scenery exists in the records from the past, excavated in the relic.The Bureau of Record Excavation is an organization responsible for this task. Ura works for the 92nd office of the bureau. He is absorbed by the restoration of various records and fascinated by world of the past. Riko keeps a little distance to watch him, but averts her eyes from the records, believing that sometimes people just want things to stay the same.Everyone in this world knows that to know the past means to know the misery of this world, the present reality. But one day, Ura restores a strange video...

Animated short based on the story of the same name by Andrei Platonov.