The King and the Mockingbird

Le Roi et l'Oiseau

A pompous, cross-eyed king is in love with a painting of a shepherdess. But she has eyes for the dashing young chimney sweep in the next painting over — and so the two decide to elope, stepping out of their frames and into Grimault’s endlessly inventive and bizarre castle town, where elevators are beetles attached to telescoping antennas, buildings hang like barnacles from gargantuan Roman pillars, and the King gives chase in a throne-turned bumper car. This French animated gem originally began production in the late 1940s, but wasn’t completed until 1980.