Film

Fritz the Cat

Ralph Bakshi's debut feature is a deliberately transgressive animated satire of late-60s counterculture excess. Fritz the Cat is crude, sexual, chaotic, and intent on offending—a film that swings wildly between social commentary and pure anarchic provocation. It's genuinely inventive in places and genuinely tedious in others. For adventurous viewers comfortable with graphic content and uneven execution.

TMDb rating3.1

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you want sharp, lewd underground-comix satire where the crude gags carry a real jab at the counterculture's own pieties, and you enjoy animation that refuses to be cute.

Skip it if you find the explicit sex and drug-soaked provocation wearing thin, or you want animation with warmth and a hero you can root for.

What it asks of you: At seventy-eight minutes, it is loose and episodic, lurching from scene to scene with a sketchbook's restlessness, and it wants you alert rather than lulled.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Heavy Traffic1973

Bakshi's follow-up refines his approach with a stronger narrative about a cartoonist's gritty life in New York. More focused than Fritz, it balances dark comedy with genuine emotional weight and stunning rotoscoped animation.

But Still deliberately crude and violent. The plot meanders, and some sequences feel self-indulgent rather than purposeful.

Heavy Traffic poster

Conan the Barbarian1982

John Milius's adaptation is brutal, mythic, and visually stunning—a high-budget vindication of Bakshi's sensibility applied to sword-and-sorcery. Arnold Schwarzenegger is hypnotic as a man who solves problems with violence.

But Slow pacing in places. The narrative is minimal, which some find meditative and others find slack.

Conan the Barbarian poster

Wizards1977

Bakshi's most polished work, blending rotoscope, traditional animation, and found footage into a post-apocalyptic fantasy. It's lyrical, strange, and thematically ambitious without sacrificing entertainment.

But The pacing can feel oddly dreamy. Some sequences are beautiful but narratively opaque.

Wizards poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Fritz the Cat

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Allegro non troppo1976

Both are anarchic animations from outsider filmmakers intent on proving animation could be adult, sexual, and politically engaged rather than family entertainment.

Bruno Bozzetto's Italian animated film is a direct spiritual response to Disney's Fantasia—more irreverent, more erotic, more human. It's gorgeous, funny, and genuinely philosophical about what animation can express.

But The framing device about the film's production is deadpan and slow. Some segments are more precious than profound.

Allegro non troppo poster
More like this (8)

Midnight Run1988

Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin bounce off each other perfectly in this chase comedy-thriller. It's warm-hearted, expertly paced, and proves that 80s studio comedies could be genuinely clever.

But The plot is straightforward to the point of simplicity. If you're looking for narrative complexity, look elsewhere.

Midnight Run poster

After Hours1985

Scorsese's cult masterpiece follows a programmer's nightmare night in downtown Manhattan. Darkly comic, visually inventive, and structurally playful—it captures urban anxiety with hallucinatory precision.

But Relentlessly bleak and disorienting. Some find it exhausting rather than exhilarating.

After Hours poster

A Clockwork Orange1971

Kubrick's controversial adaptation of Burgess's novel is formally audacious and morally complex. It provokes thought about violence, free will, and society in ways that still sting.

But The sexual violence is graphic and intended to disturb. The film is also glacially paced, which dulls impact for some viewers.

A Clockwork Orange poster

Fantastic Planet1973

René Laloux's surreal sci-fi uses stop-motion to create an alien world of haunting beauty and dark allegory. Visually unlike anything else, it rewards patient viewing with genuine wonder.

But The narrative is sparse and the pacing meditative. It's more mood piece than plot-driven story.

Fantastic Planet poster

Yellow Submarine1968

Psychedelic animated adventure with The Beatles' music, directed by George Dunning. It's joyful, inventive, and captures 1960s optimism better than any live-action film.

But The plot is thin and the humor sometimes lands on the wrong side of cute. Heavy viewers of Beatles media may find it slight.

Yellow Submarine poster

Shame1968

Bergman's film about a couple trapped in a war-torn country is intimate, morally unforgiving, and stripped of sentiment. Liv Ullmann and Max von Sydow deliver devastating performances.

But Bleak and exhausting. There is almost no beauty here, and no redemption—only the slow erosion of conscience.

Shame poster

Requiem for a Dream2000

Both use graphic depictions of excess and pleasure-seeking as social critique, but where Fritz celebrates anarchic abandon, Requiem documents its annihilation.

Aronofsky's harrowing descent into addiction is formally dazzling—using montage, sound design, and visual repetition to make degradation visceral. Requiem doesn't titillate its excess; it documents its cost.

But Relentlessly punishing and ultimately hopeless. The film is beautiful in ways that can feel manipulative, especially across its brutal final act.

Requiem for a Dream poster

American Splendor2003

Like Fritz, it's an animated film deeply engaged with real-world counterculture and the comics medium itself, but it replaces Fritz's provocation with genuine affection for its flawed, unglamorous subject.

Bob Pulakos's film about comics legend Harvey Pekar blends live-action, animation, and documentary in ways that feel organic and revelatory. It's warm, funny, and genuinely moving about art and ordinariness.

But The narrative is episodic and unheroic. If you're looking for traditional story satisfaction, you won't find it.

American Splendor poster

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