Film

The Secret of Kells

Name: The Secret of Kells
Genre: Animation, Family, Fantasy
Released: 2009
Cast: Evan McGuire, Christen Mooney, Brendan Gleeson, Mick Lally, Liam Hourican

The Secret of Kells turns medieval Ireland into a flat, glowing tapestry of Celtic knotwork and candlelight, following a young monk drafted into finishing an illuminated manuscript while Viking raiders close in. It's gorgeous rather than cute — geometric, painterly, closer to stained glass than Pixar — and its gentleness sits over real menace. Kids will follow the adventure; adults will notice the craft. Ninety minutes, no filler.

TMDb rating

3.7

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you care more about how a frame looks than how fast the plot moves, and you love hand-drawn ornament, interlaced borders and flat, shimmering color that feels like a manuscript come alive.

Skip it if you need fast, constant action, since the pace is measured and the wonder comes in quiet, stylised stretches that can feel slow to anyone wanting a brisk quest.

What it asks of you: Roughly eighty minutes, unhurried in its middle stretches, and it rewards slow looking: details repay a pause, so give it your eyes rather than half your attention.

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

If you liked this

Song of the Sea2014

Cartoon Saloon's follow-up trades manuscripts for selkies but keeps the same hand-painted, folklore-soaked warmth — arguably even more beautiful, and just as attentive to grief hiding under the myth.

But It's slower and sadder than Kells, built more around loss than adventure — less swordplay, more quiet ache.

Wolfwalkers2020

Same studio, same country, same love of illuminated line-work, but angrier — a fierce fable about colonisation and wildness that turns the Kells aesthetic loose on wolves and forests.

But More overtly political and intense in places; younger kids may find the wolf transformations and violence a notch scarier.

Spirited Away2001

The gold standard for a child wandering into a world of spirits and monsters just past the edge of the map — Miyazaki's craft and strangeness rhyme with Kells' forest scenes.

But Two hours rather than one, and its dream-logic plotting can feel meandering if you want a tighter adventure.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Secret of Kells

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Adventures of Prince Achmed1926

Kells revives the idea that animation is a hand-crafted object, not a factory product; Achmed is the film that started that idea, made entirely with scissors and paper decades before any studio system existed.

The oldest surviving animated feature, made from cut silhouettes lit from below — a thousand-and-one-nights adventure that proves handmade, frame-by-frame magic was dazzling audiences a century before Kells.

But Silent, monochrome, and just 65 minutes of a completely different visual vocabulary — no colour, no dialogue, just shadow and movement.

Kubo and the Two Strings2016

Stop-motion instead of 2D, but the same commitment to handmade, painstaking visual invention wrapped around a folk-tale quest and a real sense of dread.

But Its late turns get surprisingly bleak and abstract for a 'kids' film' — heavier than Kells in its final stretch.

Princess Mononoke1997

Take the forest-spirit-versus-encroaching-civilisation idea in Kells and push it into full mythic war — gorgeous, morally messy, and unwilling to hand you an easy villain.

But Considerably longer and more violent, with none of Kells' lightness — this one's for older kids and adults.

The Breadwinner2017

The same studio's other great trick: art that looks gentle carrying a story that isn't. A girl in Taliban-era Kabul disguises herself as a boy to keep her family alive.

But No fantasy monsters here — it's grounded, contemporary, and genuinely upsetting in ways Kells never risks.

The Illusionist2010

Sylvain Chomet's hand-drawn melancholy about a fading magician has the same devotion to line and colour as Kells, minus the plot and plus a lump in the throat.

But Almost wordless and very slow — a mood piece for adults, not the adventure a Kells fan might expect.

The Last Unicorn1982

An older, scrappier hand-drawn fantasy quest with the same fairy-tale bones — talking creatures, a hidden magic, a world that feels sung rather than told.

But The animation is rougher and the pacing dated; it's a cult classic more than a polished modern watch.

The Tale of The Princess Kaguya2013

Takahata's watercolour-loose linework is the closest thing in anime to Kells' painterly flatness — a folk tale rendered like a moving scroll painting.

But Long, unhurried, and ultimately melancholy rather than triumphant — it asks for patience Kells never demands.

Vikings2013

Same historical hinge — Norse raiders tearing through early medieval monastic Europe — told from the other side of the axe, in live-action, at ten times the length and none of the innocence.

Kells treats the Viking raids on Irish monasteries as an offscreen dread; this show puts you inside the longships and the raiding parties themselves, brutal and lavish.

But It's a multi-season prestige drama with sex, violence and political scheming — a world away from Kells' family-friendly register.

The Red Turtle2016

Both films trust hand-drawn imagery and folklore logic over exposition; Red Turtle takes that same faith in image-over-word and drains out every trace of whimsy, leaving something closer to a meditation on mortality.

A wordless, Ghibli-produced fable about a man stranded on an island — as painterly and myth-touched as Kells, but stripped down to near-total silence and stillness.

But No dialogue at all and a very adult, contemplative pace — this is a mood to sit inside, not an adventure to follow.