Film

The Secret of NIMH

Name: The Secret of NIMH
Genre: Adventure, Animation, Drama, Family, Fantasy
Released: 1982
Cast: Elizabeth Hartman, Derek Jacobi, Arthur Malet, Dom DeLuise, Hermione Baddeley

Survival adventure

Don Bluth's break from Disney is animation's answer to a gothic fairy tale: glowing amulets, blinding lab escapes, and a widowed mouse who has to become braver than she ever wanted to be. It's gorgeous, genuinely frightening in places, and treats children as capable of handling dread. Not saccharine, not safe — one of the strangest, most beautiful things ever aimed at kids.

TMDb rating

3.7

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love animation that treats its small creatures with real seriousness, where a quiet mother's stubborn courage and a sinister laboratory mystery share the same frame without either feeling cheapened.

Skip it if you want brisk, constant movement, since this one lingers on hushed domestic worry and dark, eerie corners, and its shadowy menace may feel heavier than a family cartoon promises.

What it asks of you: Roughly eighty-three minutes, unhurried in its opening, then steadily tightening; it wants patience with stillness and a willingness to sit inside a frightened mother's point of view.

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

If you liked this

Watership Down1978

Animated rabbits fleeing a destroyed warren, drawn with the same unflinching seriousness NIMH gives its mice — myth, violence, and real stakes for creatures usually reserved for cuteness.

But The bloodshed and existential dread traumatised a generation of kids expecting a bunny cartoon; it's genuinely rough going.

The Land Before Time1988

Bluth's own follow-up carries the same lush, painterly dread and a young protagonist finding courage almost entirely alone, after losing the person meant to protect them.

But That famous early loss aside, the back half softens considerably and leans younger than NIMH ever does.

The Dark Crystal1982

Same year, same appetite for genuinely eerie puppetry and mythic scale — proof 1982 briefly decided kids' films should be beautifully terrifying.

But Puppets instead of hand-drawn animation, and the story leans on mythology and mood over the character depth NIMH gives its mice.

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

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Charly1968

NIMH's rats owe their genius to lab experimentation gone gloriously right; Charly is the human version of that same premise played straight, asking what intelligence handed over by science actually costs the person who receives it.

Cliff Robertson won an Oscar playing a man whose intelligence is surgically boosted by an experiment eerily close to the one that made NIMH's rats brilliant — then watching it start to fail.

But Slow, sad, entirely adult drama with none of the animation, colour, or eventual hope NIMH offers its audience.

An American Tail1986

Bluth again, another mouse family uprooted and desperate for safety — this time immigrant America standing in for the farmer's plough.

But Warmer and more song-driven, with far less of NIMH's gothic interior and genuine sense of menace.

The Plague Dogs1982

Martin Rosen's other animal-peril animation, even bleaker than Watership Down, for anyone who found NIMH's darker stretches the most interesting part.

But Almost unbearably grim, with an ending offering far less of NIMH's ultimate hope and resolution.

The Iron Giant1999

A gentle outsider caught between wonder and weapons-grade danger, animated with the same conviction that children can handle real emotional weight and real stakes.

But Cold War sci-fi rather than gothic fantasy, and noticeably warmer and more optimistic throughout.

Coraline2009

Stop-motion rather than hand-drawn, but the same commitment to making a children's film genuinely unsettling, full of doors that absolutely should not be opened.

But Closer to horror than fantasy, and more about one child outsmarting a monster than a family finding collective courage.

All Dogs Go to Heaven1989

Bluth's darkest mainstream swing, complete with a literal hell sequence, for anyone craving more of his willingness to go somewhere genuinely nightmarish.

But Tonally uneven, lurching between broad slapstick and real terror in a way NIMH balances far more gracefully.

Anastasia1997

Bluth's later, glossier fairy tale trades rodents for royalty but keeps his taste for mysticism, peril, and a heroine forced to be braver than she planned.

But Much more romance and spectacle, and far less of NIMH's intimate, handmade strangeness.

Project Nim2011

NIMH turns lab experimentation on animals into an adventure with a clean moral outcome; Project Nim documents what actually happens when science tries to elevate an animal's mind, with no fairy tale waiting at the end.

A real chimpanzee raised almost as a human child, then returned to a research world that has no good place left for him — quietly devastating nonfiction.

But No animation, no fantasy escape hatch, and the true story refuses the tidy moral resolution NIMH's rats get to enjoy.

The Animals of Farthing Wood1993

Same displacement story — bulldozers instead of a farmer's plough — but told serially, showing how much more room a longer format gives to the exact fear NIMH compresses into one tense night.

A British animated series built on NIMH's exact premise — a whole community of animals forced from their home by human development — stretched across a full season instead of 83 minutes.

But Flatter, cheaper animation than Bluth's, and the episodic structure trades away NIMH's tightly wound, singular tension.