Coraline

Coraline is a 2009 stop-motion dark fantasy film written and directed by Henry Selick, adapted from Neil Gaiman’s 2002 novella of the same name. Produced by Laika and distributed by Focus Features, it was Laika’s first feature film. The story follows Coraline Jones, voiced by Dakota Fanning, after her family moves from Pontiac, Michigan, to the Pink Palace Apartments in Ashland, Oregon. Bored by her distracted writer parents, Mel and Charlie Jones, she explores the aging house and discovers a small door that normally opens onto a brick wall. At night, however, the passage leads to a colorful parallel version of her home. There she meets the Other Mother and Other Father, also voiced by Teri Hatcher and John Hodgman, versions of her parents with black buttons sewn over their eyes. The Other World initially supplies attention, elaborate meals, and spectacular entertainment. Coraline sees performances by Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, retired actresses voiced by Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French, and encounters the acrobatic Mr. Bobinsky, voiced by Ian McShane. Yet the Other Mother demands that Coraline allow buttons to be sewn onto her own eyes before she can stay permanently. Coraline refuses and learns that the Other Mother, called the Beldam, has trapped the souls of three ghost children. Their button eyes and hidden remains reveal that she has consumed previous victims after luring them with idealized worlds. With help from a black cat, voiced by Keith David, Coraline challenges the Beldam to a game: if she finds the ghost children’s eyes and her parents, both held captive, they must be released. She recovers the eyes, rescues Mel and Charlie, and escapes through the door. In the final confrontation, the Beldam’s severed hand pursues her; Coraline and her friend Wybie Lovat bury the key to the passage in a deep well. The film used painstaking physical production methods: its characters, sets, and props were built for stop-motion animation, while some visual effects were completed digitally. Coraline was the first stop-motion feature conceived and photographed in stereoscopic 3D. Bruno Coulais composed its score, including choral material sung in a made-up language. The film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature and earned nominations from BAFTA and the Golden Globes. Its enduring imagery—especially the button-eyed doubles, the tiny doorway, and the Beldam’s transformation—has made it one of Laika’s most recognized films.