Kubo and the Two Strings (2016)

President and CEO of Laika Studios, Travis Knight, sat himself in the directors chair for his stunning debut of stop-motion animation.

Directed by: Travis Knight

Cinematography by: Frank Passingham

Country: United States/Japan

Genre: Animation/Adventure/Action/Fantasy/Family/Drama

The directorial debut from Travis Knight, the president and CEO of Laika (he’s also the son of Phil Knight, co-founder of Nike). Knight’s film follows a young boy named Kubo’s magical quest to defeat his evil grandfather, who stole one of the boy’s eyes when he was an infant.

During Kubo’s journey to murk his sadistic grandpappy - in typical all-kids-have-done-this fashion - he befriends both a talking snow monkey and a giant samurai beetle, pulls swords from the skull of a massive skeleton monster, and almost gets eaten by scary underwater eyeball plants.

Distributed by: Focus Features / Universal Pictures