Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001) is a sci-fi animated film you can watch online on iFILM. Director Hironobu Sakaguchi — the creator of the Final Fantasy game franchise — brought his universe to the big screen: Earth in 2065 is overrun by phantom aliens that pass through walls and cannot be stopped by conventional weapons.

Scientist Aki Ross, voiced by Ming-Na Wen, scours the dying planet for eight spirit entities that may hold the only non-destructive answer to the invasion. Her mentor Dr. Sid, voiced by Donald Sutherland, guides the theory; the Deep Eyes Squadron, including a character voiced by Alec Baldwin, provides the firepower. James Woods voices General Hein, who would rather blast the planet to ash than lose the war.

Produced by Square and Columbia Pictures over four years at a cost of roughly 137 million dollars, the film was the first photorealistic CG feature with human characters — every facial muscle, skin pore and light refraction was rendered by hand. It split audiences and underperformed at the box office, yet its technical ambition rewrote what animation could look like. Watch Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001) online on iFILM.