The Boxtrolls

The Boxtrolls (2014) is Laika's stop-motion fantasy you can watch online on iFILM. Beneath the cobblestones of cheese-obsessed Cheesebridge live shy tinkerers who wear cardboard boxes instead of clothes.

An orphan named Eggs is raised by these underground creatures. By night they scavenge gears, springs and junk to build clever contraptions; by day they hide from a town that fears them. Pest exterminator Archibald Snatcher (voiced by Ben Kingsley) feeds that fear to claw his way into Cheesebridge's snooty upper crust. To earn the white hat of the elite, he hunts the Boxtrolls one by one. So Eggs (Isaac Hempstead Wright) climbs to the surface and teams up with Winnie (Elle Fanning), the mayor's fearless daughter, to prove the real monsters aren't the ones in boxes.

Laika animated the film frame by frame over more than a year, blending handcrafted puppets with digital polish. The voice cast reads like a roll call of British comedy: Nick Frost, Richard Ayoade, Simon Pegg and Jared Harris. Adapted from Alan Snow's novel, it's a gloomy, big-hearted tale about families you build rather than inherit. Stream The Boxtrolls (2014) online on iFILM.