An American Tail

An American Tail (1986) is an animated adventure film produced by Steven Spielberg and directed by Don Bluth — watch it online on iFILM. Young mouse Fievel sails with his family from Russia to New York at the turn of the 20th century, lured by the legend that America has no cats. A storm tears him from the ship, and he washes up in the harbour alone, with no idea where his family went.

The film follows Fievel through the tenements and docks of immigrant New York as he searches for his parents and keeps running into trouble — including the cats that definitely do exist, despite what anyone promised. Dom DeLuise, Madeline Kahn and Christopher Plummer provide voices; the closing ballad "Somewhere Out There" became a pop hit.

Don Bluth had left Disney specifically to make animation without the studio's insistence on soft edges, and it shows: this film treats a child's fear and loneliness without much reassurance. That willingness to sit with difficult emotions is why An American Tail still holds up forty years later — it earns its happy ending rather than assuming it. Stream the film (1986) on iFILM.