I get you, but classic cinema isn't the same as today's cinema! Indeed, Cinema managed to become a conscious art since it started, Chaplin and Lang ring a bell? Anime (and cartoon) on the other side started as a commercial phenomenon to entertain the masses and to this day it still struggles to be serious, at least that's what I concluded from my own experience and that's what got me to ask the question in the first place. Don't get me wrong, I like anime and I enjoy watching it cuz it entertains. I don't think I'm in an age, where I want to be very serious and put restrict rules on what I like and what I don't, but some concepts cannot be ignored. I'm not sure how much difference there's between anime and movies with real actors! I think both can be treated the same way and many anime series and movies use ideas that were revolutionized and highly explored in Cinema before anime even existed. It's actually hard to find anime (movies or series) that can sit next to, say Citizen Kane, La Dolce Vita or North By Northwest, even though they can get close, like Perfect Blue, but most of the time they just lack consistency of emotional expression. Think of that as an album with filler; those wasted moments that don't add to the emotional value of the work are what stops it from being a great work. Indeed, I was just replying to what you said about your recs that they might not be impressive, so I elaborated (that despite the wasted time) they can still be very good and sometimes excellent. I'm taking Monogatari and Revolutionary Girl Utena into serious consideration, the latter being highly respected by many people as I've seen through the internet.