James and the Giant Peach (1996)

James and the Giant Peach (1996) is a musical fantasy animated film, based on Roald Dahl’s novel of the same name, and directed by Henry Selick. In the summer of 1948, James Henry Trotter, an English orphan, lives with his cruel aunts Spiker and Sponge after his parents were devoured by a flying rhinoceros on his birthday. One day, while saving a spider from his aunts’ wrath, James receives enchanted ‘crocodile tongues’ from a mysterious stranger. These magical objects have the ability to make anything they touch grow to enormous proportions. But when James falls while running home with the tongues, they escape and end up in the ground under an old peach tree. As a result, an enormous peach grows, which Spiker and Sponge exploit as a tourist attraction.

At night, James discovers a pit inside the peach filled with human-sized anthropomorphic invertebrates. Among them are Mr. Grasshopper, Mr. Centipede, Ms. Spider (whom he had previously saved), Mr. Earthworm, Mrs. Ladybug, and Mrs. Glowworm. As they hear Spiker and Sponge searching for James, Centipede cuts the stem connecting the peach to the tree and it rolls towards the Atlantic Ocean. With a flock of seagulls attached to its stem by strings, the invertebrates fly the peach to New York City to fulfill James’ dream of visiting the Empire State Building like his parents wanted to do. However, their journey is not without obstacles as they encounter a giant mechanical shark and undead skeletal pirates in the Arctic Ocean. Upon their arrival in New York City, they are suddenly attacked by a raging rhinoceros – the very same one that killed James’ parents. Despite being scared, James manages to guide everyone safely and confronts the rhino before it can strike the peach with lightning. In a dramatic turn of events, both James and the peach land on top of the Empire State Building below them.