The Boxtrolls (2014)
Perhaps the biggest sign of my Disney/Pixar snobbery is my inability to distinguish other studios work. I thought the last Laika film I watched was Book of Life, but that was made by a different company, which may explain the fairly poor screenplay and more pedestrian animation. I watch Nightmare Before Christmas every year and often discover some new detail to marvel over, but Boxtrolls and Kubo may be the two greatest achievements in stop motion animation ever. These films seem to have no technical limitations, producing images and a fluidity of movement I simply didn't think possible. (The films are also as well lit as the most striking Pixar feature.) On that level Boxtrolls is a solid win.
As for the story... I mean it's not bad, it's just never took hold of its themes like Coraline or Fantastic Mr. Fox. Wes Anderson stop motion is crude, but the themes in the writing strike hard. Same with LEGO movie. Boxtrolls has some ideas about labels, but I never understood why the trolls lived in fear for so long, why they were so quick to change, why the Snatcher so badly wanted something that clearly was bad for him, and why he acted so oblivious to what was happening to his own body. This is where I give a slight advantage to Kubo, but this is certainly better than typical Disney knock-offs and Aardman, including Laika's own Missing Link.