Modern animation in the United States from the late 1980s to the early 2000s is frequently referred to as the renaissance age of American animation. During this period, many large American entertainment companies would reform and reinvigorate their animation departments following the dark age, and the United States influenced global and worldwide animation.

Many companies originating in the golden age of American animation experienced newfound critical and commercial success. During the Disney Renaissance, The Walt Disney Company went back to producing critically and commercially successful animated films based on well-known stories, just as principal co-founder Walt Disney had done during his lifetime. Disney also began producing successful animated television shows, a then-first for the company, which led to the creation and launch of Disney Channel. Warner Bros. produced highly successful animated cartoon television series inspired by their classic Looney Tunes cartoons, while also launching the DC Animated Universe. Hanna-Barbera ceased production on low budget television series and, through its acquisition by Ted Turner, launched Cartoon Network. Nickelodeon, a network owned by the first and second incarnations of Viacom Inc. until 2019, ViacomCBS until 2022, and Paramount Global until 2025, and Paramount Skydance thereafter, rose to fame by creating the Nicktoons brand in 1991 which led to various acclaimed programs under the label in the 1990s and 2000s.

Additionally, new animation studios rose to prominence during this period. Most notably, Pixar debuted with the extremely successful Toy Story, the first feature film to entirely use computer-generated imagery (CGI). DreamWorks Animation, freshly spun-out from DreamWorks (later named DreamWorks Pictures) debuted late in the era, but would become a major competitor and alternative to Disney in the subsequent decade. During this era, the technology used to produce animation would experience revolutionary shifts. Beginning in the mid-1990s, traditional animation using hand-drawn cels declined in favor of more advanced up-and-coming methods, like digital ink and paint (a modern form of traditional animation) and 3D computer animation. These changes in animation technology led to the millennium age of American animation, which started in the early 2000s and has continued into present day.

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Disney

At the start of the 1980s, The Walt Disney Company had been struggling since Walt Disney died in 1966, and the 1979 departure of Don Bluth and eleven other associates from the animation department dealt Disney a major blow. Bluth formed a new studio in direct competition with Disney.

Disney's "Nine Old Men", the animators responsible for Disney's most famous earlier works, and their associates began to hand their traditions to a new generation of Disney animators. New faces such as Glen Keane, Ron Clements, John Musker, Andreas Deja, and others came to the studio in the late 1970s and early 1980s, a period that produced such features as The Rescuers, Pete's Dragon (a live-action/animation hybrid), and The Fox and the Hound, as well as the featurettes The Small One (Bluth's only Disney-directed credit) and Mickey's Christmas Carol (the first screen appearance of Mickey Mouse since 1953).

At the same time, animator Steven Lisberger brought to the studio a concept about a computer programmer who is launched into a computerized world. The film would combine live-action sequences with computer animation, which had not yet been used to such an extent. The studio was impressed with the idea; the result was an ambitious $17 million film ($ in today's dollars) entitled Tron. While Disney's stock dropped four percent after a screening for unenthusiastic investment analysts, and despite only moderate grosses at the box office, Tron received enthusiastic praise from film critic Roger Ebert, became a cult favorite and turned out—many years later—to have a greater influence on animation (at Disney and elsewhere) than expected.Tron (1982) – Turner Classic Movies

In 1984, Disney became the target of a corporate raid by Saul Steinberg, who intended to break up the company piece by piece. At the same time, Roy E. Disney, who had already resigned as President in 1977, relinquished his spot on the Board of Directors to use his clout to change the status quo and improve the company's declining fortune. Disney escaped Steinberg's attempt by paying him greenmail, but in its aftermath, CEO Ron W. Miller resigned, to be replaced by Michael Eisner. Roy Disney, now back on the Board as its Vice-Chairman, convinced Eisner to let him supervise the animation department, whose future was in serious doubt after the disappointing box office performance of its big-budget PG-rated feature, The Black Cauldron. The studio's next release, The Great Mouse Detective, fared better in relation to its significantly smaller budget, but it was overshadowed by Don Bluth's An American Tail, another film featuring mice characters that competed directly with Mouse Detective in theaters.

In 1988, the studio collaborated with Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis to make Who Framed Roger Rabbit, a comedic detective caper that mixed live-action and animation while paying homage to the Golden Age of Cartoons. Disney characters appeared with characters from Warner Bros., Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Universal Pictures and other rival studios for the first time in animation history. The film was a huge box-office success, winning four Academy Awards, reviving interest in animation made for theatres, and popularizing the in-depth study of the history and techniques of animation. Several ageing legends in the business, such as Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng, suddenly found themselves the center of attention, receiving acclaim and accolades after decades of being virtually ignored by audiences and industry professionals alike. Additionally, the release of many older Disney features and short cartoons on home video, and the company's creation of new Saturday-morning cartoons for CBS and NBC respectively (such as The Wuzzles and Adventures of the Gummi Bears, renewed interest in the studio.

Disney followed up Who Framed Roger Rabbit with Oliver & Company in 1988 and The Little Mermaid, an adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, in 1989 with songs by Broadway composers Alan Menken and Howard Ashman. The Little Mermaid was a huge critical and commercial success. It won two Academy Awards for its song and score and became the first of a series of highly successful new Disney animated features.

The studio invested heavily in new technology, creating the Computer Animation Production System to be used in tandem with traditional animation techniques. The first film to use this technology, The Rescuers Down Under, only grossed $27,931,461 ($ in today's dollars), not even equalling the take of the original 1977 film.

However, the films that followed, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin, won rave reviews, received multiple Oscars and topped the box office charts. Beauty and the Beast would eventually become the first animated feature to win the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy and to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, followed by 2009's Up and 2010's Toy Story 3.

In 1993, Disney released The Nightmare Before Christmas, the first feature-length stop-motion animated film. Disney's success peaked in 1994, when The Lion King grossed $328,541,776 ($ in today's dollars) and became the highest-grossing movie of that year. As of 2024, The Lion King ranks as the 22nd highest-grossing motion picture of all time in the United States and the highest-grossing hand-drawn movie of all time. Subsequent Disney films from 1995 to 2000, including Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Mulan, Tarzan, and Fantasia 2000 were box office and/or critical successes as well, albeit modestly so when compared to Disney's early-1990s releases.

In 1994, the death of Disney President and Chief Operating Officer Frank Wells, and the departure of studio chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg to co-found DreamWorks, left Michael Eisner in full control of the company. At the turn of the century, films such as Dinosaur (Disney's first CG animated feature), Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Treasure Planet and Home on the Range failed to meet the critical and commercial expectations set by the 1990s phenomena, despite exceptions such as The Emperor's New Groove and Lilo & Stitch. At the same time, the high level of popular acclaim bestowed upon Toy Story, the first CGI animated film, sparked an industry trend. Based on the commercial success of Pixar's animated movies and other CGI fare (especially DreamWorks' Shrek, which contained numerous jabs at Katzenberg's former workplace and boss), Disney came to believe that CGI was what the public wanted, so it ceased producing traditional animation after Home on the Range, and switched exclusively to CGI starting with 2005's Chicken Little.

Public rifts grew between the animation staff and management, as well as between Michael Eisner and Roy E. Disney. Roy resigned from the board of directors in 2003 with a scathing letter calling the company "rapacious and soulless", adding that he considered it "always looking for the quick buck." He then launched the internet site SaveDisney.com in an attempt to preserve the integrity of the company and to oust Eisner, who resigned in 2005 after public opinion turned against him.

Robert Iger succeeded Eisner; one of his first acts as CEO was to regain the rights to Walt Disney's first star Oswald the Lucky Rabbit from NBCUniversal (Iger did so by offering NBC the services of Al Michaels, a play-by-play host then under contract to Disney subsidiary ABC Sports, as a trade). After Disney acquired Pixar in 2006, Pixar executive producer John Lasseter became Chief Creative Officer at both Pixar and Disney, with a plan to reintroduce two-dimensional animation, starting with The Princess and the Frog in 2009, but was abruptly halted after Winnie the Pooh was commercially unsuccessful in 2011.

Television animation

After 30 years of resisting offers to produce television animation, Disney finally relented once Michael Eisner, who had a background in TV, took over. The first TV cartoons to carry the Disney name, CBS' The Wuzzles and NBC's Adventures of the Gummi Bears, both premiered in the fall of 1985. Breaking from standard practice in the medium, the productions enjoyed substantially larger production budgets than average, allowing for higher-quality writing and animation, in anticipation of recouping profitably in rerun syndication. While The Wuzzles only lasted a season, Adventures of the Gummi Bears was a sustained success with a six-season run.

In 1987, the TV animation division adapted Carl Barks' Scrooge McDuck comic books for the small screen with the syndicated hit DuckTales. Its success spawned a 1990 theatrical film entitled DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp and an increased investment in syndicated cartoons. The result of this investment was The Disney Afternoon in 1990, a two-hour syndicated television programming block of such animated cartoon shows as: The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1988-1991), Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers (1989–1991), TaleSpin (1990–1991), Darkwing Duck (1991–1993, also airing on ABC), Goof Troop (1992–1994, also airing on ABC), Bonkers (1993–1994), Marsupilami (1993–1995), the critically acclaimed and still-popular Gargoyles (1994–1997), and Pepper Ann (1997–2000). TV animation also brought some animated feature film characters to Saturday morning, including The Little Mermaid (1992–1994), Aladdin (1994–1995), Timon & Pumbaa (1995–1999), Hercules (1998–1999) (the first three on CBS), and later The Legend of Tarzan (2001–2003) and House of Mouse (2001–2003).