Directors Don Bluth, an El Paso native, and Gary Goldman took the 1956 live action movie about an urban legend — that the youngest daughter of Russian Tsar Nicholas II had escaped execution — and turned it into this hit animated musical fantasy. It’s one of their most popular movies, and it inspired a Broadway musical. A charming story about an 18-year-old orphan girl who gets help from two unlikely sources in the search for her grandmother, it is one of the mostly lushly animated of their movies, with some of their most dazzling visuals (El Paso animators Shawn Gibson and his late wife Vikki Gibson worked on it). Composer David Newman’s father, Alfred Newman, created the score for the 1956 original. — Doug Pullen

Rated: G