It is a tricky feat for an animator to transition to live-action filmmaking. It is a huge leap to go from one filmmaking medium to another. But that seems to be the trend with How to Train Your Dragon directors Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois helming directorial efforts for Call of the Wild and Micronauts, respectively.

So, it is worth acknowledging the directors that started from animation and made a seamless transition to live-action, where they easily employ their aesthetics with real-life elements. Here are the ten best animation directors who transitioned to live-action movies and TV shows.

Rob Minkoff

Rob Minkoff got his start in Walt Disney Animation Studios as an in-between artist for The Black Cauldron (1985). He got his first directorial efforts in Stuart Little and Stuart Little 2, which received a positive reception. He returned to Disney with directing the Eddie Murphy-comedy The Haunted Mansion.

Though he directed less successful live-action films with The Forbidden Kingdom and Flypaper, he returned to animation with the DreamWorks time-traveling adventure Mr. Peabody & Sherman to limited success.

Seth MacFarlane

The Family Guy creator, who had a background in animation from his Hanna-Barbera days, utilizes the success of his Fox show for his first live-action effort with Ted, which gained massive critical and box office success. He then followed that success with A Million Ways to Die in the West and Ted 2, which achieved middling-to-negative reception.

But ever since then, Seth MacFarlane balanced out his efforts in both Family Guy and American Dad with the science-fiction satire The Orville, to critical acclaim till its second season. The show will return for a third season in Hulu. And he even served acting roles in the Steven Soderbergh heist movie Logan Lucky and the Roger Ailes-centered Showtime miniseries The Loudest Voice. He also produced the sci-fi documentary series Cosmos.

Travis Knight

The mastermind who reorganized the stop-motion vendor Will Vinton Studios to become the critically acclaimed Laika, Travis Knight had a broad role as producer for the studio’s splendid hits like Paranorman and The Boxtrolls. He achieved critical acclaim with Kubo and the Two Strings, which nominated him for an Oscar and granted him a BAFTA for Best Animated Film.

Even with his crucial involvement in Laika, Knight directed the Transformers spinoff Bumblebee to positive acclaim and healthy box office returns, making it the best-received film of the dwindling franchise. That became a calling card for him to be tapped for future live-action projects like the Uncharted film adaptation, starring Tom Holland, and the big-screen adaptation of The Six Million Dollar Man, starring Mark Wahlberg.

Andrew Stanton

The Pixar veteran had a long history with the iconic company. Being one of the first animators for the studio, he helmed the directorial efforts for A Bug’s Life, WALL-E, Finding Nemo, and its sequel Finding Dory and also co-written Monsters Inc. and the entire Toy Story series.

But in 2012, he directed the massive-scale space opera John Carter, based on the books by Edgar Rice Burroughs. The movie was a box office flop, losing Disney about $200 million, the largest writedown for a studio, by far. But even with that effort, Stanton got tapped to direct episodes for hit TV shows like Stranger Things, Better Call Saul and Legion. He has since bounced back to animation as a creative consultant for Disney and Pixar.

Mike Judge

The voice of Cleveland Brown had his career start in animation, as well as being the mastermind behind the cult hit Beavis and Butt-Head for MTV. He also directed its feature-length movie Beavis and Butt-Head Do America. Thanks to its success, he co-created the other cult hit King of the Hill and a series of shorts entitled Milton.

After that, Judge penned Office Space, intended to be an ensemble piece and a comedy that features the Milton character. Going through several studio obstacles, the film was released to limited success but found itself as a cult hit and a timely satire of workplace politics. Despite this, Judge hated the third act. He soon directed two movies, Idiocracy and Extract, and created the HBO show Silicon Valley.

Rob Letterman

Having his start on an animated short called Los Gringos, Rob Letterman was hired by DreamWorks Animation for its first CGI-animated hit Shrek. He was soon given co-directorial duties for Shark Tale and Monsters vs. Aliens to box office success but mixed critical response.

Letterman had his first live-action effort with his Shark Tale star Jack Black in Gulliver’s Travels to negative reception yet worldwide box office success. He soon reunited Black for the first movie adaptation of R.L. Stine’s book series Goosebumps, with Black playing Stine himself. The horror family film was a surprise for critics and audiences that it spawned a sequel on 2018, Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween. The year after, he directed Pokémon Detective Pikachu, the second highest-grossing videogame film adaptation.

Marjane Satrapi

Satrapi was an Iranian national whose family lived under oppression during the Iranian Revolution. She soon shared about her war-torn childhood through the graphic novels Persepolis and The Sigh, which were critically acclaimed. Thanks to its reception, it received the animation treatment, on which she co-directed with Vincent Paronnaud.  The resulting animated film was also universally acclaimed, with Satrapi being nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Film, the first instance a woman was nominated for that category.

After the success of Persepolis, Satrapi venturing to direct live-action films, starting with Chicken with Plums with Paronnaud. She continued on with Gang of the Jotas, the Ryan Reynolds dark comedy The Voices and a Marie Curie biopic Radioactive, starring Rosamund Pike as Curie.

Phil Lord and Christopher Miller

Back when they are synonymous with meta blockbusters, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller had their start in animation with the less successful Clone High, which subsequently became a cult hit. After that brief stint, the duo was tapped to adapt the children’s book Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs for Sony, receiving positive praise and box office success.

Deciding to go on a different direction, Lord and Miller assigned themselves to direct the 21 Jump Street film adaptation, starring Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum, to enormous success. They followed it up with an equally successful sequel 22 Jump Street. Yet after 21 Jump Street, Lord and Miller helmed a Lego-themed movie, which soon became The Lego Movie that spawned a movie franchise. Currently, the successful directorial duo had been helming producer credits for animation and live-action, with the prominent being Solo: A Star Wars Story and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

Brad Bird

Brad Bird had loved animation since his childhood days. That passion resulted in him being an animator for Disney for their films The Fox and the Hound and The Black Cauldron. He briefly helmed a crucial role as a creative consultant for The Simpsons, with directorial credits on the music video for “Do the Bartman”, the debut of Sideshow Bob “Krusty Gets Busted” and the debut of Rabbi Krustofsky “Like Father, Like Clown”.

He soon grabbed his first directorial effort for a feature-length animated film in The Iron Giant, which soon garnered universal praise in the industry. Thanks to the glowing review of the latter, he joined Pixar with three hugely successful efforts with The Incredibles, Ratatouille and Incredibles 2. And In 2011, he directed the fourth Mission: Impossible movie in Ghost Protocol, which garnered praise for his direction. He followed it up with 2015’s sci-fi Tomorrowland to mixed results.

Tim Burton

The gothic filmmaker got his humble beginnings when Disney took notice of his stop-motion short Attack of the Celery Monster that got him a job for the Disney animated film The Fox and the Hound and The Black Cauldron, along with his colleague Brad Bird. He released another stop-motion short entitled Vincent. And he got his first efforts into live-action via Disney with Hansel & Gretel and Frankenweenie.

Thanks to the latter short, Burton got his directorial debut with Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. And from there, he is now associated with his macabre style in masterpieces like Beetlejuice, Batman, Edward Scissorhands, and Ed Wood, and in reimaginings of classics like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Alice in Wonderland and Dumbo.