Coraline

Coraline Jones moves into the Pink Palace Apartments in Ashland, Oregon with her loving but work-consumed parents . While exploring the nearby forest, Coraline encounters a stray black cat and a boy who tends it, Wybie Lovat. She also befriends long-retired actresses Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, and an acrobat named Mr. Bobinsky.

While exploring her apartment complex, Coraline finds a small door closed by bricks. Awakened that night by a button-eyed "jumping mouse," she follows it to discover a passage extending beyond the miniature door, which leads her to an alternate version of the house grounds called the "Other World." Upon arrival therein, Coraline meets button-eyed doppelgangers of her mother and father, who claim to be her "Other" parents. These figures guide her to a more luxurious and attractive version of the house and its surroundings. The Other Mother and Father celebrate her presence with delicious food, a beautiful, enchanted garden, and the affection Coraline feels she is missing in her own world.

Coraline continues visiting the Other World, where she is entertained by the "Other" versions of Wybie and the neighbors. The black cat, who can speak when in the Other World, informs Coraline that the Other Mother and her world are a trap set to entice children who believe themselves neglected. Coraline refuses to believe this until the Other Mother offers for her to stay in the Other World if she will sew buttons over her eyes. Coraline demands to return to her real parents, angering the Other Mother into assuming a wretched, gangly form and trapping her in a small room behind a mirror as punishment. There she finds three ghost children who previously fell into the hands of the Other Mother and lost their eyes and souls to her.

With the help of the Other Wybie, Coraline escapes to her own world, only to find her real parents kidnapped by the Other Mother. Aided by the black cat and a seeing stone given to her by Spink and Forcible, Coraline returns to the Other World seeking to free her parents and the ghost children by challenging the Other Mother to a game. One by one, she finds the children's "eyes" (or rather their souls) and destroys the inhabitants of the Other World guarding them. She also finds her parents and tricks the Other Mother into opening the door to her own world, deliberately claiming that they are behind it, to make her escape, closing the door on, and severing, the Other Mother's hand.

Though her parents are safe (with no memory of the incident) and the ghost children have moved on to the afterlife, Coraline's task is not done. Coraline realizes that the Other Mother will try to enter her world to reclaim her, and goes to drop the only key to the door connecting their worlds down a well on the premises. The Other Mother's severed hand enters Coraline's world and attempts to retrieve the key, but it is destroyed by Coraline and Wybie and dropped down the well with the key. Having rid the world of the Other Mother, Coraline has a gardening party with her parents and neighbors.