Polygon’s list of the best animated movies of 2024 is full of the best animation from around the world, ranging from surreal French movies to Pixar sequels. My top three personal favorites were The Wild Robot, Flow, and Robot Dreams. All three are vastly stylistically different, which definitely appealed to me. But there was something else I felt tied the three of them together in my head, making them a perfect triple feature of not just three good films, but also three thematically harmonious ones.
I broke it down into this handy-dandy Venn diagram:
Graphic: Petrana Radulovic/Polygon | Source images: DreamWorks Animation, Neon, Janus Films
No dialogue
Image: Neon
Robot Dreams and Flow are both silent movies, with a lot of emphasis on the characters’ physicality and how they express themselves without words. Survival adventure Flow is very grounded in how real animals move, to the point where even the more unrealistic actions seem like they could happen if the cat was really damn smart. Robot Dreams, however, takes place in a world of anthropomorphic animals, so it’s more cartoony in expression, both in the characters’ movements and the expressions on their faces.
Both movies masterfully convey their subtle themes without any dialogue whatsoever, which makes the messages of survival and companionship in Flow and life-changing friendships and drifting apart in Robot Dreams just hit all the harder.
Robot-animal friendship
Image: DreamWorks Animation
In case it wasn’t super obvious, both Robot Dreams and The Wild Robot involve… robots! But more importantly, they both involve robots making life-altering friendships with animals.
The beauty is that they approach these friendships in different ways. In The Wild Robot, the animals are — you guessed it — wild and animal-like. Roz, the main robot, is more of a stereotypical robot, programmed to behave one way and follow orders. Roz’s friendships with the animals change her at her core, especially the relationship between Roz and young gosling Brightbill. In turn, the animals slowly begin to accept Roz as one of their own and learn lessons from her. There’s a beautiful give and take between all parties.
Meanwhile, Robot Dreams’ animals are essentially people, and its robots aren’t really specifically programmed to do anything but vibe. Still, the friendship between Robot and Dog is deep and transformative. It’s more drilled down and focused specifically on the pair of them. The movie really examines just how poignant and powerful a friendship can be — especially when life takes those friends in different directions.
Animals in a sci-fi wilderness devoid of humans that gives no explanation but the environmental storytelling is strong
Image: Janus Films
Flow and The Wild Robot both take place in worlds with lingering traces of humanity, but little to no human presence. In both cases, there are hints to what may have happened to the humans. It’s a little more obvious in The Wild Robot, since Roz herself was manufactured by humans. But still, there aren’t any clear answers in either movie about the state of humanity and why it’s so separate from the wilderness. Flow, meanwhile, is set in a strange flooded landscape that humans have clearly left behind.
It’s rich world-building that doesn’t overpower the story, but instead softly augments it by simply being undeniably in the background. Both movies involve a degree of coming together after isolation, and survival through kindness, and that’s all emphasized when the humanity is just a footprint instead of an overarching threat or presence.
Crying, sobbing, weeping
The thread that all three movies share: They made me tear up!
OK, that’s the easy answer. The real answer is that they’re all about unlikely connections and how they fundamentally change who you are, and what that means going forward; about how kindness and compassion are strengths and not weaknesses; and about how it’s better to open yourself up to friendship instead of being alone, even when being vulnerable might be terrifying.
And because animation is a brilliant medium that allows for the most fantastical to come alive in rich and evocative ways, all those grounded themes can be communicated in stories about robots and animals in lush, unique worlds.