The 10 Best DreamWorks Animation Movies, Ranked

In its nearly 30 years of existence, DreamWorks Animation has had a remarkable trajectory marked primarily by the bulk of franchises it created, as much as through the quality of the films themselves. Consider that one of its chief competitors, Pixar Animation Studios, started making feature-length computer-animated films in 1995 (three years before DreamWorks’ first, the 1998 comedy “Antz”) and has made just 28 features in the intervening 30 years. DreamWorks? Well, it’s made 49 features in just over 25 years. Some of these films are best left forgotten or have only been rediscovered over time courtesy of oddball memes (see: “Bee Movie”). But DreamWorks Animation, amidst the Trolls and boss babies, the chatty penguins of Madagascar, and silent horses who embody the spirit of the Cimarron, has made 10 genuinely solid movies. And with the arrival in late September of DreamWorks’ “The Wild Robot,” there’s no better time than right now to rank those 10 films and see if the studio’s latest title makes the grade.

The box office failure of “Rise of the Guardians” feels like a flashpoint in hindsight for DreamWorks Animation, which wound up licking its wounds after this 2012 movie was unable to do solid numbers over the holiday season. It’s a shame, too, because the film itself, adapted from a William Joyce story and partially shepherded to the big screen by executive producer Guillermo del Toro, is a clever play on some holiday childhood favorite characters like Jack Frost (voiced by Chris Pine), Santa Claus (Alec Baldwin), and the Easter Bunny (Hugh Jackman). Coming just a few months after the massive success of Marvel’s “The Avengers,” DreamWorks could have leaned into the heroic angle of the story in which a group of childhood names come together to fight off the Boogeyman (Jude Law), but audiences only were able to discover this underrated gem after the fact, and after DreamWorks had to scale back productions and lay off hundreds. Though most of DreamWorks’ best films (and, frankly, plenty of its worst) have been properly rated or revered by audiences at the time, this is one film that audiences missed out on, sadly leading to a rougher period of even fewer distinctive films outside of recognizable intellectual property.

It was only logical after the box office success of “Chicken Run” that DreamWorks Animation would want to partner with Aardman Animations again, and specifically in bringing the beloved duo of Wallace and Gromit to the big screen. The resulting effort, the 2005 film “Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit,” is as charming, funny, and exciting as the short films the studio made previously, while combining many of the elements that fans had come to expect (from breathless action sequences to animals who are up to no good and lots and lots of food being depicted). If there’s any place where the feature struggles, relative to the short films, it’s in beefing up the characters of Wallace and Gromit to have subplots and romantic relationships. But that’s also tied into the film having some notable British performers among the cast, including Helena Bonham Carter and Ralph Fiennes, both of whom seem to get a kick out of playing against type as a wealthy spinster who falls for Wallace and an upper-class fop, respectively. “Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit” was ultimately victorious at the Oscars, winning the Best Animated Feature award and marking the last time that DreamWorks was ever so lucky as of 2024. (In that same vein, the studio was probably glad that Pixar didn’t release a film in 2005.)

DreamWorks Animation’s bread and butter is its ability to expand one film into many and, unfortunately, run any potential franchise into the ground. It’s not that they only make sequels, but the franchises that they create often have many sequels and spin-offs. One such spin-off is also a sequel, the 2022 film “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.” Over 20 years separate this film from the first “Shrek,” which didn’t even introduce the Spaniard version of the eponymous character, voiced by Antonio Banderas. While the 2011 “Puss in Boots” is a perfectly serviceable animated film, the long-in-development sequel is a step up in part because it tries to be a bit darker and more adult. Much of the action in the film is about Puss attempting to literally outrun Death, as he’s lost eight of his nine lives and is awfully close to losing that last one. While “The Last Wish” is perhaps not as emotionally rich as a Pixar film like “Toy Story 3,” which ends with its characters looking a fiery death in the face and accepting their fate as one, it’s more willing to engage with its heady premise and is visualized cleverly with striking and colorful designs. But it’s also got plenty of silly, weird humor (as in the would-be tough guy Big Jack Horner, voiced by comedian John Mulaney) and a few unexpected twists along the way (even as it ends with a tease for “Shrek 5”).

Over the last decade, DreamWorks Animation has seen its fortunes fall slightly. The animation studio has bounced among a handful of larger distribution units (from Paramount to Fox to now Universal) and it’s primarily reviving titles that worked for a previous generation. One additional way that DreamWorks has tried to change things up is by scaling back its budgets. That’s what led to the 2017 adaptation of the Dav Pilkey series “Captain Underpants,” about two good friends (voiced here by Thomas Middleditch and Kevin Hart) who mess around at their elementary school and inadvertently turn their obnoxious principal (Ed Helms) into a comic-book superhero who never wears clothes…except for tighty-whities. “Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie” is as silly as it sounds, but it’s also surprisingly very funny. It makes perfect sense that the film’s closing theme song is performed by “Weird Al” Yankovic, because his outrageous style of comedy fits in so well here. Along with Nick Kroll and Jordan Peele as the villain and his humorless henchman, the cast is exuberant and delightful to listen to, and the loose drawing style aligns well with the kiddie mentality. Another Pilkey adaptation, “Dog Man,” is on the way to theaters in January of 2025 and it will hopefully follow in the footsteps of this low-budget but very funny kids’ laugh riot.

The world of animation has come a long way since 2001, back when DreamWorks’ first genuine smash hit “Shrek” became a force to be reckoned with. In hindsight, simply from a technological standpoint, it’s next to impossible to believe that when the Oscars introduced its Best Animated Feature category, this won the inaugural award over the much better and emotionally resonant “Monsters, Inc.” from Pixar. Even compared to other films within the franchise all about an ogre with layers like an onion, this movie’s computer animation is vastly less impressive. But “Shrek” was able to have its creative cake and eat it too, delightfully sending up plenty of fairy tale storytelling conventions utilized by Disney’s own animated classics while also indulging in those same cliches before the adventure ends. The story of how the infamous ogre from all sorts of fairy tales turns into a lovable hero has been redone plenty in the intervening years, not only through the sequels and spin-offs but from competing studios. It created another iconic role for the outrageous comedian Eddie Murphy, as the irrepressible Donkey, and it helped establish DreamWorks as a serious competitor to Disney and Pixar. Though the technology hasn’t held up, this film’s sharpish, sly sense of humor is enough to help it remain one of DreamWorks’ best.

Just as “Shrek” was a few years removed in its commentary on the proliferation of Disney’s animated films and their distinctive storytelling choices, the 2008 action-adventure “Kung Fu Panda” feels an awful lot like the studio finally catching up to Pixar’s ability to fuse high-concept ideas with emotional power. The story of the exuberant adopted panda Po (voiced by Jack Black) and how his fanboy-ish love of all things kung fu ends up with him becoming the fabled Dragon Warrior is both utterly ridiculous and oddly compelling, much like Po himself. A movie in which a random assortment of animals and insects exhibit impressive kung fu skills ought to be unable to work, but “Kung Fu Panda” manages to be pretty effective, as much for the emotional arc of Po and his adoptive father as it is in depicting kung fu action with surprising speed and skill. Like plenty of other DreamWorks Animation films, there’s a bevy of recognizable actors, which also includes Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, and Jackie Chan. (Though there are only animal characters here, it’s easy to wish that the film had more accurate representation among its mostly white cast.) The film led to a handful of sequels, but has never quite topped the early prison break-out sequence here for sheer intensity and thrills.

You could call this cheating if you like, seeing as “Chicken Run” was released by DreamWorks Animation but not produced in-house. No, the production of this film went to the English stop-motion animation studio Aardman Animations, home of the “Wallace and Gromit” franchise. Its first full-length feature is a delightful riff on World War II epics like “The Great Escape,” focusing on a henhouse that knows it’s ripe for slaughter and bands together with a charming American rooster to find their freedom — lest they get their heads chopped off by an oafish farmer and his nasty and business-like wife. It would be wrong to say that this film has aged super-well in the last 25 years, but that’s less a commentary on the quality of animation as it is grappling with the reality of hearing Mel Gibson play the heroic American rooster. (For the recent sequel released by Netflix, the character is now voiced by Zachary Levi, which is maybe not a massive upgrade, though your mileage may vary.) If you can separate the art from the artist, though, you’re in for a treat. Even without the familiar presence of Wallace and Gromit, “Chicken Run” is a rollicking adventure with sly humor, a hissable villain, and the same kind of hairpin action sequences that defined Aardman’s short films.

For … well, a lot of reasons, it’s genuinely difficult to envision a scenario in which any major film studio would make “The Prince of Egypt” today. But this adaptation of the story of Moses is arguably the most ambitious film that DreamWorks Animation has ever made, over 25 years later. The film feels like a natural thematic follow-up to some of the mid-1990s films from Disney Animation, including those that DreamWorks honcho Jeffrey Katzenberg had some creative oversight into, from “The Lion King” to “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.” These are stories that attempt to be a bit edgier and more mature, and the same can be said of “The Prince of Egypt.” (One of the film’s directors, Brenda Chapman, would not only go onto win an Oscar for Pixar’s “Brave,” but had also come of creative age as a Disney animator in the 1980s and 1990s. With this film, she became the first woman to co-direct a mainstream animated feature.) “The Prince of Egypt” takes the story of Moses, leading up to him parting the red sea, and grafts it onto a somewhat familiar Disney-style arc, replete with music from Oscar-winner Stephen Schwartz and featuring recognizable names like Val Kilmer, Patrick Stewart, Jeff Goldblum, Sandra Bullock, Steve Martin, and Martin Short. Perhaps because it was a relatively moderate success by ’90s animation standards — making $281.6 million at the global box office against a $60 million budget — DreamWorks chose not to get heady with future films, but it’s a shame. This movie aimed big and hit.

Much of the 2000s is marked by DreamWorks Animation movies that all pull from the same bag of tricks, from massively famous lead actors to a heaping helping of pop-culture references to tide over the adults in the audiences (and don’t forget: plenty of needle-drops). Oh, and if there’s a few characters who can look smug in the marketing materials, that would help too. Movies from “Bee Movie” to “Shark Tale” to the many “Shrek” films all fell under this stereotype, and often leaned into them. While it’s true that the already-listed “Kung Fu Panda” tried to somewhat break the mold, it felt like a fluke until “How to Train Your Dragon” came along. Based on the book series of the same name, “How to Train Your Dragon” is the first DreamWorks movie to sincerely compete creatively with Pixar, pushing the limits of the studio’s animation capabilities (as it partnered with cinematographer Roger Deakins on the visuals), coupled with a rousing score from composer John Powell, along with a solid ensemble who transcend the illogic of a story full of Vikings whose leaders sound Scottish even if their children … do not. Most importantly, “How to Train Your Dragon” has the same kind of tender and energetic core relationship between a human and their pet, such as the titular leads in “Lilo & Stitch” or this film’s Hiccup and his dragon Toothless. Naturally, “How to Train Your Dragon” led to sequels (and an upcoming live-action remake), but the original remains the most thrilling and emotionally effective.

It’s undeniably true that recency bias is a thing. Sometimes, the movie you see right now feels like the best simply because it’s the one you just saw. (Just think of this “Boss Baby”-adjacent meme, and you’ll get it.) But it’s also true that “The Wild Robot” is an unexpectedly moving and powerful piece of animation. Watch this movie, and you can be once again assured that if Disney Animation made any genuine mistakes in the 2000s, it was letting go of the creative talents of Chris Sanders, the mastermind behind “Lilo & Stitch” as well as the aforementioned “How to Train Your Dragon” films. Sanders wrote and directed this adaptation of the Peter Brown book, taking place at an indeterminate point in Earth’s future as the eponymous Rozzum, known as Roz, is accidentally stranded in a deep forest and, in lieu of completing tasks assigned by humans, takes up the task of raising a gosling it names Brightbill, along with the initially unwilling aid of a sly fox named Fink. It helps to have the Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o as Roz in the kind of voice performance that ought to make Disney envious (especially since she’s done voice work for a few of its films before), as well as Pedro Pascal as Fink. Each of them threads the needle between being recognizable but not simply hired for being famous. (DreamWorks has been guilty of that latter notion a lot. A. Lot.) But this movie also winds up packing an emotional gut punch that places it alongside Pixar’s own “WALL-E” as one of the best modern science-fiction films with a heart. This is the kind of movie Disney should be making. It shouldn’t have let Sanders go.