The 8 Best Animated Movies of the 2020s

Ranked purely by movie.guru score. The biggest money finished sixth. The smallest movies took the top. Argue with the math, not me.

Number one made less than KPop Demon Hunters in theaters, and it's not close.

1. 8
   KPop Demon Hunters (2025)8.9

   The catchiest movie here, and theaters barely noticed.

   Reported $100M budget, $24.6M worldwide in theaters, yet 145,419 IMDb votes say everyone watched it anyway. The songs carry it. The plot is a music video with a villain.
2. 7
   Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc (2025)9.1

   A date movie that turns into a demolition derby.

   96% on Rotten Tomatoes and an A CinemaScore, but Metacritic stops at 71. Critics flinched. Fans did not, pushing Reze Arc to $162.4M worldwide.
3. 6
   Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Infinity Castle (2025)9.2

   Biggest money here, but it's a chapter, not a movie.

   $793.6M worldwide on a reported $20M budget. Audiences beat 99% of movies. Metacritic says 67, and the Guru's Take is 7.9, because newcomers get zero help.
4. 5
   The Wild Robot (2024)9.4

   The movie that made grown adults cry about geese.

   Metacritic 85, an A CinemaScore and $334.5M worldwide. Lupita Nyong'o does real work as a robot. The flaw: the middle stretch hammers the same lesson twice.
5. 4
   Wildwood (2026)9.5

   Stop-motion this good should not have struggled this hard.

   Metacritic 88 and an 8.7 on IMDb, then $53.3M worldwide on a reported $100M budget. Travis Knight built a forest by hand and audiences mostly drove past it.
6. 3
   Flow (2024)9.5

   The smallest production here outclasses the studio giants.

   Gints Zilbalodis is the only name in the cast list, and it still hit 97% on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic 87. Worldwide: $30.9M. The animation sometimes looks like a video game cutscene.
7. 2
   Dan Da Dan: Evil Eye (2025)9.5

   Ranked this high on a tiny sample, and that's suspicious.

   A 9.5 movie.guru score built on just 2,427 IMDb votes and no critic consensus. The Guru's Take is 7.4. It's fun. It is not a 9.5.
8. 1
   Look Back (2024)9.6

   The best animated movie of the decade made $6.04M.

   100% on Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic 90, critics beat 98% of movies. That worldwide gross is tiny. It's quiet and small, and the people who skipped it will fight hardest.

$734 says the first comment is someone asking where Across the Spider-Verse went.

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Current mood: ready to fight about it