---
title: "The Wild Robot"
year: 2024
kind: "film"
canonical: "https://film.one/film/the-wild-robot"
fi1m_id: "the-wild-robot"
imdb_id: "tt29623480"
tmdb_id: 1184918
wikidata_id: "Q124378349"
fi1m_score: 80
critics_score: 83
critics_reviews: 19
published: "2026-09-09"
updated: "2026-09-18T08:37:59.153271+00:00"
region: "LT"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# The Wild Robot (2024)

Directed by Chris Sanders · 1h 42m · LT N-7 · Family, Animation, Science Fiction, Adventure

## Identity

The Wild Robot

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/the-wild-robot
- **Type:** Film
- **Fi1m ID:** the-wild-robot
- **IMDb ID:** tt29623480
- **TMDB ID:** 1184918
- **Wikidata ID:** Q124378349
- **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt29623480/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/1184918, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q124378349

**Fi1m score: 80** · Critics 83 from 19 reviews

*In a sentence:* A robot built to take orders lands on an island where nobody gives any, and raises a goose instead

> Chris Sanders’s film about a robot raising a gosling is the warmest film DreamWorks has made in years, painted like a picture book and honest about death. We recommend it, with a caveat: the last third swaps feeling for action.

## Synopsis

A cargo ship is lost in a storm and a single crate washes up on an island with no people on it. Inside is Roz (Lupita Nyong’o), a domestic robot programmed to complete whatever task she is given. Nobody gives her one. The animals flee from her or attack her, and in trying to make herself useful she crushes a goose’s nest, leaving one unbroken egg. The gosling that hatches, Brightbill (Kit Connor), decides she is his mother. With reluctant help from a fox called Fink (Pedro Pascal) and advice from a possum (Catherine O’Hara), Roz sets herself a task: teach him to eat, swim and fly before the geese leave for the winter. Chris Sanders writes and directs, from Peter Brown’s children’s novel.

## Review

For its first twenty minutes *The Wild Robot* is a comedy about a machine that cannot find a customer. Roz wakes on a beach, folds herself upright and asks, in a bright shop-floor voice, whether anyone needs assistance. A crab does not. A grizzly bear (Mark Hamill) answers by chasing her off a cliff. Chris Sanders, who wrote the script from Peter Brown’s children’s novel, plays it as slapstick, and we laughed more than we expected to at a robot being knocked into the sea. Then the film changes, into something we recommend warmly, with a caveat about the last third.

The change comes with an egg. Roz lands on a goose’s nest and crushes everything in it but one egg, which a fox called Fink (Pedro Pascal) would like for breakfast. The gosling hatches, looks up at the machine standing over him and imprints. Pinktail (Catherine O’Hara), a possum with a great many children, explains what a mother is for: he has to eat, he has to swim, and he has to fly before the geese leave in autumn. Roz hears a task with a deadline and accepts it. For a while the film treats this as a joke about a robot. It stops being a joke.

Raymond Zibach’s production design is why the film looks like nothing else Sanders has made. The island is not rendered leaf by leaf; it is painted in visible brushstrokes, ferns as smears of green, mist as a wash, light coming through the canopy in soft blocks. Roz’s smooth white and grey shell is the only hard edge in it, and by the end she is scratched, dented and grown over with moss. Kris Bowers holds his strings back for the flying and gives the comedy almost nothing, which is right. Mary Blee’s editing is at its best when Roz sits down to learn the animals’ language and a whole season passes across one shot, the light changing around a robot that has not moved.

What decided it for us was Nyong’o. Brightbill (Kit Connor) is the runt, and the flying lessons are a long run of failures watched by a robot who cannot look away. Nyong’o spends the film moving from a customer-service cadence to something softer without ever dropping the rhythm of the machine. There is a shot of Roz on the shore, lens turned up, saying nothing, and it moved us more than a film about a robot and a goose had any right to.

Pascal’s Fink is a coward and a scrounger who becomes useful by accident and is embarrassed to find he likes it. Matt Berry is a beaver who wants to fell every tree on the island, Bill Nighy is Longneck, the old goose who leads the flock, and Ving Rhames is a falcon who takes over the flying lessons. The film is also frank about what an island of animals is. Fink eats things. Pinktail’s children play dead, elaborately, whenever anything startles them, and she is matter-of-fact that not all of them will last the year. We laughed, and then wondered whether we should have. The woods are lovely and everyone in them is somebody’s dinner.

The last third is louder, and we will not say how. Stephanie Hsu voices the trouble, but the film stops looking at faces and starts moving fast, and Blee’s cutting speeds to match. It is competently done and we have seen most of it before, in [*The Iron Giant*](https://film.one/film/the-iron-giant) and *WALL-E*. A stretch in which the island’s animals are asked to get along for the common good is sweeter than it is convincing.

Sanders has told this story before. [*Lilo & Stitch*](https://film.one/film/lilo-and-stitch-2025) and *How to Train Your Dragon* were both about a creature that did not belong finding a household that would have it, and this is that again, with better light. It is also, at 102 minutes, the one of the three we would most like to look at again.

It is a U certificate and earns it, though the fox is hungry and the possum does not soften her arithmetic. The youngest viewers may leave with questions; so did we.

*Fi1m score 80, published 9 September 2026.*

## What the critics say

The reviews for The Wild Robot are almost uniformly warm, and the spread is narrow: nearly every critic recommends it and none dismisses it. Praise clusters in two places. The first is the painterly, hand-painted animation, which several critics call a new direction for the studio, setting metal against forest to good effect. The second is Lupita Nyong’o’s voice work as Roz, singled out repeatedly for the way it moves from mechanical to tender as the robot learns to mother an orphaned gosling. Critics also credit Chris Sanders with treating death and the harshness of nature frankly without turning heavy-handed.

The reservations are mild. Several find the story familiar; Paste hears echoes of Wall-E and Finding Nemo, and The Times calls the plot derivative while still admiring the film. Radio Times thinks the final third leans too hard on action, and Sight and Sound, the lone mixed voice, finds it less focused than Sanders’ How to Train Your Dragon.

## Straight answers

**Is The Wild Robot worth watching?**

*The Wild Robot* is worth watching for families and for anyone who likes animation that looks hand-painted, and we scored it 80. Chris Sanders's film about a robot raising a gosling is warm, funny and honest about death, with Lupita Nyong'o's voice work carrying it. Our caveat is the last third, which swaps feeling for a louder, faster action stretch we have seen before.

**How long is The Wild Robot, and what is it rated?**

*The Wild Robot* runs 1h 42m and is rated N-7 by the LT in Lithuania. It is a family and animation film.

**Where can I watch The Wild Robot in Lithuania?**

*The Wild Robot* is streaming on Netflix in Lithuania. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service.

**What should I watch after The Wild Robot?**

After *The Wild Robot*, try [*The Iron Giant*](https://film.one/film/the-iron-giant) (1999, Fi1m 88): The film this one keeps glancing at; a boy, a machine, and a choice about weapons. Then [*The Red Turtle*](https://film.one/film/the-red-turtle) (2016, Fi1m 84): A shipwrecked man, an island and almost no words; patient and strange; and [*Ernest & Celestine*](https://film.one/film/ernest-and-celestine) (2012, Fi1m 84): A bear and a mouse, painted in watercolour, and just as frank about who eats whom.

### Reviews we read (26)

- **The AV Club**, Matthew Jackson (A-): The film is a deeply affecting animated adventure and one of the best of the year, blending charming family entertainment with thoughtful ideas about humanity and what cannot be engineered. It excels through its beautiful world-building, voice ensemble, and humanist vision. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/the-wild-robot-review)
- **The Guardian** (90/100, inferred): The critic calls it one of the best animated films of the year and an Oscar frontrunner. They single out its emotional depth in showing how a robot learns unprogrammable human feelings amid a community of woodland creatures. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/sep/26/wild-robot-movie-review)
- **Empire**, Olly Richards (85/100, inferred): The critic praises this charming animation as the best film Chris Sanders has made, highlighting its emotional intelligence, gorgeous painterly world, and honest treatment of life, death, and parenthood without heavy-handedness. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/the-wild-robot/)
- **Screen Daily** (85/100, inferred): The review describes a gorgeous painterly animation that delivers an affecting family story with fresh takes on belonging and modern families, praising Sanders for balancing spectacle and emotion while keeping the emotional core in focus. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-wild-robot-toronto-review/5197089.article)
- **The Telegraph** (85/100, inferred): The critic hails it as DreamWorks’ most moving animation in decades. They praise the crisp storytelling building to an emotional peak and the graphic style serving as a metaphor for the robot’s maternal journey. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/the-wild-robot-lff-review/)
- **Los Angeles Times**, Michael Ordoña (80/100, inferred): The critic finds the film exquisitely human despite its machine-and-animal cast, praising its profound parenting parable and excellent voice performances. He notes it tells a story about family and community with lovely animation inside and out. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2024-09-26/the-wild-robot-review-animation-lupita-nyongo-chris-sanders)
- **Radio Times**, James Mottram (4/5): The critic highlights the inspired animation, strong voice cast and insightful take on parenthood inspired by The Iron Giant and Miyazaki, while noting the final third becomes overly action-oriented. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-jhlgxg/the-wild-robot/)
- **The Independent** (80/100, inferred): The review calls the film a beautiful Ghibli-inspired union of mainstream appeal and subtlety that will leave audiences in tears, singling out the voice performances—especially Nyong’o’s shift from robotic to tender—and its honest, darkly humorous take on life cycles and climate themes. [Read](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/the-wild-robot-movie-review-lupita-nyongo-pedro-pascal-b2630172.html)
- **Time Out** (80/100, inferred): The review calls it a beguiling adaptation that balances natural peril and an unsentimental view of life with a delightful voice cast and community-building story that stays cute without becoming cutesy. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/the-wild-robot-2024)
- **Total Film**, Matt Maytum (75/100, inferred): The critic highlights Lupita Nyong’o’s excellent voice work and the film’s gorgeous animation in this positive early review of the DreamWorks adaptation. [Read](https://www.gamesradar.com/entertainment/animation-movies/the-wild-robot-review/)
- **Variety**, Peter Debruge (75/100, inferred): The critic calls it a lovely chosen-family fable with a radical new visual approach, praising the human heart beneath the CG surface and the way it makes emotional instincts endearing. He notes it's not quite "The Iron Giant" but still a keeper with breathtaking environments. [Read](https://variety.com/2024/film/reviews/the-wild-robot-review-1236137118/)
- **Sight and Sound** (65/100, inferred): The critic praises the heart in the unlikely bond between the robot Roz and the orphaned gosling but finds the film lacks the focus and flair of Sanders’ earlier work like How to Train Your Dragon, with the story straining under its broader eco-fable ambitions. [Read](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/wild-robot-compassionate-eco-fable)
- **Financial Times** (★★★★☆): The critic calls it a sophisticated and satisfying entertainment with a shameless emotional swell. They highlight the visual textures contrasting metal with nature and strong voice performances. [Read](https://www.ft.com/content/fb6e19f9-7dff-4ca1-a688-b67ca24f5cf4)
- **IndieWire**, Kate Erbland: Chris Sanders adapts the novel into a cinematic winner that is a gorgeous animated fairy tale about the possibility of true connection. The film succeeds through its warm and wise storytelling and striking visual style. [Read](https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/movies/the-wild-robot-movie-review-1235044960/)
- **RogerEbert.com**, Brian Tallerico: The critic praises the film's stunning painterly visuals and heartfelt storytelling about a robot learning motherhood. He highlights its blend of humor about nature's harshness and emotional depth, calling it one of the best animated films of the decade. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-wild-robot)
- **The Hollywood Reporter**, Lovia Gyarkye: The film is a delightful story of survival and community centered on a robot learning motherhood. It stands out for its committed voice performances and painterly animation blending photorealistic characters with immersive landscapes. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/the-wild-robot-review-lupita-nyongo-pedro-pascal-dreamworks-1235993919/)
- **The New York Times**, Natalia Winkelman (Critic’s Pick): The critic lauds the dazzling animation and attention to emotional details in animal expressions. She singles out the film's focus on big feelings and great beauty over gags, noting its frank ideas about the circle of life. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/26/movies/the-wild-robot-review.html)
- **The Times**, Kevin Maher (★★★★☆): The critic finds the story derivative but praises how it taps parental angst through a robot learning to be a mother. They single out the hand-painted animation style that adds human warmth. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/film/article/the-wild-robot-review-lupita-nyongo-0zrxsmv0c)
- **Vulture**: The movie turns a familiar setup into an unforgettable heartwarming tale through hypnotic painterly animation and Lupita Nyong’o’s standout voice work that shifts from mechanical to warmly expressive. It stands out for visually embodying its themes of love, inadequacy, and connection in a way that feels fresh and emotionally resonant. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/article/review-the-wild-robot-will-ruin-you.html)
- **/Film**, Ryan Scott (10/10): The critic calls the film one of the rare movies that exceeds high expectations, praising Chris Sanders' masterful direction, the breathtaking animation that tackles deep themes like death and humanity, and standout voice performances especially from Lupita Nyong'o. [Read](https://www.slashfilm.com/1670383/the-wild-robot-movie-review/)
- **The Wrap**, William Bibbiani (95/100, inferred): The critic calls the film a miracle of a motion picture that is distinct, personal, beautifully animated, lovingly told, thrilling and unexpected, evolving from comedy into heartwarming drama and transcendent exploration of deep ideas and feelings. It singles out the rich world-building and the way the story of a robot learning to love through caregiving blossoms into something profound and special. [Read](https://www.thewrap.com/the-wild-robot-review/)
- **Collider**, Shaina Weatherhead (9/10): The critic praises the film as one of Chris Sanders' best, highlighting its jaw-dropping animation, emotional storytelling about family and identity, and strong voice performances from Lupita Nyong'o, Pedro Pascal, and Kit Connor, along with an evocative score. [Read](https://collider.com/the-wild-robot-review/)
- **Deadline**, Pete Hammond (90/100, inferred): The critic hails the film as a stunning adaptation and a gem likely to become a classic, with beautiful animation, a smart script full of humor, action, heart and lessons for all ages. It singles out the immense heart as the key ingredient that makes it one of the best animated movies, or even movies, in years. [Read](https://deadline.com/2024/09/the-wild-robot-review-stunning-animation-and-a-story-with-wit-excitement-and-soul-make-this-gorgeous-film-one-from-the-heart-toronto-film-festival-1236081892/)
- **Polygon**, Petrana Radulovic (90/100, inferred): The critic hails the film as a masterpiece and the future of animation, singling out its painterly stylized visuals, tender emotional story about unlikely bonds and parenthood, and fresh approach without relying on sequels or IP. [Read](https://www.polygon.com/movies/456807/the-wild-robot-review-dreamworks)
- **The Playlist**, Gregory Ellwood (B): The review notes the film begins with overly action-packed juvenile sequences reminiscent of Looney Tunes but transitions to a strong emotional core focused on relationships and empathy, culminating in a tearjerker ending aided by beautiful animation, a painterly style, and a breathtaking score. [Read](https://theplaylist.net/the-wild-robot-review-a-bumpy-take-off-lands-with-a-tearjerker-tiff-20240908/)
- **Paste**, Jesse Hassenger (7.1/10): The critic calls it a sweet and entertaining family film with strong vocal work and fluid animation but notes it feels imitative of earlier movies like Wall-E and Finding Nemo rather than fully inventive. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/dreamworks/the-wild-robot-review)

## Details

- **Director:** Chris Sanders
- **Director:** Chris Sanders
- **Screenplay:** Chris Sanders
- **Editor:** Mary Blee
- **Music:** Kris Bowers
- **Production design:** Raymond Zibach
- **Producer:** Jeff Hermann
- **Cast:** Lupita Nyong'o as Roz / Rummage (voice); Pedro Pascal as Fink (voice); Kit Connor as Brightbill (voice); Bill Nighy as Longneck (voice); Stephanie Hsu as Vontra (voice); Matt Berry as Paddler (voice); Ving Rhames as Thunderbolt (voice); Mark Hamill as Thorn (voice)
- **Runtime:** 1h 42m
- **Certificate (LT):** N-7
- **Release (Lithuania):** 25 October 2024
- **Genres:** Family, Animation, Science Fiction, Adventure
- **Budget:** $78 million
- **Box office:** $332 million
- **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUCNBAmse04

## Where to watch in Lithuania

- Netflix: streaming

*Checked 2026-09-10.*

Also available in: AE, AR, AT, AU, AZ, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IL, IN, IS, IT, JP, KR, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, SK, TH, TR, UA, US, VN. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## Awards

- Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Animated Movie 2025: Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Animated Movie (nominated)
- Academy Awards 2024: Best Animated Feature (nominated)
- Annie Award for Best Animated Feature 2024: Annie Award for Best Animated Feature (won)
- BAFTA Film Awards 2024: Best Children's & Family Film (nominated)
- Critics' Choice Awards 2024: Best Animated Feature (won)

## If you liked this

- *The Iron Giant* (1999), Fi1m 88: The film this one keeps glancing at; a boy, a machine, and a choice about weapons. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-iron-giant.md)
- *Fly Away Home* (1996): A girl raises orphaned geese and teaches them to migrate; the flying is real.
- *The Red Turtle* (2016), Fi1m 84: A shipwrecked man, an island and almost no words; patient and strange. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-red-turtle.md)
- *Ernest & Celestine* (2012), Fi1m 84: A bear and a mouse, painted in watercolour, and just as frank about who eats whom. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/ernest-and-celestine.md)
- *Bambi* (1942), Fi1m 86: The forest film every other one answers to; the meadow is still the one to beat. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/bambi.md)

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/the-wild-robot