--- name: "Mike Thurmeier" canonical: "https://film.one/person/michael-thurmeier" fi1m_id: "michael-thurmeier" imdb_id: "nm0862211" tmdb_id: 229962 wikidata_id: "Q351866" roles: ["Director"] born: "1 January 1965" reviewed_on_fi1m: 5 average_fi1m_score: 49 average_as: "director" average_over: 3 updated: "2026-10-05T14:00:08.383208+00:00" 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." --- # Mike Thurmeier ## Identity Mike Thurmeier - **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/michael-thurmeier - **Type:** Person - **Fi1m ID:** michael-thurmeier - **IMDb ID:** nm0862211 - **TMDB ID:** 229962 - **Wikidata ID:** Q351866 - **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Thurmeier, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q351866, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0862211/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/229962 Director. Born 1 January 1965 in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. ## Details - **Work:** Director - **Born:** 1 January 1965, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada - **Active:** 2002–2016 - **Also known as:** Michael Thurmeier - **Titles on Fi1m:** 5: 3 directing, 2 crew - **Frequently works with:** [Denis Leary](https://film.one/person/denis-leary.md), [John Leguizamo](https://film.one/person/john-leguizamo.md), [Lori Forte](https://film.one/person/lori-forte.md), [Michael Berg](https://film.one/person/michael-berg.md), [Patrick Worlock](https://film.one/person/patrick-worlock.md), [Ray Romano](https://film.one/person/ray-romano.md) - **Academy Awards:** 1 Oscar nomination - **Average Fi1m score:** 49, as director, over 3 titles - **Fi1m score by decade:** 2000s 64 (3), 2010s 45 (2) - **Fi1m against the critics:** 49 to 47 across 3 titles - **Score spread:** 0 at 80+, 0 at 60–79, 3 under 60 - **Genres:** Adventure 3, Animation 3, Comedy 3, Family 3, Science Fiction 1 - **Screen time:** 5 hours of reviewed films - **Box office:** $2,173m across 3 films with figures - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Thurmeier, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q351866, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0862211/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/229962 ## Streaming the US now - **Disney+:** [*Ice Age: Continental Drift*](https://film.one/film/ice-age-continental-drift.md) (53), [*Ice Age: Collision Course*](https://film.one/film/ice-age-collision-course.md) (37) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Mike Thurmeier > Mike Thurmeier is a Blue Sky animator who rose to direct the later *Ice Age* films, and his gift is for the squirrel: wordless, physical, perfectly timed. Spread across a feature with a dozen talking animals, that gift keeps things moving and not much more. Scrat wants the acorn. Scrat gets the acorn. Then the ground opens, or the sea comes in, or a piece of the continent slides away, and he goes after it with his whole body. The squirrel has no lines and needs none, and the people who make him funny are animators rather than writers. Mike Thurmeier is one of those animators, and the best things attached to his name are the squirrel's. He joined Blue Sky Studios as an animator and stayed until there was no Blue Sky to stay at. He was lead animator and additional story on the first *Ice Age* (2002), then supervising animator on *Robots* (2005) and *Ice Age: The Meltdown* (2006). His first directing credit was a Scrat short, *No Time for Nuts* (2006), with Chris Renaud. The features followed: *Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs* (2009) with Carlos Saldanha, *Ice Age: Continental Drift* (2012) with Steve Martino, *Ice Age: Collision Course* (2016) with Galen T. Chu. He has never had a film to himself. Every one carries a second name beside his, which is how animation studios work and also makes it hard to say which choices were his. The studio closed in 2021; he contributed story to *Ice Age: Scrat Tales* (2022) afterwards. What he does well is faces and bodies: the double take, the slow dawning, the fall that lands a beat later than you expect. *Continental Drift* has plenty of that and we gave it 53. It is bright, fast and good-natured, Peter Dinklage's pirate ape is a real addition, and Thurmeier and Martino keep it moving, which is a skill. It is also the first three films with the furniture moved about. Somewhere in the middle of the voyage our attention drifted, and what brought it back each time was a cut to the squirrel, which told us where the film's heart was and where it was not. The reviews of *Collision Course* said much the same, a step back in story while the animation got better, and we have no reason to doubt them. Thurmeier has said of the first film that "I think the look of the film is definitely dictated by the conditions in which we had to make it." That film had three animals, a baby and a walk home, and was better for having so little. The ones he directed had the money, the possums, the pirates and the grandmother, and lost the walk. Give him one animal and one acorn and he is a comedian. Give him a herd and he is a traffic warden. The short is the thing to seek out; the features are for the under-tens, and they will be perfectly happy. ## Biography Mike Thurmeier, also credited as Michael Thurmeier, is a Canadian animator and film director. He worked at Blue Sky Studios, beginning his career as an animator on projects including *Fight Club* (1999) before moving into supervising animator roles on *Ice Age* (2002), *Robots* (2005) and *Ice Age: The Meltdown* (2006). Thurmeier made his feature directing debut as co-director of *Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs* (2009). He went on to direct *Ice Age: Continental Drift* (2012, with Steve Martino) and *Ice Age: Collision Course* (2016, with Galen T. Chu). He also co-directed the short film *No Time for Nuts* (2006), which received an Academy Award nomination. Born in 1975 in Regina, Saskatchewan, he is best known for his contributions to the *Ice Age* franchise. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com, deadline.com.* ## On Fi1m (5) ### Directed (3) — the average rests on these - *Ice Age: Collision Course* (2016), Fi1m 37, as Gravedigger Beaver / Party Molehog (voice) — [page](https://film.one/film/ice-age-collision-course.md) - *Ice Age: Continental Drift* (2012), Fi1m 53, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/ice-age-continental-drift.md) - *Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs* (2009), Fi1m 56, Co-Director — [page](https://film.one/film/ice-age-dawn-of-the-dinosaurs.md) ### Crew (2) - *Robots* (2005), Fi1m 62, Additional Storyboarding — [page](https://film.one/film/robots-2005.md) - *Ice Age* (2002), Fi1m 73, Additional Storyboarding — [page](https://film.one/film/ice-age.md) ## Complete filmography (19) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Today’s Holiday Moments are Tomorrow’s Memories* (2022), Director - *Ice Age: Scrat Tales* (2022), series, Story - *Scrat: Spaced Out* (2016), Director - *Ice Age: Collision Course* (2016), as Gravedigger Beaver / Party Molehog (voice) · Director — Fi1m 37, [page](https://film.one/film/ice-age-collision-course.md) - *Cosmic Scrat-tastrophe* (2015), Director - *Ice Age: No Time for Nuts 4-D* (2015), Director - *Ice Age: Continental Drift* (2012), Director — Fi1m 53, [page](https://film.one/film/ice-age-continental-drift.md) - *Scrat's Continental Crack-Up: Part 2* (2011), Director - *Scrat's Continental Crack-Up* (2010), Director - *Scrat in Love* (2009), Director - *Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs* (2009), Co-Director — Fi1m 56, [page](https://film.one/film/ice-age-dawn-of-the-dinosaurs.md) - *Horton Hears a Who!* (2008), Visual Effects - *No Time for Nuts* (2006), Director - *Ice Age: The Meltdown* (2006), Supervising Animator, Visual Effects — Fi1m 61, [page](https://film.one/film/ice-age-the-meltdown.md) - *Robots* (2005), Supervising Animator, Visual Effects, Additional Storyboarding — Fi1m 62, [page](https://film.one/film/robots-2005.md) - *Gone Nutty* (2002), as Layout · Animation, Visual Effects - *Ice Age* (2002), as Additional Writing · Lead Animator, Additional Storyboarding — Fi1m 73, [page](https://film.one/film/ice-age.md) - *Fight Club* (1999), Visual Effects — Fi1m 81, [page](https://film.one/film/fight-club.md) - *Anubis*, Director ## Awards ### Academy Awards — 0 won, 1 nominated - 2007: Best Animated Short Film (nominated), for *No Time for Nuts* *From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.* --- © 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/person/michael-thurmeier