10 fun things to watch on World Animation Day

Today, Tuesday, 28 October, is World Animation Day. Join us for a celebration of storytelling as we look at innovative, award-winning movies and series maxed out on imagination. Read about two live-action titles that use animation to give reality a twist, try two uniquely African animated series, find out about the movie uniting fantasy and anime lovers, discover how penguins learned to dance 25 years ago, or just revisit some childhood favourites. We’ve picked out 10 titles to get you started, along with five quick picks. And there’s so much more to explore.

Just take me to there

1. The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim
2. The Road to El Dorado
3. Happy Feet
4. Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
5. The Wild Robot
6. It’s a Hard Truth, Ain’t It?
7. Star Trek: Prodigy
8. Twende 
9. Iyanu: Child of Wonder and Iyanu: Age of Wonders
10. Tabby McTat (and Tiddler, The Highway Rat, The Gruffalo, The Gruffalo’s Child, Room on the Broom, Zog, Zog and the Flying Doctors, The Smeds and the Smoos, Stick Man, Superworm, The Snail and the Whale, and Revolting Rhymes)
11. Transformers One
12. How to Train Your Dragon
13. Random Acts of Flyness Season 2
14. The Lego Movie
15. The Polar Express

Our World Animation Day favourites 

1. The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim

This anime fantasy movie is based on a page in the The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) books’ appendices, which centres on the House of Eorl, and it’s set 183 years before the events of The Two Towers. LOTR’s original Éowyn (Miranda Otto), Shieldmaiden of Rohan, narrates the tale as Helm Hammerhand (Brian Cox), the ninth King of Rohan, kills the Dunlending lord of the West March, Freca (Shaun Dooley), for attempting to take his throne by forcing a political marriage between Helm’s daughter Héra (Gaia Wise) and Freca’s son Wulf (Luke Pasqualino). Wulf begins a quest for vengeance, forcing Héra and Rohan’s warriors to take a last stand at the Hornburg, which will later come to become known as Helm’s Deep. 

The epic sword and sorcery world of LOTR is a match made in heaven for anime fans. With Peter Jackson’s movie trilogy being so beloved, The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim’s team – including director Kenji Kamiyama (Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex) and co-producer Joseph Chou, (The Animatrix, The God of High School and Ninja Kamui) – worked hand-in-hand with original production staff including screenwriter and co-producer Philippa Boyens (who is Rohirrim’s story producer), Tolkien illustrators Alan Lee and John Howe, WETA Workshop designer Daniel Falconer, and LOTR’s chief creative supervisor Richard Taylor. So there are all sorts of Easter Eggs for LOTR fans to find.

The film was a massive technical undertaking, combining traditional 2D illustration, motion capture and 2D models to bring massive battle scenes to the screen. And each major character has a fully worked-out backstory behind their weapons, armour and scars. 

2. The Road to El Dorado

In 1519, incompetent Spanish con artists Miguel (Kenneth Brannagh), the dreamer, and Tulio (Kevin Kline), the schemer, stow away aboard conquistador Hernán Cortés’ ship bound for South America, along with a treasure map to the fabled lost city of gold, El Dorado. After they rescue an indigenous woman, Chel (Rosie Perez), she invites them to her home in the real El Dorado. While they’re mistaken for twin gods, high priest Tzekel-Kan (Armand Assante) becomes suspicious and soon the cons are back on the run. 

While this quippy himbo buddy comedy was panned and ignored on its release in 2000 (and often confused with Disney’s The Emperor’s New Groove – the source of the “Wrong Lever, Kronk” memes), Dreamworks’ The Road to El Dorado has gone on to strike it rich in the 2020s – as a GIF goldmine. That shot of Miguel playing the lute with intensity? The “Both? Both. Both is good” reaction meme? Looks like Miguel and Tulio have found their real El Dorado online. While the traditional 2D animation style was criticised at the time for not delivering anything innovative, what it does outstandingly is to deliver comedy and fun. 

3. Happy Feet

In this animated musical adventure, a baby emperor penguin who can’t sing his Heart Song to find a mate finds out that he can dance, and his “happy feet” are going to make him not only famous, but also call out to his one true love as he goes from confused hatchling to “the dancing king of emperor penguins”. With the voices of Elijah Wood and the late Robin Williams. 

It was a real march of the penguins to get to 2007’s Oscar and BAFTA wins for Best Animated Feature. The movie went into production in 2001, and required masses of technical innovation to achieve its vision, including the custom-built server farm needed as the Animal Logic animation studio was built from the ground up over the course of two years. But there was one secret behind-the-scenes hero without whose existence we wouldn’t have dancing penguins at all: Gollum.

After a tip-off from cinematographer Andrew Lesnie, Happy Feet director George Miller visited Peter Jackson’s WETA Studios in New Zealand to see how they were using motion capture to turn Andy Serkis’ human performance into Gollum’s on-screen creeping in LOTR. Animal Logic’s choreographers Savion Glover and Kelley Abbey donned mo-cap suits and created the penguins’ routines as they tap-danced while surrounded by infra-red motion capture cameras. The tap sounds were recorded at the same time, and digitally transformed so that the penguins sounded as if they were dancing on ice or snow.

4. Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Aardman’s claymation heroes take on monster movie parodies in the world’s first vegetarian horror film! Wallace and Gromit’s pest control business suffers a blow when a giant, brainwashed mutant rabbit starts ravaging their village’s vegetable gardens and greenhouses in the run-up to the Tottington Hall giant vegetable competition. 

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit won the 2006 Oscar and Annie awards for Best Animated Feature Film, along with nine other Annie awards. It was the first-ever full-length stop-motion animated feature to win an Oscar, and it took five years to film all 84 minutes of it, at a rate of around three seconds of footage per day! It had a little helping hand from CGI, too, but the shots are so well integrated that they don’t trigger any suspicion. That’s how we get the bunnies floating up in the Bun-Vac! The close-up shot of Wallace’s foot transforming was completely shot in stop motion, though, and took a year to film.

5. The Wild Robot

The Wild Robot won the 2025 Annie Award for Best Animated Feature. The movie follows a ROZZUM unit 7134 robot nicknamed Roz (Lupita Nyong’o), who crash lands on a deserted island, and befriends and learns from the wild animals – including Fink the curious fox (Pedro Pascal), Pinktail the possum and veteran mother to multiple litters (Catherine O’Hara), and Longneck the wise leader of the flock of wild geese (Bill Nighy) – after she becomes the guardian to an abandoned egg that hatches into an orphaned gosling.

The Wild Robot’s animation team brought 47 species of animals to life in the film, including a swarm of 80 000 butterflies, and a flock of 28 710 migrating geese, for which they animated the movements of 102 838 147 feathers. Behind the scenes, this meant a massive study of animal behaviour and anatomy was needed. The project’s lead animators studied reference footage, conducted motion-capture sessions, and visited the Los Angeles Natural History Museum to study animal anatomy.

6. It’s a Hard Truth, Ain’t It?

Filmmaker Madeleine Sackler connected with 13 inmates at a Pendleton Correction Facility, a maximum security prison in the US, gave them a crash course in storytelling, and had them prepare and film interviews with fellow inmates to get a true insider story about their lives, turning points, and reflections on the justice system.

The inmates were also instrumental in coming up with the idea to include animation in their storytelling. As the documentary subjects talk about their pasts from childhood to prison bars, animator Yoni Goodman (animation director on Waltz with Bashir, the 2009 Best Animated Feature Annie Award winner) brings their stories to life. The contrast between the cartoon style and the often horrific stories perfectly underlines their tales of innocence lost and childhoods betrayed by violence, as well as capturing that violence in a way that’s visceral and affecting without being exploitative. 

7. Star Trek: Prodigy

It’s the year 2383 in the Delta Quadrant. The lost experimental Starfleet space ship USS Protostar has an unusual new crew – a handful of young escapees from Tars Lamora’s forced labour camps – a non-physical being named Zero (Angus Imrie), Dal R’El (Brett Gray), a Brikar named Rok-Tahk (Rylee Alazraqui), an engineer named Jankom Pog (Jason Mantzoukas) and an indestructible blob named Murf (Dee Bradley Baker).

Luckily for the kids, the Protostar is manned by a training programme in the form of a hologram of former Voyager captain, Admiral Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew). Janeway will be the crew’s guide not just to the ship, but space, the ethics of scientific exploration, and the politics of the known galaxy including the purpose of the United Federation of Planets. The series is set in the 2380s, post-Voyager’s return to Earth and in the run-up to the events of the Picard series. So there are deep dives into important events like the Romulan evacuation (made necessary by the upcoming supernova of their sun), and what has happened with certain civilizations that Starfleet made contact with. 

An animated sci-fi series can explore strange new worlds and seek out new civilisations in a way that live action films can only dream of. Star Trek: Prodigy pushed the bounds of imagination to win the 2022 Children’s and Family Emmy Award for Production Design (Animation). 

8. Twende 

Twende is Showmax's first Original 2D animated series. Twende the pangolin (Junior Nyong’or) is the slowest animal on the savanna, but citizens of the fictional East African city of Milima are keen to hop aboard his boda boda (motorbike taxi) and enjoy the ride. Twende doesn’t need a phone to navigate the streets; he has his best friend Nuru (voiced by June Gachui), a smart and sassy little lilac breasted roller (Kenya’s national bird), who always looks out for her bestie. It’s full of silly fun for the kids, and full of little moments that adults will recognise, with one episode even centred around the collision between ride-share conglomerates like Goober, and local small local businesses like boda bodas. 

Twende’s co-executive producer and casting director, Kenyan animation pioneer Kwame Nyong’o says, “It stands out because it tells a local story that African audiences can relate to, with local voices. I noticed how they get so excited whenever a character says a word in Swahili. Or like when they see a reference to something uniquely East African like a mandazi or a boda boda. Projects like Twende help dispel the myth that ‘west is best’. This gives me joy, and a sense of making the world a slightly fairer place.”

9. Iyanu: Child of Wonder and Iyanu: Age of Wonders

Drawing on Nigerian culture, music, and mythology, Iyanu follows a brave young orphan living in the magical kingdom of Yorubaland. While studying history and ancient arts, she yearns for a normal life – until a looming threat awakens divine powers not seen since the legendary Age of Wonders. Accompanied by newfound friends Biyi and Toye, as well as a magical leopard named Ekun, Iyanu sets out to uncover the source of this evil, unlocking her destiny along the way. 

Born in Africa, Iyanu has become a global sensation. In September 2025, Iyanu won the MIPAfrica Inclusive Lens Award in the Older Kids Category. Since its US launch in April 2025, Iyanu ranked as the #1 series on Cartoon Network and in the top 10 kids and family series on Max. Season 2 has gotten a greenlight, along with two linked feature films, the first of which, Iyanu: Age of Wonders, is already on Showmax. Set 500 years before the rise of Iyanu, The Age of Wonders transports viewers to Yorubaland at the height of its magical civilisation. 

The animated series is adapted from Roye Okupe’s popular graphic novel series, Iyanu: Child of Wonder, published by Dark Horse Comics (The Umbrella Academy and Hellboy). Nigerian-born and raised Roye, who acted as Iyanu’s creator, executive producer and showrunner, says, “One of the reasons I started YouNeek Studios and created Iyanu is because I grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, watching superhero stories on DStv. To now see Iyanu launching on Showmax across 44 African countries is truly a full-circle moment. I’m beyond thrilled that kids, adults, and families across the continent will get to see a superhero who looks, sounds, and feels like them. I can’t wait for audiences throughout Africa to experience the magic and wonder of Iyanu.” 

10. Tabby McTat (and more)

This animated short film is about the warm and wonderful friendship between a musical cat and a talented busker called Fred. One day, when chasing a thief, Fred falls and breaks his leg and is whisked away in an ambulance. What will become of the busker’s cat, left alone on the streets of London?

Showmax is the home of all 12 adaptations of writer Julia Donaldson and illustrator Axel Scheffler’s popular children’s books to date: Tiddler, The Highway Rat, The Gruffalo, The Gruffalo’s Child, Room on the Broom, Zog, Zog and the Flying Doctors, The Smeds and the Smoos, Stick Man, Superworm, The Snail and the Whale, and Tabby McTat. 

Made with evident love and care, the films have raked in international awards, including Tabby McTat’s 2024 International Emmy for Kids: Animation for South African directors Jac Hamman and Sarah Scrimgeour, and The Smeds and the Smoos’ 2023 International Emmy for Kids: Animation for South African directors Daniel Snaddon and Samantha Cutler. 

In South Africa, the films have been a training ground for animators and storytellers, as Cape Town-based animation Studio Triggerfish brought to life The Snail and the Whale (BAFTA Children and Young People Award for Best Animation winner, 2022), Zog (Best Kids ANimation iEmmy Award winner, 2020), The Highway Rat (Children and Youth Rose D’Or winner, 2018) and Stick Man (BAFTA Best Animation winner, 2016) to life, along with the adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes (2017’s Best Animated Short Film Oscar winner. 

Also watch 

Transformers One: A fun and faithful flashback to Saturday morning cartoon times, this film fully imagines the Transformers' home world of Cybertron as it digs into the roots of Optimus Prime and Megatron’s relationship. Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), who had created the visual effects for the first six live-action Transformers films, handled animation for the film, drawing heavily on the toy line’s Generation 1 (1984-1990) Transformer designs. 

How to Train Your Dragon: Winner of the 2011 Annie Award for Best Animated Feature (along with nine other Annie Awards), this adaptation of Cressida Cowell’s fantasy children’s book of the same name reveals how young Viking warrior Hiccup turns from dragon slaying to dragon riding after capturing and befriending Toothless the Night Fury. The film’s animators researched both flight and fire to really take advantage of effects that would be impossible or prohibitively expensive in live-action films.

Random Acts of Flyness Season 2: Terence Nance’s world of magic, ritual, symbols and Black American identity and liberation centres on musician Terence Nance (Terence Nance) and his romantic and creative partner, video game creator Najja Freeman (Alicia Pilgrim). This season is full of animated elements that bring the characters’ inner lives to light in unpredictable ways. 

The LEGO Movie: An ordinary LEGO construction worker figurine named Emmet finds out that he is “The Special”, with the destiny to find the Piece of Resistance and protect Bricksburg from the dreaded Lord Business. This animated comedy brought child’s play and nostalgia to life and won 40 awards including the 2015 Annie Award for Writing in a Feature Production, and the 2015 BAFTA for Best Animated Film. 

The Polar Express: Part nightmare fuel, part faithful adaptation of Chris Van Allsburg’s meticulously illustrated children’s book of the same name, this fascinating animated fantasy adventure used motion capture CGI to bring its human characters to life (with Tim Hanks playing six different roles), while the titular steam train was mainly modelled after the Pere Marquette 1225.