Netflix enjoyed a massive success with its 2025 animated hit movie KPop Demon Hunters. The film not only won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature, but it also won for Best Original Song, and was so successful that Netflix allowed it a small theatrical run after it dominated the streaming service’s most-watched charts. However, it would be wrong to think that Netflix is new to the animation game. While KPop Demon Hunters is one of the best animated films of the 21st century that Netflix released, it isn’t the best from the streamer. There are several other animated releases that match it in brilliance and creativity.
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Here is a look at the 10 best Netflix original animated films, and the one that is actually better than KPop Demon Hunters.
10) I Lost My Body
Released on Netflix in 2019, I Lost My Body is a French animated fantasy drama by Jérémy Clapin. It is based on Guillaume Laurant’s novel Happy Hand, in which a severed hand crawls across Paris to find the body it was cut from, while the movie flashes back through the young man’s life. It won the Nespresso Grand Prize at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival before Netflix acquired it. It was nominated for Best Animated Feature and has a 96% Rotten Tomatoes score. It is a genuinely original premise executed with restraint, proving that an adult drama could work perfectly in animation.
9) Wendell & Wild
Wendell & Wild is a 2022 stop-motion animated horror-comedy directed by Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas, Coraline) and with a screenplay he co-wrote with Jordan Peele. Peele and Keegan-Michael Key voice the title’s demon brothers as they set their sights on a troubled teen named Kat (Lyric Ross), who they believe can get them what they want. This was Selick’s first feature film since Coraline, and it keeps that rare trait of being a scary, yet smart horror-comedy for older teens and young adults, all with the Key & Peele humor thrown in.
8) The Sea Beast
The Sea Beast was another 2022 Netflix animated film, this one a fantasy adventure movie directed by Chris Williams (Big Hero 6). Karl Urban voices a legendary sea-monster hunter, and Zaris-Angel Hator voices a young orphan girl who stows away on his ship. The film is about an ancient sea monster, and the idea that hunting monsters down was not always the best plan, since it might be better for everyone and everything to live in peace. It was the most-watched Netflix animated movie in history in its first 28 days on the streaming service. The Sea Beast was nominated for Best Animated Feature, losing to another Netflix release from the same year.
7) The Willoughbys
The Willoughbys is a 2020 animated dark comedy directed by Kris Pearn based on the novel by Lois Lowry about four children who scheme to get rid of their selfish parents. The voice cast was impressive, with names like Will Forte, Maya Rudolph, Alessia Cara, Terry Crews, Martin Short, Jane Krakowski, and Ricky Gervais. The film received positive reviews from critics for its unique visual design, which looked like yarn-and-felt, and its story calls to mind classic tales from Roald Dahl, with a sincere story about kids having the chance to choose their own family.
6) Over the Moon
Released in 2020, Over the Moon is an animated musical fantasy directed by Glen Keane, a former Disney animator who worked on The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. The story follows a young Chinese girl named Fei Fei who builds her own rocket to the moon so she can prove the existence of the lunar goddess Chang’e. The story is based on a classic Chinese myth, and it was a huge success. It earned both an Oscar and Golden Globe nomination for Best Animated Feature, and it was carried by an emotional story about a child dealing with the loss of a parent.
5) Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
Netflix earned its first Oscar win for Best Animated Feature for the 2022 release of Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio. The movie was a musical dark fantasy that was shot in stop-motion and was loosely based on the original 1883 Carlo Collodi novel, which was set in Fascist Italy during the interwar period. It is the longest stop-motion animated movie ever made, and it ended up as the first stop-motion Oscar winner since Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2006). It has a 97% Rotten Tomatoes score, with critics praising its emotional weight, the score, and the visual design. It offers a darker and more melancholy version of the Pinocchio story than Disney ever attempted.
4) Klaus
Netflix released its best animated Christmas movie in 2019 with Klaus. The film is a hand-drawn animated movie by Sergio Pablos that stood out in an industry that was doing everything in CGI. It reimagines the Santa Claus origin story as the bond between a spoiled postman (Jason Schwartzman) stationed in a feuding Arctic town and a reclusive toymaker named Klaus (J. K. Simmons). Klaus earned an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature, and it has a 95% Rotten Tomatoes score. The movie’s 2D animation and beautifully hand-drawn scenes make it stand out as a modern-day animated Christmas masterpiece.
3) Nimona
Released in 2023, Nimona is an animated fantasy movie based on the 2015 graphic novel by ND Stevenson, about a shape-shifting teenage girl who teams up with a disgraced knight to clear the knight’s name. Netflix acquired it when Disney shut down Blue Sky Studios, where it was set up. After its release, Nimona became a huge success on Netflix, with a 94% Rotten Tomatoes score and an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature. It is an unapologetically queer story for a mainstream animated tentpole and a mashup of medieval fantasy and cyberpunk visuals.
2) KPop Demon Hunters
It is impossible to discount the success of KPop Demon Hunters. The movie was released in 2025 as an animated musical with an urban fantasy story. The story follows K-pop superstars Rumi, Mira, and Zoey, who moonlight as demon hunters protecting their fans. Sony sold the rights to Netflix, and then it went on to become the most-watched original title in Netflix history with over 500 million views by year-end 2025. The soundtrack was the first one in history to have four songs in the Billboard Hot 100 top 10, and it was certified platinum. It won Oscars for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song (“Golden”), and it was released into theaters after its streaming success, something unheard of for Netflix. While KPop Demon Hunters is the biggest cultural moment Netflix animation has ever produced, it isn’t the best movie on the streamer.
1) The Mitchells vs. the Machines
The 2021 sci-fi comedy action road trip movie, The Mitchells vs. the Machines, is Netflix’s best animated movie. Co-directed by Mike Rianda in his feature debut and Jeff Rowe, and produced by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (The LEGO Movie, Project Hail Mary), the story follows the dysfunctional Mitchell family on a cross-country college drop-off road trip that turns into a mission to save humanity from a smart-home AI robot uprising. It has a 97% Rotten Tomatoes score, the highest critical consensus for any Netflix animated movie, and swept the 49th Annie Awards with eight wins, including Best Animated Feature, Direction, Writing, Character Design, Production Design, Voice Acting, FX, and Editorial. The story is heartwarming, and it is the weirdest family-comedy script of any Netflix animated movie.
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