The 10 Best Sony Animation Movies, Ranked: KPop Demon Hunters, Spider-Verse, and More
Sony Pictures Animation started out rough, but its turned out some really gems, including these 10 greats.
When one thinks of the great cartoon houses, names such as Studio Ghibli, Pixar, and Walt Disney leap to mind. In fact, most would have to go pretty deep before they got to Sony Pictures Animation, and not just because it officially opened its doors in 2002. Rather, it’s because SPA turned out a lot of bad movies. You can’t make Peter Rabbit, The Emoji Movie, or multiple Open Season flicks and keep your reputation intact.
However, lately, things have changed for SPA. Critical and commercial hits like KPop Demon Hunters and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse have prompted a re-evaluation of the studio. And with audiences giving SPA a second look, they’ve discovered some gems that transcend its disposable early products. So let’s take a look at the best that Sony has to offer, from its rough beginnings to its current era of excellence.
10. Vivo (2021)
As anyone who has watched Moana back-to-back with Moana 2 knows, Lin-Manuel Miranda is a master at making songs for animated musicals. The very fact that he did the songs for Vivo is enough to put it on this list… but just barely.
Directed by Kirk DeMicco, who co-wrote the screenplay with Quiara Alegría Hudes, Vivo stars Miranda as the titular kinkajou, who goes on a mission from his native Cuba to Key West, Florida to deliver a song by his deceased owner. In addition to Miranda, the film has big names such as Zoe Saldaña, Brian Tyree Henry, and Michael Rooker. But the by-the-numbers script, bland character design, and—worst of all—substandard songs make the whole thing feel like a Miranda B-side, far short of his best work.
9. Wish Dragon (2021)
For the most part, SPA’s partnership with Netflix has been a good thing. But Netflix is still Netflix and sometimes even good movies get buried under the sheer amount of “content” the stream pushes out every day. Such is the case with Wish Dragon, a pretty good movie with some fantastic visuals that deserves to be seen.
Wish Dragon is the directoral debut of Chris Appelhans, a veteran of great movies such as Coraline, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and The Princess and the Frog. The movie stars Jimmy Wong as college student Din, who seeks to reconnect with his rich childhood friend Li Na Wang (Natasha Liu Bordizzo). To help him achieve his goal, Din calls upon the help of the wish dragon Long, voiced by John Cho. As that synopsis reveals, Wish Dragon travels some well-tread paths for children’s entertainment. But it has a visual pop that puts it well above the usual Netflix slop.
8. GOAT (2026)
As this list shows, SPA put out a lot of terrible, forgettable movies before finding its footing over recent years. The studio’s latest project, GOAT, is definitely a step down from its last few offerings, but it’s still heads and tails better than SPA’s bottom tier work.
GOAT takes place in the world of roarball, a basketball-like sport played by anthropomorphic animals. Young goat Will Harris (Caleb McLaughlin of Stranger Things) hopes to make his mark, and he gets his break (literally) when an accidental outcome against a famous player (Aaron Pierre) brings him national fame. The use of social media updates the standard kids movie tropes about following your dream, and director Tyree Dillihay crafts some dynamic sequences. But the script by Teddy Riley veers a little too often into tired sports clichés, keeping GOAT from achieving the greatness it desires.
7. The Pirates: Band of Misfits (2012)
The short pairing of venerable stop-motion studio Aardman Animations with Sony did not produce the best work from either house. But it wasn’t all terrible, thanks to the existence of The Pirates: Band of Misfits, or The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!, to use the much better UK title. Where the other feature from the collaboration, Arthur Christmas, lets studio glass sand away Aardman’s charm, The Pirates is a delightful, if minor, outing in the classic style of Wallace & Gromit.
Aardman co-founder Peter Lord directs The Pirates from a screenplay by Gideon Defoe, adapting his own book. It follows the misadventures of a group of spirited, but ineffective pirates, voiced by reliable folks such as Hugh Grant, Martin Freeman, and David Tennant as Charles Darwin. The Pirates is a delightful time and definitely one of SPA’s better outings, even if it’s minor Aardman.
6. Hotel Transylvania (2012)
To the average moviegoer in 2012, Hotel Transylvania‘s voice cast was more interesting than the movie itself. After all, it featured a still red-hot Adam Sandler along with regular Happy Madison players such as Kevin James and Steve Buscemi, as well as Selena Gomez and Andy Samberg. The plot—about a vampire who runs a resort for fellow monsters and whose daughter plans to marry a human—doesn’t capture the crowds in the same way.
However, those who actually saw the movie found something more wonderful than the usual dreck that happens when a big studio invests in big names. In particular, Hotel Transylvania comes from legendary animator Genndy Tartakovsky, creator of Dexter’s Lab, Samurai Jack, and Primal. Tartakovsky’s storytelling instincts give Hotel Transylvania some outstanding sequences, which take full advantage of animation as a medium.
5. The Mitchells vs. the Machines (2021)
The overwhelming majority of movies for kids have the exact same theme: believe in yourself. The Mitchells vs. the Machines, directed by Mike Rianda from a screenplay he wrote with Jeff Rowe, is no different. Abbi Jacobson voices Kate Mitchell, a teen from rural Michigan who has big plans to make movies and knows that technology will help her achieve them. Her father Rick (Danny McBride) hates technology, but wants to support his daughter, so he gathers up the family for a cross-country trip to bring her to school in California. No sooner do they get started than AI takes over, sending legions of robots to attack humanity.
The Mitchells vs. the Machines isn’t immune from the problems of the modern kid movie. In particular, celebs such as Chrissy Teigen, John Legend, and Conan O’Brien seem to have been cast because adults know their names, not because their acting serves the story. Moreover, the flashy water-color style animation pioneered for Into the Spider-Verse makes for an awkward fit here. But the story has so much heart, and Jacobson and McBride give such committed performances that The Mitchells vs. the Machines overcomes these missteps.
4. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (2009)
In most cases, taking a classic, simple children’s book and adapting it into a high-tech Hollywood blockbuster results in nothing but disaster (see: The Polar Express). Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs from Phil Lord and Christopher Miller is the exception to the rule. Yes, the movie only retains the barest concept from the 1978 original written by Judi Miller and illustrated by Ron Miller. And yes, its voice cast includes everyone from Bill Hader and Anna Faris to Mr. T and Bruce Campbell. And yes, it works an Eraserhead reference into a kids movie.
Despite all of that, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs works, thanks to Lord and Miller’s ability to bring genuine pathos to hyper pop art aesthetics. We genuinely feel for inventor Flint Lockwood (Hader), cheering for him when his invention is a hit that earns the affections of meteorologist Sam Sparks (Faris), and sympathizing with him when things go haywire and when he disappoints his traditionalist, fisherman father (James Caan). Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs may feel flashy and new, but it has tried and true storytelling chops.
3. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse felt like a miracle, something that succeeded but should have never been attempted again. And yet, Across the Spider-Verse went even bigger and pulled it off again… mostly. New directing team Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson bring in new Spider-people, adapt new visual styles, and new avenues to explore with Miles Morales and Gwen Stacy, without ever losing the emotional stakes.
Even though Across the Spider-Verse begins and ends with Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld), it remains a movie about Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), whose imposter syndrome intensifies when he learns about a multiversal team led by Miguel O’Hara (Oscar Isaac). Worse, a loser called the Spot (Jason Schwartzman) is gaining power to become the arch-enemy he wants to be, and Miles cannot stop him while stranded in another universe. Unfortunately, Across the Spider-Verse doesn’t show us how Miles deals with those problems, as the movie just kind of stops and makes us wait for a (still forthcoming) conclusion.
2. KPop Demon Hunters (2025)
For a few days after KPop Demon Hunters hit Netflix in June 2025, various users took to social media to complain about substandard movies being shoved down our throats. Yet, as anyone who has found themselves mindlessly humming “Golden” or “Breakdown” can attest, KPop Demon Hunters doesn’t need to use artificial methods to stick with the audience. It’s good enough to stand on its own. Directors Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans, working from a screenplay they wrote with Danya Jimenez and Hannah McMechan, somehow manage to maintain the emotional stakes of their story without sacrificing any of the spectacular pop star sequences or the mystical fight scenes.
Their success stems from the decision to focus on Huntrix frontwoman Rumi (Arden Cho), who also hunts demons with her bandmates Mira (May Hong) and Zooey (Ji-young Yoo). As she struggles to hide from her friends that fact that she is in fact half-demon, Rumi must also deal with romantic feelings for Jinu (Ahn Hyo-seop), a human-turned-demon who leads rival group, the Saja Boys. Rumi’s struggle grounds the over-the-top drama and action KPop Demon Hunters, as do the genuinely funny gags. The extremely catchy songs don’t hurt either.
1. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Everybody knows who Spider-Man is. Everyone knows that he’s a kid named Peter Parker, that he loves Aunt May and Mary Jane, and that he’s a street-level hero who exists in just one universe. But Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse asks, “What if Spider-Man was a kid named Miles Morales, who has two loving parents, and meets a bunch of other Spider-people from alternate realities? And one of them was a pig?”
That premise should have been a disaster, yet directors Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, and Rodney Rothman, working from a screenplay by Rothman and Phil Lord, dodge all the problems with an elegance that matches Spider-Man himself. In fact, Into the Spider-Verse uses the audience’s knowledge of Spider-lore to show how themes of great power and great responsibility can apply to different people, enriching the central concepts. That alone would be enough to make for a great movie, but the fact that it also features incredible visuals and cutting-edge animation makes Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse not just the best film from Sony Pictures Animation, but one of the greatest animated movies of all time.