Currently fighting with Robot Dreams for my favorite animated movie of the year. Yeah, Robot Dreams is technically from last year, but it wasn’t released in Los Angeles until January 2024 so it counts. Flow often looks like it was rendered on a low-powered gaming machine from 2010, but the graphics are never distracting (and often beautiful). The animals look and act like real animals… mostly. They somehow know how to steer a boat, and they do manage some higher social skills, but Cat was still very much a cat.
No dialogue, minimal music, lots of dreamy floating and mysterious landscapes. Enthralling.