Flow is an independent animated feature film following a black cat that fights for survival on a completely flooded, post-apocalyptic Earth on a boat with some other animal friends, including a capybara, a lemur, a bird, and a dog. It beat out powerhouse studios Disney and Dreamworks for best-animated feature at the 2025 Oscars, being the first Latvian film ever to win an Oscar.

This is a five-star film for me, and despite my obvious bias as a major cat person who had a black cat in the past, this film is so much more than “a cute cat movie.” It is a film about friendship, balance, nature, and overcoming fear. It is the definition of a comfort movie that somehow never fails to stress you out. But before I move on to the film’s themes, I want to review its more technical aspects.

My only critique (a very small one) is that the 3D design makes some scenes feel too much like a video game, in how the light hits the cat's fur or how the camera follows it as it walks. However, as a person who enjoys video games, this observation did not really bother me and is something pretty ignorable among the other breathtaking scenes in the film.

The film was entirely made through the free software, Blender, on a budget of just $3.7 million. In comparison, DreamWork’s The Wild Robot cost $78 million, and Disney’s Inside Out 2 cost $200 million to make.

Some scenes leave me in absolute awe, and the film does a wonderful job of capturing nature through its animation: the water, the trees, the sunsets, the animals, and notably, absolutely no humans. The lack of our species feels like a breath of fresh air. It reminds me of the “anthropause” seen during the COVID years, where the humans locked in their homes both healed the damage of some species and harmed others without any human protection.

The purposeful choice to set the film in a world with not a single human, just lingering touches of humanity’s influence (like various statues of cats), makes the audience wonder “Why do these statues exist?” and “What happened to humans for them to somehow disappear from the planet?” But these questions are never answered, which adds to the film's appeal because so much is left to interpretation, including the ending.

On my first watch, I was yelling at my TV in frustration after the credits started rolling. Does the flood, right when it seems that the animals are safe, come back? However, I quickly realized that the unknown added so much to the film from the viewer's perspective. It allows the audience to interact more with the film, discussing their theories and conclusions with each other and affirming that this film is malleable enough to become something personally crafted for the viewer.

While multiple scenes of animation stand out to me, there is one scene in particular that I can describe as a surreal, sort of intergalactic mesh of color and emotion. It is a scene where the injured bird, punished for disobeying its leader and sympathizing with the cat, starts floating in the air along with the cat. Then, the cat starts meowing in confusion as it descends, and the bird continues floating higher. The cat is brought back to earth, the swirl of blue has disappeared, and so has its friend. There are many different ways to interpret the scene, but I saw it as a beautiful depiction of death that manages to get my face streaming with tears every time I think of it. In combination with the emotional nature of the scene and the heartbreaking soundtrack, the animation reaches a whole new level of detail, which I can easily say is one of the best animated scenes I have ever watched.

The film's highlight was its complete lack of dialogue, adding a sense of realism to a fantasy movie. Instead of having animals simply state their desires and feelings, the audience is intricately shown all the emotions of these animals through the animation and sound design. Any cat owner would recognize the movements of their pets in this film, and the sound of adorable and often sad little meows recorded from real cats adds to this sense of authenticity and dedication for an accurate portrayal. Similarly, the animals have no names, which is why I am referring to them by their species. The film emphasizes that you do not need to constantly insert human traits like names and dialogue to show the actions and emotions of these animals effectively and, more importantly, to make you care about them.

Also related to sound, the film has an extraordinarily impressive soundtrack, made by the director Zilbalodis along with composer Rihards Zalupe. The music is simple yet effective, tailoring itself for every scene. In one moment, it can depict curiosity and, in the next, anxiety. In addition to the song I mentioned earlier in the scene where the cat and bird are separated, called “Flow Away,” the music that particularly plays when the flood starts rushing in, conveniently named “Flood,” also stands out to me as it perfectly encapsulates the sense of fear that the cat is experiencing.

As stated previously, this film can be truly whatever the viewer wants it to be, especially through the theme of balance. There is a large whale, present through brief moments throughout the film, enticing wonder, that has characteristics of a typical whale seen today and some futuristic features as well. Following the scene where the animals work together to save each other after the flood vanishes, they see the large whale on the grass, struggling to breathe. The cat brushes its body against it, comforting it until it hears the shakes of the trees and the running footsteps of the deer. The flood is emerging once again.

The post-credits scene only very quickly shows a whale jumping from the ocean, intentionally leaving it up to the viewer's interpretation if it is the same whale we saw struggling to survive just moments ago. This scene perfectly encapsulates this sense of balance within nature and, more broadly, life. There will always be competition among species to survive on some level. Some must struggle, so others do not. That does not mean that the cat and whale hate each other but rather that each species must do what it can to survive, given the circumstances they are in. Situations change, and all someone can truly do is adapt to them, as the animals do in the film.

Continuing with the last scene, what I really appreciate about the film, which I find makes it even more unique than it already is, is its depiction of fear. Naturally, the cat is not a big fan of the water and struggles throughout the film to operate in a world full of it. Eventually, after falling into the water countless times and nearly drowning, it starts jumping into the water, willingly collecting fish as food. However, in the film's final minutes, the cat stares in fear at the possibility of the flood coming back, only now with a dog, capybara, and lemur by its side. Unlike other films, the cat never fully gets over its fear, in this case, of water.

The movie shows getting over your fear, something I would say most of us desire to achieve, as a very long process. It is not something that "just happens" one day. The cat gains confidence, and its relationship with water improves immensely. However, once again, the fear stays, a narrative of acceptance that I find severely underrated since I usually find protagonists completely overcoming their largest fear by the end of the movie.

Arguably the most obvious takeaway, however, from the film: the simple yet equally strong power of companionship. The most unlikely of companions find a way to survive terrifying events because they do so together. They do scowl and fight, but they also feed, defend, and save each other throughout the movie. They become co-dependent in the best of ways and reflect a sweet and inspiring reflection on humanity. As director Gints Zilbalodis said in his [speech] at the Academy Awards, “We are all on the same boat, and we must find ways to overcome our differences and work together.”

Overall, this film was absolutely what I needed to take a break from studying. It encapsulates so many emotions by combining the finest elements of animation and sound and is truly entertaining for every audience. It reminds us of the humanity we need to hold on to despite purely being a film on the cutest of animals.