Wildwood LAIKA animated film 2026 MovieMeter ranking, Digi Mart USA News: The stop-motion animated adventure film Wildwood, directed by Travis Knight, currently leads the MovieMeter “Top 50 Best Films of 2026” list. The LAIKA title holds an average score of 4.00 out of 5 based on a modest 34 votes.
That places it ahead of all other releases of the year, including second-place The Odyssey, which stands at 3.88 based on 874 votes. Although the film has little visibility on MovieMeter and is currently showing in only one Dutch cinema, the publisher reports that audiences and international critics agree it is the best-rated film of the year.
The 139-minute English-language adventure was adapted by screenwriter Chris Butler from the 2011 novel by Colin Meloy and illustrator Carson Ellis. It follows thirteen-year-old Prue McKeel, who leaves her parents’ home in Portland, Oregon, after her newborn brother Mac is kidnapped by a flock of crows.
Together with classmate Curtis, she ventures into a hidden, dangerous forest area known locally as Wildwood.
Initially they hope only to find her brother, but they soon become involved in a struggle for the freedom of the entire enchanted wilderness. Although the original book was followed by Under Wildwood (2012) and Wildwood Imperium (2014), the film concludes the story with McKeel and Curtis returning home, and no sequels have been announced.
Wildwood is the work of LAIKA, the studio also known for Coraline (2009). It is the studio’s first feature film since Missing Link (2019).
LAIKA acquired the film rights to the book in September 2011, and the project was officially announced in September 2021 with Knight directing and Arianne Sutner producing. According to trade publications The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline, the project took sixteen years to reach the screen, while Bloomberg estimates the production budget at 100 million dollars.
For the first time, the studio adapts a story set in its home city of Portland. For the shoot at its studio just outside the city, 233 handmade puppets with hundreds of thousands of replaceable facial expressions were created, spread across 132 physical sets and 728 miniature trees from the Pacific Northwest.
The voice cast includes Peyton Elizabeth Lee and Jacob Tremblay as McKeel and Curtis, and Carey Mulligan and Mahershala Ali as the grieving governess Alexandra and bandit king Brendan. Other roles go to Angela Bassett, Awkwafina, Jake Johnson, Maya Erskine, Charlie Day, Amandla Stenberg, Jemaine Clement and Richard E.
Grant. As a toddler, the director’s son Arthur Knight voiced the baby sounds of the kidnapped brother Mac, and the puppet model for that character was based on the director’s eldest son.
Wildwood had its world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival on October 11 and was well received after screenings at the Sitges Film Festival and AFI FEST. On Rotten Tomatoes it holds a 99% critics score and a 97% audience score.
On IMDb it averages 8.7 from 16,244 ratings. The Hollywood Reporter’s Frank Scheck called it the studio’s “most ambitious effort to date” and said it “may also be the company’s masterpiece.”
Despite the strong reviews, the film had a modest financial start in North American theaters, where LAIKA released it on October 23 in partnership with Fathom Entertainment. According to Forbes, the opening weekend earned 12 million dollars in the United States and 15 million dollars worldwide.
The business publication attributes this partly to its PG-13 rating, which excludes some of the younger family audience.
MovieMeter user reactions from Dutch audiences praise the visual finish, with one user calling the animation an absolute highlight, while several note that the violence is intense for children aged nine and up. Other commenters praised the craftsmanship and contrasted the characters’ authentic reactions with more formulaic Pixar and Disney productions.
One commenter found the story predictable and said the running time should have been thirty minutes shorter.
In the Netherlands, the film is currently available in only one cinema, in Amersfoort, with a registered release date of October 22. The exhibition Wildwood: The Exhibition has opened alongside the release, displaying original miniatures, puppets and sets.
The film is not yet available on subscription services such as Netflix, Videoland, Prime Video or Disney+, nor as a digital rental or purchase on platforms such as Pathé Thuis, Google Play or meJane.
