Dir. Travis Knight · 2026 · 132 min · in US cinemas from 23 October
Laika's new film is the studio's biggest swing: a stop-motion fantasy about a girl who follows her kidnapped baby brother into a forest that is not on any map. Critics are close to unanimous that it is a staggering piece of handmade craft. They are less united on whether the story matches the craft. The warmest reviews call it the studio's best; a few find it less magical than Coraline or Kubo. Four stars.
Wildwood adapts the 2011 novel by Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis, with a script by Chris Butler. It opens in Portland, Oregon. Prue (voiced by Peyton Elizabeth Lee) is made to promise she will never let her infant brother, Mac, out of the house. She breaks the promise, and a murder of crows carries him into the sky. Prue follows, with a local boy, Curtis (Jacob Tremblay), into the woods. There, coyotes in human clothes attack them and split the pair apart. That is as far as this review goes.
The wider voice cast, according to the film's published listings, includes Carey Mulligan, Angela Bassett as a giant golden eagle known as the General, Jake Johnson and Maya Erskine as Prue's parents. Dario Marianelli, who scored The Boxtrolls and Kubo and the Two Strings, returns as composer.
The craft is the headline. Production material lists 136 sets and 231 practical puppets, with 3D printing used for armatures, puppet musculature and even simulated water. William Bibbiani at TheWrap calls it one of the most astonishing animated movies ever made, and argues that the handmade effort is inseparable from the feeling: this is a film that proves art cannot be waved into existence. Tyler Taing at Discussing Film picks out tiny stitches in the puppets' clothes and the hand-placed greenery, and calls the Impassable Wilderness sets and the climactic battle among the most complex stop-motion sequences ever attempted. Taing also praises Butler's script and the voice cast, in particular Johnson and Erskine.
The wider reception is warm. A roundup at World of Reel lists glowing notices from The Telegraph, Collider, ScreenRant and IGN, and describes the response as the film's strongest yet for Laika. Variety's headline calls it Laika's most ambitious feature to date, "a richly textured, transportive fairytale epic". The Hollywood Reporter, as summarised by Filmofilia's roundup, responds most to the technical achievement and to the family bonds at its centre.
Wildwood is a gorgeous, moving blockbuster that stands tall in an already great year for animation.
Tyler Taing, Discussing Film
Here the critics divide, and it is about the story, not the look. IndieWire's headline says the epic "lacks the magic of the studio's best movies"; David Ehrlich admires the craft, but, per Filmofilia's summary, questions the stock characters, an underdeveloped Curtis and how computer-assisted spectacle sits beside the stop-motion work. Guy Lodge at Variety, per the same summary, tempers his praise with concerns about familiar fantasy elements and pacing. The World of Reel roundup lists IndieWire at a B-, and The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw at 3 out of 5, and treats both as mild dissent rather than pans. Even Bibbiani concedes that the story borrows familiar fantasy pieces, which can feel quaint.
The film also runs well over two hours. Taing warns that its off-kilter style may narrow its audience, and that it may not reach the heights of Coraline or Kubo. That is a fair reading of the split: a visual wonder with a story that some find well-worn.
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It opens in US cinemas on 23 October, distributed by Fathom Entertainment; international sales are handled by FilmNation Entertainment. I could not confirm release dates for other countries, and availability varies by country, so check your local cinema listings. This is a film built for the big screen.