This Trailer Teases The Most Beautifully Animated Movie Of 2025 (Sorry, KPop Demon Hunters)
It takes a lot of guts for an animated movie trailer to start throwing around comparisons to Hayao Miyazaki's work, but with "Arco," the name drop is warranted. The French movie from writer/director Ugo Bienvenu was an official selection for the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, and its new trailer shows just how well it earns its buzz.
Clad in gorgeous colors and vivid imagination, "Arco" tells the story of two children from two radically different futures. One is the time-traveling Arco (voiced by Juliano Valdi in the English version and Oscar Tresanini in the French version) from the utopian year 2932, while the other is Iris (Romy Fay and Margot Ringard Oldra), a youngster from the considerably darker 2075, where Arco ends up during his unsanctioned, rainbow cape-powered time leap.
While comparatively scant on plot details, the trailer for "Arco" suggests that the movie is a legitimate competitor for the unofficial title of the most gorgeous animated movie of 2025. This puts it in the same bracket with the beautifully-animated Netflix smash hit "Kpop Demon Hunters" ... and in my opinion, at least, "Arco" takes the cake.
Arco combines pure eye candy with an interesting time travel story
Like so many great animated movies that aren't made by Disney or Pixar, "Arco" has plenty to bring to the table. As the trailer illustrates, the visual languages of the two futures it takes place in are very different yet still vivid in their own, distinct ways. They also have their similarities, chiefly seen in the way caretakers and machines that double as caretakers try to limit the children, as well as the way said children are quick to form friendships even though they hail from different times.
Before "Arco," Ugo Bienvenu's most notable project was co-directing the short-lived "Marvel's Ant-Man" animated series for Disney XD – an underrated project with a beautiful, comic book-influenced look quite unlike anything else in the superhero TV sphere. With this movie, he combines a fantastic, futuristic fairy tale with eye-popping visuals to a memorable effect — one that has been more than enough to attract the voice acting talents of Will Ferrell, America Ferrera, Natalie Portman, Mark Ruffalo, Andy Samberg, and Red Hot Chili Peppers bass player Flea.
"Arco" will arrive in theaters on November 14, 2025.