(Credits: Far Out / Diaphana Distribution / Neon)
Thu 4 December 2025 5:30, UK
In a year filled with vastly different animated titles, an independent French fantasy film stands out.
Although 2025 saw an explosion in the popularity of international animated movies at the box office thanks to Ne Zha 2 and Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle, there hadn’t been a truly brilliant release worthy of mentioning within the same breath as the most successful releases of recent years, such as Flow, The Boy and the Heron, and Pinocchio.
Of course, it hasn’t helped that some of the more anticipated films, such as Pixar’s Elio or Andy Serkis’ Animal Farm, turned out to be major disappointments.
Animation is often thought of as a medium that is best suited for children, but it is frequently the case that the best animated movies have the power to visualise stories that resonate with multiple generations. The French animated project Arco may not end up having a fraction of the audience as Dog Man or The Bad Guys 2, but it’s a profound and exciting way of conceptualising a story that could never have been told within live-action. Science fiction stories are too frequently based on negative, dystopian imaginings of the future, but Arco suggests that there’s a positive path forward if people learn not to become too reliant on technology.
Time travel is an incredibly difficult concept to depict on screen, but Arco has a unique approach of merging two timelines. The crux of the film takes place in the not-so-distant future of 2075, where humanity has continued to absolutely annihilate Earth’s natural resources and design robots that perform basic functions. It’s startling to imagine how close to reality the movie feels before it’s interrupted by the titular character, Arco (voiced by Juliano Krue Valdi), who has travelled back in time from the year 2932.
Arco is a classical adventure in which a fish-out-of-water hero is forced to make their way back home, but it serves as a warning about the long-lasting implications of current indulgences. Even if the characters in 2075 don’t think that their actions will have any sizable impact within their lifetime, the world in 2932 has regressed to the point that humans have adopted a primal culture similar to that of ancient cavemen.
Theoretically, the future should always have some sort of promise to it, and Arco examines how heartbreaking that loss of potential can be for those living in the present. It’s the young girl Iris (voiced by Romy Fay) who takes it upon herself to ensure that there’s a future that Arco actually wants to return to, as he seems to be more than comfortable staying in the past. It’s one of the many surprisingly mature ideas in a film that still has the type of vibrant colour palette and slapstick humour that appeals to children who are the same age as the characters.
Arco is a rare original film that isn’t based on a previously existing work of fact or fiction, but it does pay tribute to some of the most legendary works of animation. There’s a modest approach to the harmony of nature that invokes the style of Studio Ghibli, as well as a rip-roaring momentum to action sequences that would’ve perfectly fit within one of Disney’s ‘Golden Age’ fairy tale films. The idiosyncratic, bumbling robots in Arco even bear a striking resemblance to the unusual aliens in the French animation classic Fantastic Planet.
Arco is one of the many films released this year by the independent distributor Neon, which isn’t always able to expand their projects beyond a limited scope of theatres. However, Arco is a movie that is worth seeking out whenever it becomes available, as cinema could use more of its optimism and originality.
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