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Top Ten Blue Sky Studios Films

Blue Sky Studios is a now defunct animation studio particularly known for its Ice Age and Rio franchises, especially the former as it ran for the high amount of five movies. The studio shut down in 2021 unfortunately, but despite most of these movies being only passable in quality, I will fondly remember it for the few great movies that they produced. The studio ended up producing thirteen feature films. Here are ten best features with the remaining three not getting an honorable mention from me as those are quite bad.

10. Ferdinand

While I did find the animation in this flick very good and some scenes quite charming, most of Ferdinand is simply relying too much on stereotypical goofy characters and annoying humor. It is overly frenetic in action scenes and too modern, leading to a ridiculous Oscar nominee. The original Disney version is miles better than this mediocrity.

9. Robots

Just at ninth place and we’ve got a theme going on with this studio – frenetic pacing and too much focus on endless action scenes. These two issues tarnished any potential that 2005’s Robots could have had, and it had great world building and some interesting themes, but simply the execution was all wrong. It’s the most disappointing flick on this list.

8. Spies in Disguise

Ridiculously fast paced and way too typical in its animal hijinks, Spies in Disguise is certainly a very messy movie. However, the one thing that makes it passable and better than the above two films is the main duo that are well performed by Tom Holland and Will Smith and quite amusing in their dynamic.

7. Ice Age: The Meltdown

This one was an entertaining, but thoroughly unnecessary sequel. Some characters got their moment to shine, some of the humor is pretty good and the animation is great, but the team was foolishly separated here and most of its subplots felt disconnected from one another, thus resulting in something resembling a series of shorts instead of a legitimate feature film.

6. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs does feature a very annoying new character in the form of one-note Buck as the franchise continued to add new unnecessary characters, but Sid himself has never been as memorable and funny as he was here. The movie is also adventurous and gorgeous-looking. Thus, it’s clearly the best of the Ice Age sequels.

5. Rio

While the celebrity voice acting was distracting here, which is the problem most Blue Sky movies share, and the ecological message did not quite hit home as strong as it should have, the first Rio movie is still miles above its sequel as it’s breezy, energetic, colorful and a whole lot of fun. Its stunning animation and very catchy Latin numbers are the highlights.

4. Ice Age

The first movie that started the whole franchise and the entire studio, Ice Age remains the only truly good movie in its franchise despite its somewhat derivative plot. The animation still holds up, its icy world is very well crafted and the humor and adventure both worked. The highlights are the characters as Sid, Diego and Manny have never been better afterward.

3. Epic

The most underrated movie from the studio by far has to be Epic, a film that deserves more attention for the many things that it does right. It needed a longer runtime, but its world building is truly astonishing, and thematically speaking, it’s quite sophisticated actually. The action, characters and the overall mythology were all stellar.

2. Horton Hears a Who!

This flick is not only the second best Blue Sky movie, but also the second best Dr. Seuss adaptation after Netflix’s ‘Green Eggs and Ham’. The casting was distracting, but the animation is lovely, the tone is excellent and the characterization is quite good. The highlight is its beautiful message that makes this one an important viewing for all children out there.

1. The Peanuts Movie

And the first place goes to The Peanuts Movie, the only truly great film this studio produced. This one genuinely surprised me back in 2015. As a big Peanuts fan, I hadn’t expected that Blue Sky would be capable of delivering the goods, but they made me happy in the end as they got most of the things right. The pacing is messy, but the characters are all truthful to their roots, the tone is fantastic, the overall story worked and the ending was quite touching. The highlight is its 2.5D computer animation that was outstanding and wildly innovative. It’s an amazing film.