Film
The Bad Guys
A slick, self-aware heist comedy about a crew of animal outlaws — a wolf, a snake, a shark, a tarantula and a piranha — trying to go straight, or at least look like they are. It's fast, funny, gorgeously stylised (that 70s-cool-crime-movie palette), and built for families who like their capers with actual plotting. Kids get jokes, adults get the con.
If you liked this
Zootopia2016
Same DNA: animals playing out human crime tropes with real wit and a genuine mystery underneath the gags. Gorgeous world-building and a message about prejudice that never feels like homework.
But The mystery plot runs a bit long for very young kids, and the social commentary is more pointed than Bad Guys ever gets.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse2018
If you clocked how stylish The Bad Guys looks, this is the film that broke animation open — bold, comic-book-panel visuals and a redemption arc with real heart.
But Denser and more emotionally serious than a heist romp; multiverse plotting can be a lot to track for younger viewers.

Despicable Me2010
The original reformed-supervillain comedy — a career criminal going soft has never been funnier, and Gru's slow thaw is the template Mr. Wolf is riffing on.
But The Minions have since eaten the franchise's reputation, so it plays a little more juvenile in retrospect than it did in 2010.

The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Rififi1955
The Bad Guys' whole style — the crew, the plan, the caper-within-a-caper structure — descends directly from this film's DNA. It's the ancestor, seventy years earlier, in a completely different register.
The French film that essentially invented the modern heist movie — a wordless, half-hour robbery sequence so tense and precise that every caper since, including this one, is quoting it.
But Black-and-white, subtitled, and paced like a slow burn — it demands patience a cartoon never asks for.

More like this (8)
The Incredibles2004
Pixar's take on a family of outlaws-by-nature hiding who they really are, with action sequences that still hold up as genuinely thrilling set pieces.
But It's superheroes, not thieves — the crime-caper structure and gadget-heist pleasures of The Bad Guys aren't really here.

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish2022
Same studio, same swagger, and a roguish anti-hero facing consequences for the first time — plus animation that takes genuine visual risks.
But Darker and more melancholic than expected; mortality is a real theme here, not just a punchline.

Megamind2010
An underrated villain-redemption comedy with a terrific voice cast and a surprisingly sharp joke about what happens after the bad guy actually wins.
But It's a decade-plus old and the animation style feels dated next to The Bad Guys' slicker, comic-panel look.

Klaus2019
Traditional 2D animation with a con-man protagonist scheming his way into an unlikely change of heart — warm, handsome, and criminally underseen.
But It's a Christmas film through and through, so the seasonal wrapping might feel odd watching in July.

Shrek2001
The DreamWorks blueprint for lovable, grumpy outsiders subverting how they're supposed to behave — irreverent, quotable, and still funny twenty years on.
But The pop-culture-gag humour has aged into a specific early-2000s flavour that some kids now find dated.

Missing Link2019no page yet
A globe-trotting adventure-comedy with gorgeous stop-motion craft and a monster who'd fit right in with the Bad Guys' crew of misunderstood outsiders.
But Slower and gentler in pace — it's an adventure story more than a heist, so the pace feels different.
Ocean's Eleven2001
Same genre, same structural pleasure of the plan-within-a-plan, but played completely straight for grown-ups instead of kids — the sophisticated cousin of Mr. Wolf's crew.
The gold-standard grown-up version of exactly what The Bad Guys is doing: a charismatic crew, a con inside a con, and the same pleasure in watching a plan click into place.
But It's a wink-and-cocktail heist for adults — the humour is sly and sexy rather than kid-friendly, and there's zero moral arc about going straight.

Fantastic Mr. Fox2009
Nearly the same premise — a charismatic animal criminal wrestling with his own nature — but rendered in stop-motion with a completely different, arch, grown-up sense of humour.
Wes Anderson's stop-motion tale of an animal thief who can't resist one last score, told with dry wit and meticulous, handcrafted visual style you won't see anywhere else.
But Deadpan and literary where The Bad Guys is loud and kinetic — younger kids may find the humour goes right over their heads.

People
Cast
Sam RockwellWolf (voice)
Marc MaronSnake (voice)
AwkwafinaTarantula (voice)
Craig RobinsonShark (voice)
Anthony RamosPiranha (voice)
Richard AyoadeProfessor Marmalade (voice)
Zazie BeetzDiane Foxington (voice)
Alex BorsteinPolice Chief Misty Luggins (voice)
Lilly SinghTiffany Fluffit (voice)
Barbara GoodsonOld Lady (voice)
Dina MorroneMuseum Announcer / Diane's A.I. Assistant (voice)
Michael GodereDelivery Driver / Museum Guest 1 (voice)
Directing
- Pierre PerifelDirector
Writing
- Aaron BlabeyBook
- Nelson YokotaHead of Story
- Etan CohenScreenplay
- Adam RosetteStory Artist
- Alice HerringStory Artist
- Claire MorrisseyStory Artist
- Hanna KimStory Artist
- Jeremy BernsteinStory Artist
- John PuglisiStory Artist
- Katherine de VriesStory Artist
- Leo MatsudaStory Artist
- Marco ReginaStory Artist
- Michael LesterStory Artist
- Mike SurreyStory Artist
- Young Ki YoonStory Artist
Production
- Christi Soper HiltCasting
- Aaron BlabeyExecutive Producer
- Etan CohenExecutive Producer
- Damon RossProducer
- Patrick HughesProducer
- Rebecca HuntleyProducer
- Michael LynnProduction Manager
- Tracy LarsonProduction Manager
- Katherine RamosProduction Supervisor