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.

TMDb rating7.5

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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.

Zootopia poster

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.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse poster

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.

Despicable Me poster

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.

Rififi poster
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.

The Incredibles poster

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.

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish poster

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.

Megamind poster

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.

Klaus poster

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.

Shrek poster

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.

Ocean's Eleven poster

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.

Fantastic Mr. Fox poster

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