TIFF 2025: Arco Review

This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.

In recent years, anime has surged into the global mainstream, reaching a level of cultural presence not seen since the Shonen Jump boom of the 2000s. This can be seen through the international box office success of films like Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle and Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc. The influence of anime is shaping animation around the world in fresh and exciting ways. This year’s Cannes Film Festival made that clearer than ever, with two French productions, Arco and Little Amélie, embracing a distinctly anime-inspired style while retaining a uniquely French touch. Both are being hailed as major contenders for the Best Animated Feature Oscar. Of the two, Arco has generated the most buzz since its Cannes debut, where it was swiftly acquired by NEON during the distributor’s high-profile buying spree. The film has also received an English-language dub featuring an impressive roster of A-listers including Natalie Portman, Will Ferrell, Mark Ruffalo, America Ferrera, Flea, and Andy Samberg.

Directed by Ugo Bienvenu, Arco is set in the year 2075 and follows a ten-year-old girl named Iris, who one day witnesses a boy her age falling from the sky in a rainbow-colored jumpsuit. The boy, Arco, reveals that he comes from a distant future where time travel exists. In an early sequence, Deveraux paints a picture of his home world: an idyllic, almost magical utopia built after climate change forced humanity to abandon traditional technology and rediscover harmony with nature. In this society, time travel is used as a form of education, allowing people to visit the past, recover lost knowledge, and prevent future mistakes. Arco’s parents are among those trusted with these missions, but when he’s told he’s too young to participate, he takes matters into his own hands. Stealing one of their time-travel suits, he accidentally strands himself in the year 2075, where he meets Iris. Meanwhile, the pair realize Arco is being followed by a mysterious group of people wearing the same kind of jumpsuits.

Now, it is easy to see why the film has drawn strong reactions at both Annecy and Cannes. Its hand-drawn animation is absolutely stunning, bursting with color, life, and imagination. Every frame feels alive, evoking Studio Ghibli’s influence while carving out its own distinct animation style. In an age dominated by CGI, Arco serves as a vivid reminder of how special traditional hand-drawn artistry can be when done with this level of care and precision.

Unfortunately, while the visuals are breathtaking, the story never fully lives up to them. Arco struggles to find its tone or target audience. It dives into dark, emotional territory that might resonate more with adults, yet its presentation often feels way too light and simplistic, more in line with something like Ponyo, a film that is clearly intended for young children. The result is a film that feels caught between two audiences, unsure of what tone it’s trying to strike. Narratively, it is overstuffed and often loses track of its core story. It juggles several ideas that never fully come together, while its emotional moments don’t land with the weight they should.

In spite of these flaws, Arco remains a film worth seeing. Its visual imagination alone makes it stand out, and there are certain moments that remind audiences of why 2D animation can be such a powerful medium. It may not be the indie animation triumph that Robot Dreams or Flow were, but it is still an impressive feat worth commending.

still courtesy of Elevation Pictures/Neon

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Tristan French