A unique film is currently in cinemas that manages entirely without human language and challenges our intuitive understanding through pure visual power. Don’t miss out on the adventure experience of Flow.
The fact that films can do without language has been proven to us by the beginnings of film history over a century ago, and a series of great masterpieces have been produced that are still unforgettable today. However, making a film without any dialogue at all is unusual these days and not an entirely daring undertaking. After all, viewing habits have changed dramatically over the last 100 years, and current films are increasingly moving away from the old filmmaker’s rule of “show, don’t tell”.
A counterexample can currently be seen in cinemas, one that manages entirely without human language and functions almost entirely through its powerful imagery and the magic of music. Don’t miss this unique experience, which is already considered one of the best films of 2025: Flow.
Adventure-Experience Flow will leave you speechless with its unique animation and deeply touching story
The Earth seems to be coming to an end, because the cities and forests are populated only by animals instead of humans. One of them is a cat that has settled in a magnificent wooden hut and lives its day from there alone. When a torrential flood submerges the forest, she is suddenly forced to leave her home and takes refuge on a drifting boat. But she is not alone on the boat.
While a capybara has already made itself comfortable here, a golden retriever, a lemur and a secretary bird gradually find refuge on the wooden craft. But each animal has its idiosyncrasies – and the motley bunch must learn to get along with each other while fighting for survival.
It’s an exciting thought experiment to consider what would have become of this film if it had been made by Disney, Pixar or DreamWorks. Because the story fits in well with every classic animated adventure we’ve seen in the cinema in recent decades. However, Flow is so completely different that one could almost speak of an anti-Disney approach here. Because here the focus is not on extreme humanization of the animals, on musical interludes, accurate humor and perfectly rounded animation.
Instead, each animal has realistic character traits, communicates almost exclusively with realistic sounds, and the plot is driven only by the smallest and seemingly random developments. However, this is precisely what gives the film its strength: almost as if watching a documentary, the animals have to cope with the flood disaster and with each other, repeatedly coming up against the limits of their own specific abilities. It’s easy to forget that numerous fantastic and mystical elements have found their way into the film.
Flow in the cinema: A melancholy adventure about the power of images and friendship
The impressive score guides us through the narrative and charges many moments with tension, wit or profound melancholy. It underscores the emotional connection between the animals and the bond that we as viewers also increasingly develop with the individual animal protagonists. A broken mirror, a plunge into the water or an approaching shipwreck become a test of the nerves of characters and audience alike. Just as a shared meal, a saved glass ball and a sudden farewell manage to touch our hearts.
Many things remain completely unexplained. Where language usually helps us to understand certain symbols and actions in animated films, here we are often simply left in the dark and left to wonder what this or that statue, dream sequence or animal gaze exactly meant. Flow believes that we are capable of understanding intuitively, of questioning and simply feeling – of surrendering to the current, letting ourselves drift and seeing where it may take us. In the end, we realize once again that the where to might never have been that important. Rather, it was the how and the who.
It’s no wonder that Flow was able to beat strong competitors such as Everything is Headed 2 or The Wild Robot at this year’s Academy Awards for best animated film – or that director Gints Zilbalodis is now being celebrated as a Latvian folk hero. You can see the animation masterpiece for yourself at the cinema, where Flow has finally been released in Germany since March 6, 2025.
