Movie · 2024 · Animation, Family, Comedy, Fantasy, Adventure · 1h 30m · PG · English
Curator score: 6.2/10 (19.6K ratings)
Hello Darkness, my new friend.
Overview
A boy with an active imagination faces his fears on an unforgettable journey through the night with his new friend: a giant, smiling creature named Dark.
Ratings
Curator score: 6.2/10
IMDb: 6.3/10
Rotten Tomatoes: 91%
Metacritic: 72
TMDB: 6.5/10
Director
Sean Charmatz
Production
DreamWorks Animation
Cast
Jacob Tremblay, Paul Walter Hauser, Angela Bassett, Colin Hanks, Natasia Demetriou, Golda Rosheuvel, Nat Faxon, Aparna Nancherla, Ike Barinholtz, Carla Gugino, Matt Dellapina, Nick Kishiyama, Mia Akemi Brown, Shannon Chan-Kent, Jack Fisher, Werner Herzog, Sky Alexis, Hira Ambrosino, Yoshi Ando, Larisa Asuaje
Where to watch
Netflix, Netflix Standard with Ads
Curator Review
Verdict
A sweet, lightly surreal kids’ fantasy with real empathy for anxiety, but it’s more effective as a comforting conversation starter than as a fully distinctive animated classic. Its charm comes from the emotional premise and playful visual ideas, even if the storytelling sometimes feels familiar.
Best for
families with anxious kids
viewers who like gentle, concept-driven animation
fans of heartfelt bedtime-story fantasy
people looking for a kid-friendly take on fear and imagination
Skip if
you want sharp, original worldbuilding
you prefer fast, joke-dense animation
you’re looking for a deeply layered all-ages masterpiece
you dislike sentimental, message-forward family films
Overview
Orion and the Dark is built around a simple but effective idea: what if fear itself became a friend? That premise gives the film a warm emotional engine, and it handles childhood anxiety with enough sincerity to feel useful rather than preachy. The movie’s biggest strength is that it treats a kid’s fears as real, not silly, which gives it more heart than many glossy family animations.
Worth noting
The execution is pleasant more than dazzling. It moves through familiar fantasy beats and doesn’t always find the most inventive visual or narrative path, but the central relationship keeps it afloat. There’s a slightly offbeat, existential streak in the writing that makes it feel a little stranger than the average studio family movie, even when it stays safely within crowd-pleasing boundaries.
Bottom line
If you’re watching with kids, especially ones who worry at night, it can land very well. If you’re hoping for a major animated breakthrough, it may feel like a polished near-miss: thoughtful, amiable, and occasionally inspired, but not quite as singular as its premise suggests.
Top Letterboxd reviews
ClockworkKing (3★) · 1725 likes
The Pixar version of Beau is Afraid
joão vitor (2★) · 1699 likes
imagine bullying someone else over their name while yours is richie panici
Joe A (3.5★) · 1466 likes
Not the most creative in the personification of concepts trope, but makes up for it in that it’s not afraid to treat children like human beings with real life fears and anxieties. Keep writing animated movies Kaufman!
cind (3.5★) · 1078 likes
dark’s film was robbed by sundance💔
davidehrlich (3★) · 831 likes
Charlie Kaufman isn’t one to half-ass things or lend his name to projects that don’t reflect the full volume of his voice as a writer, but I was admittedly skeptical of his screenplay credit on Netflix’s “Orion and the Dark,” an animated kids movie adapted from Emma Yarlett’s picture book of the same name and directed by Sean Charmatz, whose most notable work includes a pair of “Trolls” shorts and a job as “head of story” on “The Angry Birds… more Charlie Kaufman isn’t one to half-ass things or lend his name to projects that don’t reflect the full volume of his voice as a writer, but I was admittedly skeptical of his screenplay credit on Netflix’s “Orion and the Dark,” an animated kids movie adapted from Emma Yarlett’s picture book of the same name and directed by Sean Charmatz, whose most notable work includes a pair of “Trolls” shorts and a job as “head of story” on “The Angry Birds… more