The Academy Award for Best Animated Feature is almost always awarded to a well-known blockbuster–often produced by Disney or Pixar–but this year an indie movie took home the top prize: Flow. If you are one of the many Oscar viewers who hasn’t watched Flow, the animated adventure is getting a 4K Blu-ray release from The Criterion Collection later this year. A release date hasn’t been set, but preorders are live at Amazon for a nice discount. The 4K Blu-ray version is actually cheaper than the standard Blu-ray right now, so you may want to secure your preorder while Amazon is offering this $15 discount.
Directed by Gints Zilbalodis and made with open-source software at a budget of roughly $4 million, Flow brought in over $20 million at the box office. Flow earned glowing praise from both critics and viewers, and it’s currently sitting with “Universal Acclaim” on Metacritic. What’s even more impressive, though, is that Flow managed to topple several commercial hits from some of the biggest animated studios, including Dreamworks’ The Wild Robot and Pixar’s Inside Out 2, which is one of the top 10 highest-grossing movies ever at $1.7 billion.
Flow follows a cat who embarks on an adventure after his home and the world around him is destroyed by a flood. Throughout his journey, he meets a lemur, capybara, and other animals who, like him, simply want to survive. It’s a rather unconventional movie, as its animation and sound design tell the complete story–there isn’t a single word of dialogue.
$35.28 (was $50)
The 4K Blu-ray edition retails for $50, but Amazon opened its preorders at $35.28. You won’t be charged for your preorder until it ships, and Amazon will automatically adjust your order total if the price drops even lower before release.
The standard 1080p Blu-ray edition is available for $40, and the DVD release is $30. Neither of these versions are discounted at the moment, but they are eligible for Amazon’s preorder price guarantee, too.
If you want to add more of the Best Animated Feature nominees to your home theater, check out the list below.
