OVERVIEW
GOAT is Sony Pictures Animation’s newest all-animal animated adventure, a sports movie built on a familiar underdog premise, but told with a lot of color and energy. Will, a small goat, dreams of going pro in Roarball, a full-contact, basketball-like sport typically played by large, fierce animals. When chance favors him and he joins his favorite team alongside his childhood hero, he must prove his worth and help a team struggling with a losing streak.
BACKGROUND
Sony Pictures Animation has spent years bouncing between broad family comedy (Hotel Transylvania, The Angry Birds Movie) and more visually distinctive work that leans into style as identity (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, KPop Demon Hunters). GOAT is being positioned as part of that latter push, with marketing and creative choices that emphasize its energy, design, and soundtrack as core appeals. Released on All-Star Weekend, it clearly aims to feel plugged into current basketball culture and to open 2026 with a big, event-style animated crowd-pleaser.
THE REVIEW
GOAT will not be mentioned alongside Spider-Verse or KPop Demon Hunters as the studio’s peak, but it is still a very good time for kids, thanks to the creativity on display and the endearing characters.
It has been interesting to track Sony Pictures Animation’s evolution from its early, uneven years to a point where it no longer feels like it is trying to imitate the genre’s big studios, but is standing on its own. Especially compared to the recent animal animated films like The Bad Guys 2 and Zootopia 2, it feels like a movie that stands on its own, building its own highly functional world full of personality with a lot of care on the small details of worldbuilding that make an all-animal city feel alive.
Those details are where the film has the most charm. You get the usual jokes about a lizard’s skin, a rodent landlord trying to survive a home with way too many pups, but also some that genuinely surprise, like a horse who takes real pride in his hair, an ostrich who is terrified of flying, and, of course, a moment built around how goats behave when they get scared.
But the greatest pleasure is watching how they play their version of basketball. Roarball turns the sport into pure chaos, with floors that shift and break as the game goes on, which gives the movie permission for some animal-specific havoc. It can be genuinely fun seeing these huge animals battle each other, and honestly, I would watch their tournament over the NBA.
Aided by high-standard animation and fast editing that leaves no second to breathe, GOAT becomes a full sensory experience. That is mostly the point, and it will work for kids, but it also pushes into “too much noise” territory at times. It overwhelms with color and score, and by the time the credits roll, you might be ready to run out of the theater.
The story underneath is the one you have seen before, and while there is a nice bit of character work around Will’s idol, the black panther star Jett Fillmore, the film mostly hits the expected beats. We still get the familiar underdog arc and the usual secondary characters, including the villain player who, of course, is waiting for Will in the final match. The movie plays it all with enough earnestness that you do not really mind.
The jokes keep coming, the volume stays high, and it is clearly designed so kids do not get bored for a second. It might become a new favorite for them, the kind of movie they watch on repeat. It is also easy to imagine it being replaced by the next thing just as fast, remembered less for the story than for the simple pitch, animals play basketball.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The film might not be the GOAT (well, technically, it is), but it remains a high-octane, great time for children, with plenty of clever jokes and creative touches.
Still courtesy of Sony Pictures Entertainment Canada
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- Where to watch
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Play trailer
- Original title
- GOAT
- Director
- Tyree Dillihay, Adam Rosette
- Cast
- Caleb McLaughlin, Gabrielle Union, Stephen Curry, Aaron Pierre, Nicola Coughlan, David Harbour, Nick Kroll, Jenifer Lewis
- Rated
- G
- Screenwriter
- Airin Budiman, Keely Propp, James W. Suhr, Nicolas Curcio, Peter Chiarelli, Aaron Buchsbaum, Teddy Riley, Ian Higginbotham, Matthew Bordenave, Chase Conley, Jarelle Dampier, Yingzhong Hu, Benjamin Jordan Lee, Max Perkins, Steve Walker, Melody Wang, Felix Yang, Joshua E. Perez, Ovi Nedelcu, Jennifer Kluska, Cassey Kuo, Grace Liu, Jalin Harden
- Composer
- Kris Bowers
- Cinematography
- John Clark
- Editor
- Clare Knight
- Country
- Language
- English
- Budget
- $90 million
- Box office
- $193.566 million
- Distributor (CA)
- Sony Pictures Entertainment Canada