Best African animation movies

Get ready to binge. We've found a collection of must-watch animation films from Africa, now streaming on Netflix, HBO, Hulu, Prime Video, and other top services!

  • Poster for Khumba

    Khumba 2013

    A half-striped zebra is blamed for the drought and leaves his herd in search of his missing stripes. He is joined on his quest by an overprotective wildebeest and a flamboyant ostrich; they defeat the tyrannical leopard and save his herd.

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  • Poster for Seal Team

    Seal Team 2021

    After his best friend is killed in a shark attack, Quinn, a lovable yet tenacious seal assembles a SEAL TEAM to fight back against a gang of sharks overtaking the neighborhood. But this merry band of international seals are not at all trained for such a mission. They seek the help of a much more skillful combatant, Claggart, but even his tricks and flips can’t whip these guys into shape. However, with a little bit of ingenuity, intelligence and a lot of heart, our SEAL TEAM may actually be able to bring peace back to their undersea community.

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  • Poster for Jungle Beat: The Movie

    Jungle Beat: The Movie 2020

    The Jungle Beat animals think it’s the best thing ever when an alien arrives in the jungle bringing with him the power of speech. They also surprisingly think it’s the best thing ever when they find out that he’s been sent to conquer them.

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  • Poster for Headspace

    Headspace 2023

    This is an alien invasion film like no other – the aliens are miniature but still want to take over the world!

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  • Poster for The Lion of Judah

    The Lion of Judah 2011

    Upon learning that Judah has been trapped in the clutches of the townspeople and faces the possibility of being the sacrifice at the annual Festival, the stable mates leave their cozy barn and embark on an adventure to find and free their friend.

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  • Poster for Shaka Inkosi YamaKhosi

    Shaka Inkosi YamaKhosi 2021

    A young meek boy, Manzini is bullied by three boys on his way back from school in an incident that almost costs him his life. Manzini confesses to his Gogo his desire to quit school. His Gogo narrates a profound tale of resilience evoking the coming-of-age story of a great warrior and King, Shaka Zulu to inspire her grandson through the strength of his lineage.

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  • Poster for Black Barbie

    Black Barbie 2016

    ​Black Barbie is a spoken/poetry animation that explores the filmmaker's experience with skin bleaching. The film explores issues of colorism and self image.

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  • Poster for Hanky Panky

    Hanky Panky 2023

    Osas and her friends are in traffic at Falomo when Aunty Yuwa calls. The conversation that follows touches on family, religion, social identities and same sex relationships. Created by Opemipo Aikomo and Daniel Orubo.

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  • Poster for Play the Game

    Play the Game 2021

    With a light-hearted look, an exploration of daily-life situations through four popular childhood games in Egyptian culture that stand the test of time.

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  • Poster for The Next Few Months

    The Next Few Months 2019

    The effects of cancer and its subsequent treatments on an individual, and his family.

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  • Poster for Blinded by the Lights

    Blinded by the Lights 2025

    An exploration into the insatiable greed of the African leader and the cost of betrayal. Against a backdrop of neocolonialism, we see the illusion of power, corruption that festers behind closed doors, and the silent suffering of a people forgotten by those meant to lead them.

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  • Poster for The Knight & The Princess

    The Knight & The Princess 2019

    The story of the Arab knight Muhammad Bin Qasim Al-Thaqafi who rescued many women and children from pirates in the Indian Ocean. He entered a fierce war against King Dahr who was sharing the spoils with the pirates, with the help of his friend Ziad and his mentor Abu Al-Asud.

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  • Poster for 3 Teaspoons of Sugar

    3 Teaspoons of Sugar 2019

    In a household where meal times are a delightful feast full of bonding, fellowship and good eating, 3 members of this tight-knit family are diagnosed with Diabetes Mellitus.

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  • Drawn 2013

    As they sit across from one another at a coffee shop table, a young couple takes to the tablecloth and journeys through their own individual worlds to reach each other.

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  • Poster for My Mum's Bonkers

    My Mum's Bonkers 2017

    About the loss of a mother, with her unexpected exuberance, but who also cries Puccini melodies. A short poetic collage, as fleeting as the blink of an eye, where sounds and images are superimposed to evoke the at once peaceful and tormented memory of a mother.

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  • Poster for Days

    Days 2017

    Three generations of Moroccan women exchange feelings and anecdotes while preparing the traditional ceremony of Eid Al Adha.

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  • Poster for Black Loop

    Black Loop 2020

    Religious fascism and military fascism are interrelated.

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  • Poster for Dodgy Links

    Dodgy Links 2020

    Dodgy Links a about a gullible and not so internet savvy office employee who falls for the very common spam pop-up of "you are the lucky 999 999th visitor on this website!". The consequence of this, however, is quite different for this unlucky circular thing.

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  • Poster for Yellow Fever

    Yellow Fever 2012

    What does beauty look like? In this award-winning short, Kenyan filmmaker Ng’endo Mukii combines animation, performance, and experimental techniques to create a visually arresting and psychologically penetrating exploration of the insidious impact of Western beauty standards and media-created ideals on African women’s perceptions of themselves. From hair-straightening to skin-lightening, YELLOW FEVER unpacks the cultural and historical forces that have long made Black women uncomfortable, literally, in their own skin.

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  • Stardust 2023

    Nawara, a stable girl and outcast from society, crashes an elite coming-of-age ceremony and demands her own destiny scroll from the all-knowing Oracle. Amused by her courage, the Oracle gives her a scroll, but later Nawara discovers the scroll is blank. Furious, she sets off on a perilous journey through the wilderness to confront the Oracle but discovers that she is not the only one hunting him down. Nawara must defeat sinister forces and her own dark past to find her destiny.

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  • Poster for Hewn

    Hewn 2017

    This short film is a story of love between a wooden man and stove child.

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  • Poster for The Tale of How

    The Tale of How 2006

    This lavishly embellished, comically operetta CGI fantasy story takes place in the Indian Ocean, where a flock of “piranha birds” has settled on the back of an octopus. When an octopus is starved, it feeds on birds on its back, but because it is already threatened with extinction, they decide to send a bottle across the sea with a call for help.

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  • Poster for Hadidance

    Hadidance 2019

    One night, a female bird heads into a bar determined to find love. Outwardly she seems to be incredibly outgoing and popular, everyone seems to want to get her attention, but underneath there is a dark layer of insecurity. A muscled seagull and a majestic peacock both catch her eye and she thinks that one of them might be the one, however upon interacting with them, she realises that there is more than good looks and charm. This eventually drives her to confront her own insecurities.

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  • Poster for Party on the CAPS

    Party on the CAPS 2018

    " ... Bennani's mother, a real-life pharmacist and pathologist, also plays one here on the CAPS. Her own mother's 80th birthday is the occasion for the titular party, at which she will debut a youthful new look, the product of an extensive rejuvenation procedure ... Shot in the artist's home city of Rabat, Morocco, the 30-minute video channel-surfs between pirate frequencies, surveillance footage, and documentation of the raucous celebration. We spend time with the party’s MC-for-hire as he slurps harira, flips off a trooper, and dispenses a longish musical interlude about a food vendor who once invoked his ire. Eventually, we land on the nightmarish, static-riven eyes and mouth of ZIP, a user interface promising an illicit escape from the CAPS, suggesting we "sign the lease" on a new body in Florida." — Maxwell Paparella (Screen Slate)

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  • Poster for Hamada the drunk

    Hamada the drunk 2022

    Hamada a drunk guy who's trying to be sober

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  • Sobriety, Obesity & Growing Old 1991

    Sobriety, Obesity and Growing Old picks up the narrative and themes begun in Kentridge's first film, Johannesburg the Second Greatest City after Paris, and follows the development of the relationships between his cast of invented characters, Soho Eckstein, his wife and her lover, Felix Teitelbaum. These relationships reflect, metaphorically, the changing political situation in South Africa at the time the film was made. Demonstrations and marches in opposition to the apartheid régime together with the governmental relaxation of most of the State of Emergency regulations and restrictions heralded the beginning of a change in the country's power structure (and white attitudes towards black African rights). Soho, a symbol of South African white power, develops the capacity for awareness, longing and love and the potential for guilt and repentance.

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  • Poster for History of the Main Complaint

    History of the Main Complaint 1996

    History of the Main Complaint is the sixth film [of a] series and is based on twenty-one drawings. It was made shortly after the establishment in South Africa of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, headed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. It was set up to conduct a series of public hearings into abuses of human rights perpetrated during the apartheid era. The hearings, in which individuals told their stories of personal suffering, were held in order to make reparation for abuse and in the hope of creating reconciliation between peoples. The underlying theme of this film is a (self) recognition of white responsibility. This is played out through a 'medical' investigation into the body of Soho Eckstein, the white property-developing magnate and greedy-capitalist protagonist of most of the preceding films, which provides the starting point for a revelation of conscience. (tate.org.uk)

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  • Poster for Best Seller

    Best Seller 2024

    A full CGI commercial produced for Sharjah Book Authority for publishing to visualize how they might not write books, but they handle everything else that is book related.

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  • Poster for Mine

    Mine 1991

    A journey into the mines provides a visual representation of a journey into the conscience of Kentridge's invented character, Soho Eckstein, the white South African property owner who exploits the resources of land and black human labour which are under his domain. Throughout the film the imagery shifts between the geological landscape underground inhabited by innumerable black miners and Soho's world of white luxury above ground. When Soho, breakfasting in bed, pushes down the plunger of his cafetière, its movement is transformed into a rapid descent through the tray, through the bed and into the mine-shaft. Here the miners' world of overwhelming misery is depicted in claustrophobic tunnels where they are trapped digging, drilling and sleeping, embedded in rock. Above ground, Soho sits at his desk in his customary pin-stripe suit and punches adding machines and cash registers, creating a flow of gold bars, exhausted miners, blasted landscapes and blocks of uniform housing.

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  • Poster for Johannesburg, 2nd Greatest City After Paris

    Johannesburg, 2nd Greatest City After Paris 1989

    William Kentridge’s ironic tribute to his hometown, animated on the basis of 25 drawings, is the first film of his “Drawing for Protection” cycle, in which he unfolds the triangle between Johannesburg building tycoon Soho Eckstein, his wife, and the dreamer Felix Teitelbaum. In this film he introduces the central characters of his meta-narrative which, located in a South Africa of the last days of a crumbling Apartheid, becomes an allegorical reflection on socio-political power relations.

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  • Poster for Tengers

    Tengers 2007

    Whilst working on "the great South African novel," an unemployed writer gets caught up in the harsh realities of life in the city of Johannesburg.

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  • Poster for Sleep Mode

    Sleep Mode 2020

    Hypno the sandman tries to fulfill his nocturnal tasks by putting people to sleep. However, this is hampered by a very determined coder who has to stay awake to meet a deadline. Hypno tries in vain to put the coder to sleep, but just as he wants to give up, he succeeds in an unexpected way.

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  • Hard Head 1950

    Black and white film featuring Mish Mish Effendi, commissioned by the Royal Automobile Club against the misuse of horns.

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  • Jungle Beast - The movie 2020

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  • Poster for Lady Buckit & the Motley Mopsters

    Lady Buckit & the Motley Mopsters 2020

    A precocious, self absorbed little girl finds herself in wildly unfamiliar territory. There, she encounters a band of highly unusual characters who change the course of her destiny.

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  • Poster for Bru & Boegie: The Movie

    Bru & Boegie: The Movie 2019

    Bru and Boegie need to think big to get people to watch their shorts online, so they make South Africa's first full-length 2D animated movie.

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  • Poster for The Manor Of Tin

    The Manor Of Tin 1987

    (Masoud) and (Keshta) pickpocket, before deciding to repent and start a new life amid the inhabitants of the tin hut, to surprise the residents of the estate Abu Shama, who aspires to seize their land to establish some of his projects, and offers them to leave each of their land for a small amount of money , To reject the inhabitants of the tin hut, and escalating events.

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  • Poster for The Bottle

    The Bottle 1968

    First film by Ihab Shaker, Egyptian pioneer of animation. A man attempts to open a bottle.

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  • Poster for One, Two, Three...

    One, Two, Three... 1974

    One, Two, Three is a collection of three vignettes, entitled “The Shower,” “The Bird” and “The Machine.” They each place a doughy, confused man into a frustrating situation.

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