Laika, the Oregon animation house that specializes in stop motion, has a perfect track record of landing Best Animated Feature Oscar nominations for all four of its first films: Coraline, ParaNorman, Missing Link, and Kubo and the Two Strings. With its latest and unquestionably most ambitious project Wildwood, the streak could well continue. This film has been gestating at Laika for 16 years, finally starting production in 2021, and now having its world premiere today at the London Film Festival. It is also slated to open AFI Fest later this month for its North American premiere in Hollywood.

For director-producer Travis Knight, who is also CEO of Laika, this adaptation of Colin Meloy’s book has been a personal dream, especially since the setting of the book, and now the film, is right in his hometown of Portland, OR. How could he resist? A sweeping fantasy right in your own backyard featuring a magical forbidden forest of talking animals mixed with humans? It all becomes the center of a truly epic story that feels born to be on the big screen. The painstaking stop-motion animation process applied to a tale on a scale rarely seen on this level is a visual knockout, and the story is a compelling one focused on a scrappy young heroine determined to fight back and save her baby brother after he is harrowingly abducted from the streets of Portland by a murder of crows.

Prue McKeel (nicely voiced by Peyton Elizabeth Lee) is a loyal and loving teen girl who promises her parents she will take good care of her baby brother Mac on a normal sunny day outing. It turns out to be a frightening one when Mac is snatched up by a menacing swarm of black crows who swoop down in unison from the sky and fly away with him. Her frantic efforts to catch up fail and she sees the birds disappear into the adjoining forbidden forest known to allow no outsiders. Unable to go back home and explain to her parents (Maya Erskine and Jake Johnson), she sets off to find Mac and bring him back. No easy task, but her rather awkward and far less adventurous classmate Curtis Mehlberg (Jacob Tremblay) offers any help he can supply, which isn’t much. Still, he sets out to follow her into the forest where after an encounter with the imposing uniformed coyotes who patrol the place gets separated from Prue.

Soon both are swept up, on individual tracks into this world like something out of Lewis Carroll, as they go down the rabbit hole into a society like no other — a land of talking animals, bandits, wise owls, even a loyal rat and more. For Curtis it is meeting the evil Dowager Governess Alexandra (Carey Mulligan) who attempts to bring him into her fold. She is a woman devastated by the death of her only son, so much so she can’t function and turns her grief into no good, with the coyote force in lockstep for her dark ambitions. When Curtis sees what she is up to he refuses and is tossed into a prison with other rejects.

Meanwhile, Prue, meeting The General (Angela Bassett), the wise Great Eagle leader of the Avian Principality, as well as Brendan, the empathetic leader of the outcast Bandits, uses every intuition she has to navigate this dense landscape. Eventually all roads lead her to Alexandra, who lies to her. She encourages her to go home to her parents, saying it is better for a grieving mother to know the truth of what happened to her child. Prue follows the advice, confesses what happened to Mac, and discovers the secret her parents have been keeping from her all along.

There is much more to come in this two-hour-plus adaptation including a battle royale that will see Prue returning for a massive fight to the finish, still hoping to navigate a happy ending.

With six-time Oscar-nominated cinematographer Caleb Deschanel (The Black Stallion) working for the first time on an animated film, the visual palette based in part on the book’s gorgeous illustrations by Caron Ellis is breathtaking. Deschanel makes the stop-motion process feel like live action, the camera picking up character heartache and triumph in ways I haven’t quite seen before in this form. Knight is a born storyteller so the emphasis is always on that, and even though the visuals are quite awesome in their own right, they never overwhelm. Character development is key here, as it was in the book, and each is fully fleshed out. Among them is Bassett’s commanding eagle, the General; Brendan (powerfully voiced by Mahershala Ali), leader of the Bandits; Maksim (Tom Waits), loyal coyote foot soldier to the Dowager Governess; regal Iphigenia (Tantoo Cardinal); bumbling coyote Dmitri (Charlie Day); reclusive aging owl Rex (Richard E. Grant); and Septima, a little rat who rises to the occasion and will break your heart (wonderfully voiced by Awkwafina).

There can be no doubt Meloy created this sweeping story in the tradition of other epics like Lord of the Rings and Chronicles of Narnia, and though Wildwood isn’t quite up on that mountain it ably marches to its own drummer, a story of grief, courage, determination and triumph, and yet another Laika stop-motion gem that stays in the heart.

Producers are Knight and Sam Wilson.

Title: Wildwood
Festival: London
Distributor: Fathom
Release date: October 23, 2026
Director: Travis Knight
Screenwriter: Chris Butler
Cast: Carey Mulligan, Peyton Elizabeth Lee, Jacob Tremblay, Angela Bassett, Mahershala Ali, Awkwafina, Maya Erskine, Jake Johnson, Charlie Day, Tom Waits, Richard E. Grant, Amanda Stenberg, Tantoo Cardinal, Len Cariou, Marc Evan Jackson
Rating: PG-13
Running time: 2 hr 12 mins

“I don’t know whether this is terrifying or adorable,” the central character in Laika’s new stop-motion animation film observes at one point. The answer is both, with Wildwood representing a staggering achievement from the company that has given us such superb efforts as Coraline and Kubo and the Two Strings. This breathtaking fantasy adventure runs 132 minutes, setting a record as the longest stop-motion movie, but it manages to be enthralling from first moment to last.

Based on Colin Meloy’s 2011 bestselling fantasy novel of the same name featuring illustrations by Carson Ellis, the expansive storyline revolves around teenage girl Prue (Peyton Elizabeth Lee), who lives in the Portland, Oregon, area with her loving parents (Jake Johnson, Maya Erskine) and baby brother Mac (Arthur Knight). Despite her folks’ strict instructions that Mac not leave the house, Prue takes advantage of their temporary absence to take him on a joy ride through Portland, winding up in a playground where he is suddenly abducted by a murder of crows in a scene that proves just as frightening as anything in Hitchcock’s The Birds (the film deserves its PG-13 rating).

Accompanied by her nerdy friend Curtis (Jacob Tremblay), who clearly has a crush on her, Prue desperately pursues the birds into the mysterious Impassible Wilderness located nearby and inhabited by talking animals, including coyotes in red military uniforms. They’re in the service of the dowager governess Alexandra (Carey Mulligan), who once ruled the kingdom but has become unhinged with grief after the accidental death of her 12-year-old son. We eventually learn that she has orchestrated Mac’s kidnapping as part of a nefarious pact involving black magic.

Trying to find her brother, Prue — aided by Curtis, who reveals previously unseen pluck and ingenuity — encounters a variety of colorful animal and human characters as both friends and foes. They include, among others, the General (Angela Bassett), the giant eagle leader of the Avian Principality; Brendan the Bandit King (Mahershala Ali), who becomes a strong ally; Septima (Awkwafina), a brave rat with whom Curtis forms a tight connection; and Iphigenia (Tantoo Cardinal), a wise, elderly sage who acts as a sort of Yoda stand-in for the story.

The narrative and visual imagination on display is truly stunning, but they’re overshadowed by the genuine feeling in the screenplay crafted by director and Laika CEO Travis Knight and writer Chris Butler (ParaNorman, Missing Link). Alexandra is far from a cartoon villain, her motivation stemming from the traumatic loss of a son whom she vainly tried to replace with a mechanical replica. The tender family bonds between Prue and her parents and infant brother provide beautiful grace notes, as does Prue’s growing respect and affection for her classmate Curtis, whom she once considered a “loser.”

There’s plenty of humor as well, stemming from the colorful characters and situations. At one point Prue finds herself meeting with Owl Rex (a delightful Richard E. Grant), a leader in the Avian Principality, in her efforts to find her brother. She tells him that she doesn’t believe in magic.

“And here you are, talking to an owl in a waistcoat,” he tartly observes.

And, of course, action abounds, culminating in an elaborate climactic battle sequence in which Alexandra’s coyote forces are commanded by the rabidly loyal Maksim, memorably voiced by Tom Waits.

With Caleb Deschanel behind the camera (it’s the six-time Oscar nominated cinematographer’s stop-motion debut, although he previously shot Jon Favreau’s photorealistic animated remake of The Lion King), Wildwood looks gorgeous throughout. But what’s truly astonishing is the sheer scope of the effort involved in the gargantuan stop-motion production that involved some 200 practical puppets and 130 practical sets to bring the elaborate story to life. Not to mention how the puppet characters, both animal and human, feel so thoroughly lifelike throughout, completely involving us in the emotion-packed storyline.

Much credit should also go to the voice performers — who also include such notable actors as Amandla Stenberg, Blythe Danner, Rob Delaney and Jemaine Clement — who give varied, complex performances rather than merely delivering the jokey asides permeating so many animated films.

Laika’s most ambitious effort to date, Wildwood may also be the company’s masterpiece.

EXCLUSIVE: What would happen if you took the “visual reference” of the Coen brothers and transported this vibe to the UK’s port town of Grimsby.

That question is posed in Shy & Lola, a BBC drama starring Harry Potter’s Bel Powley and The Night Manager’s Hayley Squires, which will be taken to buyers at MIPCOM next week before launching on the BBC.

In an interview with Deadline, Powley and Squires stressed the highly original nature of the Amanda Coe-penned series from Baby Reindeer maker Clerkenwell Films, but they did say the work of the Coen brothers influenced its look and tone.

“The Coen brothers often explore incredibly dark subjects, such as murder, death, blood and guns, but they shoot them in a way that gives the material a sense of levity and lightness,” said Powley. “I think that’s what the cinematographer was looking for visually.”

Squires said the “Coen brothers’ influence probably comes through in the humor” of Shy & Lola, which also “comes out in the geography where the stories take place and the things that are specific to that place.”

Revealed by Deadline several months back, Shy & Lola spotlights its protagonists, two very different women who are forced to become allies when a murder entangles them in the criminal underworld operating in Grimsby. Shy is a cleaner, scraping by and dreaming of a new life in Portugal. Lola is an ex-model-turned-grifter who arrives in town with trouble at her heels. The unlikely pair build an operation that threatens to blow the local bad guys out of the water, as opposing futures beckon.

Coe, whose credits include Apple TV’s Dior series The New Look and the BBC’s Apple Tree Yard, was inspired by Fargo.

“I love the idea that you can create a world of its own that resonates with the real world but is very heightened and blackly comic,” added Coe. “We use violence sparingly but in an interesting way. There’s a theme of violence going through the show without glorifying it.”

Shy & Lola is based on the French show Cheyenne & Lola starring Charlotte Le Bon and Veerle Baetens. BBC Studios approached Clerkenwell with the idea to adapt the French show and the indie immediately saw an opportunity to add its own twist. “It has that mix we love at Clerkenwell,” said Petra Fried, who runs the indie and is an EP on Shy & Lola. “It’s a darkly comic, propulsive story with real emotional depth underneath it. It’s funny and entertaining, but the stakes are very real, so you never stop caring about these women.”

Coe, who said she has a track record of making “female-led shows,” noted that there are major distinctions between Cheyenne & Lola and her version. “The French version starts with a character in their underwear looking amazing,” she added. “That is not the vibe of our show.”

“I’ve never witnessed that in a chemistry read before”

In order for this “vibe” to work, the chemistry between the leads had to impeccable. Luckily, they matched perfectly. Powley and Squires are two actors at the top of their game, with BAFTA nominee Powley about to be seen as Aunt Petunia in HBO’s eye-catching Harry Potter, and Squires, who wowed in Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake a decade ago, playing a big role in the BBC and Prime Video’s The Night Manager.

“I’ve never witnessed that in a chemisty read before where you just go ‘wow’ after 10 seconds,” said Coe. “Together they were more than the sum of their parts.”

Squires admired Powley from when she had a small part in one of her breakout hits, Julia Jarrold’s rom-com A Royal Night Out. She said the pair quickly made a “silent pact to find the best version” of the characters they were playing. “We are quite different people but have a real understanding of each other,” she added. “That mirrors the characters of Shy and Lola. They essentially fall platonically in love with each other on screen, which was a beautiful relationship to play out.”

Powley also spoke to Shy and Lola’s “unlikely charm” and praised Squires for bringing “such gravity and being so grounded in her performances.”

Another “character” in Shy & Lola, according to Powley, is the port town of Grimsby, a place rarely represented in British TV or movies, although it is the home of Sacha Baron Cohen’s ill-fated 2016 comedy that bears its name.

Squires, who joked that when she first read the scripts she simply thought to herself, “How am I going to master the Grimsby accent,?” something she eventually did with the help of Grimsby-born Shy & Lola co-star Thomas Turgoose, said the setting brings with it a “sense of community.”

“There’s an ensemble of characters who make up the community where they work and live, and it has a real richness to it,” she added. “These aren’t people who despise where they come from or hate where they live. The majority of working-class people actually don’t [hate where they live].”

Squires thinks this “richness” has been lost somewhat in the recent depiction of working class communities, as she harks back to successful, multi-faceted 1990s shows like Our Friends in the North. “I feel as though that trend might have changed,” she added. “It’s the same with anything to do with class or culture; if your writer has knowledge of that community then it comes through.”

She is enthused by the success of shows like the BBC’s Sherwood, however, and throws her weight behind the national broadcaster as an “organization that has had to battle to hold its ground, and I think it has.”

BBC Studios will be selling Shy & Lola at MIPCOM this week.