Box Office: Oscar-winning Indie film Flow captivates audiences worldwide; Crosses USD 36 million

Despite facing competition from major animated sequels, indie film Flow won an Oscar and proved its box office strength, grossing USD 36M worldwide on a modest USD 3.7M budget.

Written by Seema Sinha , Entertainment Journalist

Updated on Mar 21, 2025 | 05:53 PM IST | 4.2K

Picture Courtesy: Janus Films

Very few original animated films manage to carve a space for themselves in a market inundated with sequels backed by major studios like Pixar, DreamWorks, and more. Flow, which debuted worldwide in a staggered format between August 2024 and January 2025, faced competition from franchise features like Mufasa: The Lion King, Sonic 3, Moana 2, and more, yet managed to do just that, grossing USD 36 million globally on a modest USD 3.7 million budget.

For those unversed, the film nabbed Best Animated Feature at the 97th Academy Awards, surpassing leading entries like The Wild Robot, Inside Out 2, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, and Memoir of the Snail. Flow also won the coveted Golden Globe Award in the same category.

The film features no dialogue and follows a cat trying to survive alongside other animals in a post-apocalyptic world where Earth's water levels have dramatically risen. Production for Flow started in 2019 and was completed after five and a half years, with all animation done using the free and open-source software Blender. Jacques Tati and Future Boy Conan reportedly served as inspirations for the film, which was made without a storyboard.

Flow's USD 36 million worldwide gross includes USD 4.6 million in North America, where it opened in November courtesy of Sideshow and Janus Films. The film went on to earn approximately USD 6.7 million in Mexico, USD 1 million in Brazil, USD 3.4 million across Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Paraguay, USD 2.1 million in its native Latvia, USD 5.4 million in France, USD 1 million in Germany, USD 1.3 million in the Netherlands, USD 1.6 million in Spain, USD 2.7 million in China, and USD 591,000 in Vietnam.

Gints Zilbalodis, the film’s director, who made his feature debut at the age of 24 with the international hit Away, expressed hope that his achievement would open doors for independent animation filmmakers worldwide. In a pre-Oscars interview, he also challenged the notion that animated films are only for children, emphasizing that animation can be for all kinds of audiences.

Have you watched the film yet? Do let us know!