Netflix offers the excellent Nimona to all

In a rather unusual, thus surprising, move, Netflix published Nimona – its best animated film of last year and an Oscar nominee at the upcoming 96th Academy Awards – in its entirety to YouTube a few hours ago. The movie is about a knight in a futuristic medieval world that’s framed for a crime he didn’t commit (Riz Ahmed) and the only one who can help him prove his innocence, Nimona, (Chloë Grace Moretz), a mischievous teen who happens to be a shapeshifting creature he’s sworn to destroy. Thanks to its unique art style, humor and unusual LGBTQ+ theme, Nimona was one of the most interesting animated films released in 2023.

Nimona was based on the graphic novel by ND Stevenson and directed by Nick Bruno and Troy Quane, initially developed by Blue Sky Studios (owned by 20th Century Fox). After acquiring Fox, though, Disney being Disney balked at the film’s LGBTQ+ content and canceled the production of the film. Thankfully, it seems that one can’t put a strong-headed teenage girl down: the movie returned to life years later by Annapurna Pictures and Netflix, who resurrected and supported the project to completion.

This film Netflix has just published in full on its official YouTube channel, permanently by the looks of it, in an effort to increase its chances for an Oscar in March… maybe? Yes, it’s watermarked with Netflix’s logo, and yes, it’s obviously not presented in HDR or Dolby Digital 5.1 (SDR and stereo sound only), but it’s still offered in full 1080p resolution at an acceptably high bitrate (English subtitles are also included). People who would like to keep it around for offline viewing can easily download a copy using any one of the numerous online services or popular apps available for that. It’s a great film to watch anytime, for kids and adults alike.

Nimona will arguably face really strong competition in the Animated Feature Film category of this year’s Academy Awards: excellent films like Robot Dreams, Elemental, Spider-man Across the Spider-Verse or The Boy and the Heron all surprised and delighted audiences across the world last year with their high-quality storytelling or presentation. Netflix’s film may not be the current favorite for an Oscar (media seem to think it’s going to be a Miyazaki vs Spider-man affair), but now, at the very least, everyone gets to form an opinion about Nimona regardless. Oh, just go watch it already!

UPDATE MARCH 15TH 2024: Well, it seems that it was just a publicity stunt after all. A few days after the Academy Awards ceremony Netflix removed Nimona from its YouTube channel (the link included in this story now leads to a “Video Unavailable” page on Google’s service). Still a great film, still worth a place in every Netflix subscriber’s watchlist, though!