Here are the biggest and most influential animation studios in the world starting with the first 3.

1. The Best Animation Studio in the World
It is every animator’s dream to be part of the biggest animation films worldwide, to be part of the award
winning team that created the huge animation blockbuster and also be part of the team to reap the
extra kickbacks as a result of a massive box office outing of an animation film that you participated in or
that your studio churned out, like the employees of Walt Disney who recently got 10 weeks’ worth of
their weekly pay as a bonus because of the success of Frozen. Here are the biggest and most influential
animation studios in the world starting with the first 3.
1. PIXAR
Founded by Steve Jobs himself, Pixar is about the biggest and most influential animation studio.
Although Pixar now has Walt Disney as its parent from 2006, it is still arguably the best animation
studio in the world.
2. DREAMWORKS ANIMATION
DreamWorks animation used to be the animation department of DreamWorks studios as a whole
but it has now become an independent studio since 2004 with over 2050 employees from a 2013
employee data.

2. 3. WALT DISNEY
Walt Disney is the oldest animation studio in the world, founded by Walt Disney in 1923,
October 16. It has produced 53 feature films beginning with snow white and the seven dwarfs
in 1937 to the most recent frozen which is now the highest grossing animated film worldwide.
4. Fox Animation studios.
Fox Animation studio is the animation division of 20th
Century Fox. The major animation studio here
is actually blue sky studios, which was acquired by fox since 1997. Fox had made some animated
features films that weren’t successful before the acquisition of blue sky studios which has gone to
make block busters like Ice age, Epic and Rio.

3. 5. Cartoon Network Studios.
Cartoon Network studios is the studio behind cartoon network animated television programs. It
producing and developing animated programs for Cartoon Network. Its focus is mainly animation for
television programs and not feature films.
6. Nickelodeon Animation Studio
Nickelodeon animation studio just like cartoon network studio is responsible for producing 2D and 3D
content for the Nickelodeon television network as well as the Nick Jr and NicktoonsNetwork .

4. 7. Nippon Animation
Nippon Animation is the Walt Disney of Japan, founded in 1962 as ZuiyoEizo but later Nippon from
June 1975. Headquartered in Tokyo, Nippon focuses mainly on animated television series, adapted from
both Japanese and western literature such as Anne of Green Gables and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
8. Sony Pictures Animation
Sony pictures animation is a subsidiary of Sony pictures entertainment. It was founded in May 2002
after an unsuccessful attempt to sell off a visual effects facility called Sony pictures image works in 2001.
This facility would later become Sony picture animation with about 50 employees as at 2013.

5. 9. Illumination Entertainment
Illumination Entertainment is a relatively new animation studio founded in 2007 and owned by NBC
Universal. It has produced only 4 animated features. It however has one of it’s work in the top ten
grossing animated films of all time, Despicable Me 2.
10. Weta Digital
Weta
Digital is a visual effect studio dealing with visual effects for live action movies. It has won 5 academy
awards for best visual effects alone with films like the lord of the rings trilogy, avatar and king king.
Weta digital founded in 1993 is the home of film legend Peter Jackson and is based in New Zealand.
Weta Digital is known to develop several proprietary software in order to achieve groundbreaking visual
effects and is the undisputed leader in the world of visual effects. Software packages developed by weta
include massive, a program which can animate huge numbers of agents with independent characters
acting according to preset rules. The latest achievement of weta is the ability to carry out motion
capture outside the studio on locations.