Arco (2025)

First of all, this animated French film, which was nominated for a 2026 Academy award, sees rainbows not just as a reflection of sunlight through water in the air, but rather as time travelers from the future. Arco is oe such traveler. He is a 10 year old who travels from the distant future back in time to 2075, when robots have taken over human tasks, suburbs evolved into fireproof domes, with the ecological crisis worsening—all of which have left humanity about as isolated as one might anticipate. Crash-landing in a forest, young Arco has the good fortune to encounter Iris, a girl his age, who takes him in. There’s an immediate joy and curiosity to their initial meeting, something warm beyond words. Iris lives with a nanny bot named Mikki, programmed by her parents—only accessible via video hologram—to help raise her and her baby brother, and she leaps at the chance to make a real friend, especially one who looks at her world so curiously. Iris works towards helping Arco get back to his time and his family. It is an overly optimistic but very pleasant tale.