Discover the Magic Behind These 5 Animation Studios in San Francisco

Whether a hand-drawn masterpiece of the past or a modern CGI film, the art of animation has been charming us with captivating characters, stories, and worlds for nearly a century.

Check out our list of the top 2d animation software to get you started in the industry and our list of the top 100 best animated movies of all time. And to help give aspiring animators an idea of the best places they could find themselves working at, the following is a list of the top animation companies across the world.

Pixar was co-founded by Apple visionary Steve Jobs and was purchased by The Walt Disney Company in 2006 for more than $7 billion.

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Breaking into the film industry with Toy Story, the American studio has gone on to produce some of the most critically and financially successful films. These include:

Disney’s acclaimed studio has been making feature films since 1937 with the release of the critically successful Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Since then, they have been behind some of the highest-grossing animated films of all time, including The Lion King and Aladdin.

DreamWorks Animation films have been distributed all over the world, earning them 22 Emmys, several Annie Awards, 3 Academy Awards, and many BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations.

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ILM has worked on hundreds of projects, including countless box office hits. They are pioneers of many innovative computer technology feats such as being the first to do human skin, a partially-computer-generation main character, photo-realistic hair and fur, and more.

Notable projects include every Star Wars film, all but the first Terminator films, the Pirates of the Caribbean series, Avatar, and Jurassic World.

Arguably one of the top Japanese film animation studios in the entire country, if not the world. Out of the 15 top-grossing anime films made in Japan, eight of them have been their work.

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Among their numerous awards are four Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year, an Animage Anime Grand Prix, countless Academy Award nominations in the U.S., and an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film.

This includes Guardians of the Galaxy, several of the Harry Potter films, and Avengers: Age of Ultron, including several scenes for 2009’s Avatar.

Early hits like Dexter’s Laboratory, Johnny Bravo, The Powerpuff Girls, and Samurai Jack helped them become a household name in America. Current popular series include Adventure Time, Regular Show, Clarence, Uncle Grandpa, We Bare Bears, and Steven Universe.

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Blue Sky Studios was founded in 1987 and has been owned by 20th Century Fox since 1997. Between 2002 and 2014 they have released some of the most successful animated films, including the Ice Age series, Rio and Rio 2, educational toys and Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who!

Weta Digital is one of the many companies co-owned by legendary director Peter Jackson and winner of five Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects.

The New Zealand digital visuals effects company is behind some of the biggest films of the last decade, including the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies, 2005’s King Kong, and Avatar.

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This Nickelodeon-owned was founded in 1990 and hit the ground running with popular original shows like Rugrats, Doug, and The Ren & Stimpy Show.

The American studio has gone on to produce an incredible number of recognizable shows like Hey Arnold!, Invader Zim, The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, the two Avatar series, and of course, SpongeBob SquarePants.

Warner Bros’ animation division got its start in the early 70s and went on to help American animation into a golden era.

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They grew to compete directly with Disney thanks to Looney Tunes and its popular characters like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, and also provided memorable DC Comic shows like the animated series starring Batman and Superman.

While mostly focused on television, Warner Bros Animation has produced several memorable feature-length hits like The Lego Movie, Space Jam, and The Iron Giant.

A Japanese animation studio with more Animage Anime Grand Prix Awards than any other studio in on the globe, including serving as the runner-up more than a dozen times. Sunrise is behind many popular anime series like Cowboy Bebop and every Gundam series.

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MPC is a subsidiary of Technicolor that provides computer animation and digital visual effects for films and other mediums. Notable projects by them include Furious 7, Guardians of the Galaxy, X-men: First Class, and Terminator Genisys.

They now boast studios all over the world, including Mexico City, Vancouver, Los Angeles, Paris, New York, London, Amsterdam, Bangalore, Shanghai, and Montreal.

Toei is one of the top Japanese animation companies and known across the globe for a large number of works. They are largely recognized for working with big manga artists to produce iconic anime shows like Dragon Ball Z, One Piece, Saint Seiya, and Sailor Moon.

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This British visual effects and computer animation company began with only 30 people in 1998 but now boasts more than a thousand employees.

They have received many Visual Effects Society, Academy Award, BAFTA awards for films such as Interstellar, Inception, Sherlock Holmes, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2. They also helped work on the acclaimed Batman trilogy directed by Christopher Nolan.

Method Studios produces visual effects for high-end feature films, games, commercials, television, and more. They have worked in collaboration with the best Hollywood studios, including Paramount and Twentieth Century Fox, to create box office hits like The Wolf of Wall Street, Iron Man 3, Transformers: Age of Extinction, Guardians of the Galaxy, and more.

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Although OLM, has provided several different TV shows and films, it is known for the long-running anime TV series based on a Nintendo game– Pokémon. The show began in 1997 and continues today with more than 900 episodes.

OLM has also developed nearly 20 Pokémon films and is also making shows and films based on another Nintendo RPG sensation, Yo-Kai Watch.

The Canadian character animation and visual effects company is a unit of Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group and has earned several accolades, including Oscars for Spider-Man 2.

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They have worked on nearly 100 films, including Watchmen, the Men in Black sequels, both the Spider-Man and The Amazing Spider-Man films, and more.

They got their start with a few feature films before growing in recognition for their work on military science fiction series Stargate SG-1. Recent major projects include The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and Elysium. Their work on Peter Jackson’s District 9 earned them an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects nomination.

Like Toei, Nippon Animation boasts a talent for producing anime shows based on other works and at one time employed the legendary Hayao Miyazaki.

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Nippon Animedia, a department of Nippon Animation, has helped anime shows for popular Takara toys like the Beyblade series, Crash B-Daman, and Zero Duel Masters.

A French animated feature production company created only in 2011. Their first film, Despicable Me, was well-received by critics and has the third biggest opening of the year behind Toy Story 3 and Shrek Forever After.

Their most recent film, Minions, is one of the highest-grossing films of 2015 and served as the first non-Disney animated film to break $1 billion worldwide.

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Founded in 1993 with only 10 animators, their studio today is large enough to accommodate more than 1, 000 artists. Toon City grew by collaborating with big companies like Warner Bros, Universal, Nickelodeon, and The Walt Disney Company.

Pixomondo has several studios worldwide producing visual effects for film, television, and more. Combined, their Los Angeles, Shanghai, Frankfurt, Munich, Beijing, Toronto, Stuttgart, and Baton Rouge studios employ over 400 artists.

Some of their recent works include Furious 7, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1, Star Trek Into Darkness, and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2

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These include YuYu Hakusho, Bleach, Naruto, Saiyuki, and Tokyo Ghoul. They have won the prestigious Animage Anime Grand Prix Award twice and helped produce several episodes for Nickelodeon’s The Legend of Korra.

They now have signed visual effects for many big budget titles, including Jurassic World, 2014’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Hunger Games series, and Avatar. In 2008 they were acquired by Ubisoft, one of the largest video game developers and publishers in the world.

They specialize in film, advertising, and television and have won many awards for their work, including a VES Award for Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects. Recent projects include Furious 7, Cinderella, Edge of Tomorrow, and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.

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Digital Domain has studios in both California and Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada that both produce visual/digital effects for games, films, and advertising.

The company has more than 100 films under its belt, including the acclaimed Titanic, and is the winner of five Academy Awards. Other recent films include Furious 7, Maleficent, and X-Men: Days of Future Past.

Every year they work on between 3 and 8 big-budget films, with recent ones being Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ant-Man, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and Guardians of the Galaxy. Luma Pictures has two studios, one in Santa Monica and another in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

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With 260 episodes across 19 seasons and counting, South Park has received many accolades: a Peabody Award, five Primetime Emmy Awards, and more than ten nominations for Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program.

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