Matiss Kaza, who produced and co-wrote the film, said in an email that he suspects that it’s the real animal sounds used in production that attract the attention of our domesticated friends. “We don’t commonly think of pets as a potential target audience when making films, but we are glad that Flow has proved to be a special bonding experience between viewers and their dogs and cats.”
When I spoke to social media users who posted clips of their household beasts responding to Flow, they explained that their animals aren’t usually this entranced by the screen.
Chayse Orion, 24, had seen other TikTok posts about the film before he decided to watch it. He thought it was cute but wasn’t paying super close attention. His cat Fishbone was. “Fishbone was so engrossed in the movie,” Orion said. “He was just so into it, which was really weird because I’ve never seen him interact with a show like that. He’s never really been interested in the TV at all.”
Orion knew it would make great internet content. Not only did he start to film Fishbone, he moved the cat’s tower closer to the TV for a better view, one that put Fishbone at eye level with his animated brethren. “I actually put it on again yesterday for him to watch while I was working,” he said. “It’s definitely his favourite movie now, for sure.”
Daniel Gao, 32, posted a clip of his cat Karma, who looks strikingly similar to the feline designed by Zilbalodis. His caption? “Lol why she so locked in tho.” Gao, however, admitted to me that Karma at times walked away when the action was getting intense.
“I think she was like, ‘Whoa, I think this is too scary for me I have to look away,’” Gao said. “I felt the same way, too.”
Dogs, like Daisy, are also getting in on the action. Celine Orosco, 29, found that her dog Samson, a golden retriever, was also invested in Flow. She said it was the first movie he ever watched all the way through. He was particularly excited, she noticed, whenever the Labrador that joins the cat’s group of travellers came onscreen. “He really loved that dog,” she said.
Of course, we don’t know what any of our animals are actually thinking when they watch Flow. Did Gao’s black cat actually recognise herself? Hard to say. My boyfriend at first inferred that Daisy liked the lemur who has a basket full of trinkets, then thought perhaps she was upset by it. I know that she didn’t follow the plot – I love her, but she’s not that intuitive. She did, however, hear the so-called voices of the characters, and reacted to whatever they were conveying, intrigued in her own way.
Still, we love to watch our pets watching Flow for the same reason we love to watch Flow. The film understands that delicately anthropomorphising these animals is a powerful tool. Their movements are carefully calibrated to replicate the way the creatures would behave in real life, but their actions are just human enough to make the story feel relatable.
Would a cat, a dog, a capybara, a large bird and a lemur all team up to save one another should massive floods happen? Hard to say. But it’s a good metaphor about how empathy can be salvation.
Similarly, we believe we recognise our furry companions’ personalities, knowing full well that we are most often just projecting our own sensibilities on to them. We want to believe they think like we do, even though we know they likely do not. But when they watch Flow like we watch Flow, we grow a little bit closer.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Esther Zuckerman
©2025 THE NEW YORK TIMES
