Best Animation Studios in Montreal (2026)

Introduction

Montreal has eight animation studios worth a close look in 2026, ranging from feature service houses owned by international groups to the National Film Board and small independents working in hand-drawn 2D. Between them they cover studio features, children’s series, auteur shorts, game cinematics and commercial work for agencies.

The last two years were hard on the city’s animation sector. Cartoon Brew reported in April 2025 that more than half of Quebec’s animation and VFX jobs were lost between autumn 2022 and 2024, after the Hollywood strikes and a revision of Quebec’s tax credits that shifted support towards live action. On Animation and Laughing Dragon Studios closed in 2025. Rodeo FX bought Mikros Animation out of Technicolor’s administration in March 2025 and kept its Montreal studio running. There was good news too: the NFB’s stop-motion short The Girl Who Cried Pearls, made in Montreal, won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film in March 2026.

Every studio here showed an active Montreal studio on a page we checked in 2026. VFX houses have their own page, so this list covers studios whose main work is animation and motion design. It runs in no fixed order of merit.

The best animation studios in Montreal

1. Cinesite Montreal

Cinesite group · Downtown · cinesite.com

Cinesite announced a large downtown Montreal studio for feature animation in 2016, and the city is now one of three Cinesite locations, alongside London and Vancouver, offering visual effects, animation and immersive work. The group also owns L’Atelier Animation and Squeeze in Quebec.

Cinesite Animation’s recent slate includes Hitpig!, the Disney series Iwájú, Paramount’s Smurfs (2025), Animal Farm (2026) and Brad Bird’s Ray Gunn for Netflix and Skydance Animation, which premiered in London in October 2026. Ask which parts of a production run in Montreal, since work is split across the group’s studios.

2. L’Atelier Animation

Cinesite partner company · Old Montreal · latelieranimation.com

L’Atelier Animation is a Montreal CG feature studio founded in 2012 and best known for Ballerina (released in North America as Leap!) and Fireheart. It joined Cinesite in June 2022 and works from Rue Saint-Antoine Ouest in Old Montreal.

Its credits also include 10 Lives and Night of the Zoopocalypse. It suits producers looking for a full CG feature partner with a track record on European and Canadian co-productions.

3. Squeeze Studio

Cinesite partner company · Montreal and Quebec City · squeezestudio.com

Squeeze is a CG animation studio for features, series, game cinematics and theme parks, with studios in Montreal and Quebec City. Cinesite took a majority stake in 2022. Squeeze won two Collision Awards in July 2025 and a Telly Award for 3D animation on Barboltian the same year.

Its game cinematics work includes a 2024 collaboration with Ubisoft on Rainbow Six Operation Twin Shells, and the studio presents Treasure Trekkers as its newest feature film. Services run from story and character development through look development to full CG production.

4. Mikros Animation

Rodeo FX · Old Montreal · mikrosanimation.com

Mikros Animation is a feature animation service studio with a Montreal base on Rue Saint-Maurice. Rodeo FX acquired the brand and its Paris and Montreal operations in March 2025, after Technicolor’s collapse, and opened a Bangalore studio for both companies in April 2026.

Mikros has worked on the Paw Patrol and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles films, and in December 2025 it announced it had joined Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Chrome Alone 2. Its earlier credits include Orion and The Dark for DreamWorks Animation and Netflix.

5. National Film Board of Canada (NFB)

Federal public producer · Quartier des spectacles · nfb.ca

The NFB has produced animation in Montreal for decades, with more than 7,000 awards across its catalogue, and works from Balmoral Street in the Quartier des spectacles. Its French Animation Unit runs the Alambic creative lab for emerging directors.

The Girl Who Cried Pearls, by Montreal duo Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, won the 2026 Oscar for Best Animated Short. At the 2026 Sommets du cinéma d’animation the NFB premiered films by Catherine Lepage, Daniel Léger and others. The NFB co-produces with independent studios, so it is relevant to directors and producers as much as to commissioners.

6. Tonic DNA

Independent · Downtown · tonicdna.com

Tonic DNA is an independent animation and design studio in downtown Montreal, run by partners Stefanie Bitton, Howard Huxham and Bernard Lajoie. Motionographer profiled it in September 2026, tracing its roots back about forty years and noting it has never belonged to a larger group.

Its work spans hand-drawn 2D and commercial animation. Recent projects include The Anta Claus of the South Pole (2026), a 24-minute holiday special directed by Cordell Barker and co-produced with the NFB, holiday films for IGA made with Sid Lee, and campaigns for Highmark and L’Arche Canada.

7. Sphere Media Animation (formerly Oasis Animation)

Sphere Media · Plateau-Mont-Royal · sphere-media.com

Oasis Animation, founded in 2003, now sits within Sphere Media, the Montreal and Toronto production group, and its old web address points there. The animation team works from Boulevard Saint-Laurent and makes both original series and service work.

Originals include Red Ketchup, Moka, Chop Chop Ninja, ToonMarty and 2 Nuts and a Richard. Service credits include Arthur, Curious George, Caillou, F Is for Family and Paradise PD. It is a good fit for broadcasters and producers looking for a full 2D series pipeline.

8. Studio Unagi

Independent, with Ankama as strategic partner · Montreal · studio-unagi.com

Studio Unagi is a boutique 2D animation studio founded in 2024 by Guillaume Dubois, with Ankama’s chief executive Anthony Roux as a strategic partner. It specialises in anime-influenced work.

Its first productions announced at launch were Bestiale for ADN and Sacré-Cœur for France Télévisions, both with Ankama. The studio also makes game cinematics, trailers and teasers, and develops original IP from concept to pilot.

What to look for in a Montreal animation studio

Start with the shape of the work. Feature service studios such as Mikros and Cinesite are built to plug into a large production’s pipeline. Series studios run longer schedules with a fixed episode cadence, and boutiques like Tonic DNA or Unagi are better suited to short-form, commercial or stylised 2D work where a small team stays close to the director.

Check stability. Montreal lost a number of studios in 2024 and 2025, and several survivors changed owners. Ask who owns the studio now, how much of your project will be made in Montreal, and whether any of it is shared with sister studios in other cities.

Ask about funding and co-production. Quebec and federal tax credits, Telefilm and the NFB shape a lot of local work, and the rules changed recently. A studio that knows how to structure a Canadian or treaty co-production can make a project viable that would not be on a pure service fee.

Finally, look at how reviews run. Animation goes through many rounds of storyboards, animatics, layout, animation and comp, often with clients and directors in different cities. Studios that keep one current version of each shot, and gather timestamped notes in one place, lose less time to feedback sent through email and chat.

How Fabric helps animation teams

Fabric gives an animation studio one workspace for its files, reviews and production knowledge, with AI search across all of it. The creative teams setup suits studios running several productions at once, with one space per show or client.

Scene files, caches and renders sit in Fabric’s cloud drive, which streams files on demand so they take no local disk space, and heavy files open without a full download. There is more on this in your rendering files need a home. Boards and references can live on a canvas, and any folder can become a kanban board whose cards are the shots themselves.

For review, share an animatic or a cut with the director or client as a commenter; shared links work without sign-up. Through annotations, they can leave timestamped comments on video and audio, draw on a video frame or on a still image, and attach notes to the drawing. The team marks each comment completed as it is addressed, so a round of notes works like a checklist. Published links suit final delivery: they are view-only, with optional download.

Search works by meaning across documents, images and transcribed recordings, and colour search finds frames by shade. Similar search finds visually related assets, which helps when a designer needs every version of a character or background.

Password protection and link analytics are included on Pro and Team plans, and self-writing docs on Team plans. See plans for teams.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best animation studio in Montreal?

It depends on the project. For studio features, Cinesite, L’Atelier Animation and Mikros Animation have the deepest credits. The NFB won the 2026 Oscar for Best Animated Short with The Girl Who Cried Pearls, and Tonic DNA is the longest-running independent on this list.

What happened to Mikros Animation in Montreal?

Mikros Animation’s parent, Technicolor Group, went into administration in February 2025. Rodeo FX bought the Mikros brand with its Paris and Montreal operations in March 2025, and the Montreal studio has continued to work on features since.

Which Montreal studios make animated series?

Sphere Media’s animation team (formerly Oasis Animation) has the longest list of series credits, from Arthur and Caillou to Red Ketchup. Squeeze Studio and Studio Unagi also make episodic work.

Is the Montreal animation industry recovering?

Parts of it are. Several studios closed in 2024 and 2025 after the Hollywood strikes and Quebec’s tax credit changes, while others were bought and kept running. Feature work has continued at Cinesite and Mikros, and NFB productions have kept the city prominent at festivals.

Where can I find Montreal VFX studios?

VFX houses such as Rodeo FX and Framestore are covered on our separate list of VFX studios in Montreal. Some studios on this page also take on VFX, so it is worth checking both.

Related lists

Animation studios in other cities: Toronto · New York · London · Los Angeles · Chicago

More in Montreal: Creative agencies · VFX · Post-production · Video production · Sound design · Content studios

Run your studio on Fabric: Fabric for creative teams · Review and approval · Storyboards in Fabric