Best Animation Studios in Hamburg (2026)

Introduction

Hamburg has a small but well-established animation scene, and the six studios below cover most of what a brief might need: animated features and series, character-led commercials, motion design for brands, and auteur short films that travel the festival circuit.

Most of the city’s animation work sits in the west, in Altona and Ottensen, close to the agencies and production companies that commission it. Hamburg’s advertising market keeps commercial studios busy with brands such as REWE, Nivea and tesa, while MOIN Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein funds features and shorts. When MOIN last surveyed the sector in 2018, it counted 78 animation and cartoon companies in Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein. The feature side has had a strong few years: The Amazing Maurice, co-produced in Hamburg, premiered at Sundance in 2023, and Fabian&Fred’s co-production Sultana’s Dream was shortlisted for the 97th Academy Awards.

Every studio here showed an active Hamburg studio when we checked in 2026. CGI and visual effects houses are covered on our separate VFX page. The list runs in no fixed order of merit, since the right studio depends on the format, the style and the budget.

The best animation studios in Hamburg

1. Sehsucht

Independent · Hamburg · sehsucht.de

Sehsucht is a hybrid production studio working across animation, motion design, live action and visual effects. Martin Woelke and Ole Peters founded it in Hamburg in 2000, and it has since added studios in Berlin and Munich, with a team of more than 50 people. Its work has been recognised at Cannes Lions, D&AD, the Clio Awards, ADC and Eurobest.

Clients include Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Puma, Sennheiser, EnBW and Penny. Its animated EnBW film “Good Stuff” won Best Advertising Production at the Animago festival. Sehsucht suits brand work where design, CG and live action need to sit in one film.

2. Fabian&Fred

Independent · Ottensen · fabianfred.com

Fabian&Fred is an animation and hybrid film studio run by producers Fabian Driehorst and Frédéric Schuld. It started in Düsseldorf and has been based in Hamburg since 2015, now on Behringstraße in Ottensen. The studio’s international co-productions have been shortlisted for the Academy Awards twice, and Driehorst received the Filmfest Hamburg Producer Award and the FFA Branchentiger in 2023.

Isabel Herguera’s feature Sultana’s Dream won the Contrechamp Grand Prix at Annecy and earned two European Film Award nominations. Špela Čadež’s short Steakhouse won a Jury Award at Annecy and reached the Oscar shortlist. The studio also takes commissions and advertising work, which has been shortlisted at Cannes Lions and won a Clio Silver.

3. Ulysses Films

Independent · Altona · ulyssesfilms.de

Ulysses Filmproduktion has produced animated features in Hamburg since 2004 and is one of the better-known names in European family animation. Emely Christians runs it as managing director and executive producer, and was named European Animation Producer of the Year at Cartoon Movie in 2016. Its music label, Ulysses Music, followed in 2019.

The slate includes Ooops! Noah is Gone and its sequel, Luis and the Aliens, Bayala (based on the Schleich characters) and The Amazing Maurice, adapted from Terry Pratchett’s novel. Ulysses also co-produced Niko: Beyond the Northern Lights, which won two Irish Animation Awards in 2025. For brands with a feature-length or licensed character project, it is the obvious Hamburg conversation.

4. Studio Rakete

Independent · Altona · studiorakete.de

Studio Rakete is a co-production and service studio for 2D and 3D animated features, series and commercials. It began as Pictorion Magma Animation, took its current name and moved to Altona around 2011, and now shares a building on Schomburgstraße with Ulysses Films. Its line, “Characters in Motion are our Passion”, describes the focus well.

Credits include Ooops! 2, Luis and the Aliens, The Amazing Maurice, Butterfly Tale and Legends of Valhalla: Thor. The studio published a new mixed showreel in 2026. Its feature pipeline makes it a good fit for character-led commercials that need series-level animation quality.

5. Animationsfabrik

Independent · Ottensen · animationsfabrik.de

Animationsfabrik has made 2D and 3D animation, visual effects and explainer films in Hamburg since May 2000, with a second studio in Rostock-Warnemünde. Character animation is its stated focus, and it handled the animation for Another Day of Life, which screened out of competition at Cannes. The studio runs its own render farm, motion capture system and edit and grade suites.

Recent work includes the REWE Bonus “Bo-Time!” commercial with a modelling-clay character, a CGI spot for Storck’s Werther’s Crunchy, statues of historical figures for ZDF’s Terra X, and visual effects for Natja Brunckhorst’s film Zwei zu eins. Other clients include Audi, Nivea, tesa, Lidl and Deutsche Bahn.

6. Cartel

Independent · Barmbek · wearecartel.co

Cartel is a digital production studio for animation, motion design and brand films, with a studio at Contemporary Paradise on Uferstraße and remote teams that scale with each project. Its description of itself, “small enough to care, big enough to get it done”, reflects a studio built for mid-sized brand and B2B work.

Recent projects include a Lunar New Year brand film for Hästens, animated explainers for Samsung Biologics and Cochrane, a manifesto film for Shillington, a brand film and scrollytelling piece for GlobalLogic’s VelocityAI, and an animated campaign for the World Childhood Foundation.

What to look for in a Hamburg animation studio

Start with format. Hamburg’s feature studios, such as Ulysses Films and Studio Rakete, run long pipelines built for series and cinema, while commercial and motion studios work in shorter cycles with agencies. A 30-second character spot and a two-minute product explainer need different teams, and most studios are clear about which they prefer.

Ask to see the style you want in finished work. Animation styles are slow and expensive to develop from scratch, so a studio that already does stop-motion, clay, cel-style 2D or photoreal 3D well will usually be faster and cheaper on that look. Showreels mix techniques, so ask which pieces the studio made in full and which were shared with partners.

Agree the review stages before production starts. Most animation runs through script, storyboard, animatic, style frames, blocking and final render, and changes get more expensive at each step. A good studio will say how many rounds are included at each stage and what counts as a new request.

Then look at how feedback moves. Animation review depends on precise notes: a frame number, a timecode, a mark on the frame. Studios that collect comments on the file itself, rather than in long email threads, tend to lose less time between rounds, and clients can see what has been addressed.

How Fabric helps animation teams

Fabric gives an animation studio one workspace for its project files, client feedback and production knowledge, with AI search across all of it. The motion design setup is built around that work: one space per client or production, with scripts, boards, animatics and renders kept together.

Renders, image sequences and project files 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 that in where rendering files should live. For development, Canvas works as an infinite board for storyboards and style frames, and similar search finds related frames and references by composition, colour and subject.

Client review runs through sharing. A studio shares an animatic or a cut with the client as a commenter, and the link works without sign-up. Through annotations, the client leaves timestamped comments on video, draws on a frame to show exactly what should move, or draws on a style frame and attaches a note. The team marks each comment completed as it is fixed, so every round works like a checklist. The review and approval workflow covers this in more detail.

For finished delivery, a folder can be published as a web page with password protection. Published pages are view-only, so feedback stays on the shared links.

Password protection is included on Pro and Team plans. See plans for teams.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best animation studio in Hamburg?

It depends on the format. For animated features and series, Ulysses Films and Studio Rakete have the longest track record in the city. For auteur and festival work, Fabian&Fred has two Oscar shortlistings. For brand films that mix design, CG and live action, Sehsucht has the longest list of advertising awards.

Which Hamburg studios make animated feature films?

Ulysses Films produces features such as Ooops! Noah is Gone and The Amazing Maurice, and Studio Rakete animates many of them. Fabian&Fred co-produces auteur features with international partners, including Sultana’s Dream.

Do Hamburg animation studios also handle visual effects?

Some do. Animationsfabrik and Sehsucht both offer visual effects alongside animation. For studios where CGI and VFX are the main craft, see our list of the best VFX studios in Hamburg.

How long does an animated commercial take to make?

A 30-second character spot usually takes several weeks to a few months, depending on technique and the number of review rounds. Stop-motion and detailed 3D character work take longer than 2D motion design. Ask the studio for a schedule broken down by stage.

Can Hamburg studios work with clients outside Germany?

Yes. Ulysses Films and Fabian&Fred work mainly on international co-productions, and Cartel runs remote teams alongside its Hamburg studio.

Related lists

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

More in Hamburg: Creative agencies · VFX · Video production · Post-production · Sound design · Design agencies

Run your studio on Fabric: Fabric for motion design teams · Fabric for creative teams · Best creative proofing tools