Most popular animal in movies

The most popular animals to have in films are dogs. As of 11 February 2024, there are 1,304 films on IMDb where a dog (or dogs) plays a big enough role in the story to get mentioned in the plot summary. The next-most popular animals are horses (970 mentions) and cats (644).

If you average out the critical reception of films that feature animals, however, the rankings are very different. For filmmakers looking for accolades, the best choice is to feature sheep (which earn an average IMDb user score of 6.26). The pantheon of acclaimed sheep-pictures includes Brokeback Mountain (2005), The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) and, obviously, Babe (1995).