Sometimes it can be hard to catch a film’s prevailing message.
But anyone who dove deep into the premise of 2003’s Finding Nemo—Disney’s animated comedy-drama about a sweet titular clownfish (voiced by future Weeds star Alexander Gould) who gets separated from his overprotective father Marlin (Albert Brooks)—could easily snag the overarching theme.
As Marlin’s new pal—a delightfully plucky, yet, very forgetful blue tang named Dory, played by Ellen DeGeneres—put it, “When life gets you down, you know what you gotta do? Just keep swimming.”
And swim they did, making their way from 42 Wallaby Way back to Nemo’s terrified father Marlin and directly into filmgoers’ hearts.
Becoming the highest-grossing animated flick at the time, the Pixar production earned more than $940 million worldwide off of a reported $94 million budget and four Oscar nominations, swimming away with the trophy for Best Animated Feature.
And proving that fish are friends, not food, the whole school made another splash in 2016 with the sequel Finding Dory.