Sony and Steph Curry Just Dropped GOAT and It’s Bigger Than Basketball
On paper, GOAT sounds like a family sports movie with a clever title. In reality, it plays like a cultural statement disguised as animated chaos.
The latest from Sony Pictures Animation, the same house that redefined modern animation with Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, drops audiences into an all-animal world where roarball, a bruising, co-ed, full-contact sport, dominates everything. The arenas erupt. The courts split open. The players flex like runway models before tipoff.
And in the middle of it all is Will Harris: a small goat with the nerve to believe he belongs in a league engineered for giants.
Directed by Tyree Dillihay and co-directed by Adam Rosette, GOAT is produced by Michelle Raimo Kouyate, Rodney Rothman, Adam Rosenberg, and Unanimous Media’s Stephen Curry alongside Erick Peyton. Caleb McLaughlin voices Will, while Gabrielle Union steps into the role of Jett Fillmore, the league’s reigning MVP and cultural icon. Patton Oswalt, David Harbour, Nick Kroll, Aaron Pierre and Curry himself round out a cast that mirrors the film’s central tension: established legends sharing space with rising challengers.
Curry’s involvement isn’t cosmetic. The underdog narrative driving Will’s arc pulls directly from his own experience. “I just think the idea of, obviously, dreaming big, and just that underdog kinda mentality, when you have critics and naysayers, and you don’t look the part,” Curry said. Before the rings and MVP trophies, he was the kid analysts swore wouldn’t translate.
“All I heard was what I couldn’t do, or I wasn’t big enough, or I wasn’t fast enough… Running your own race, living your own journey, and being ready for when your moment is there is a lot of what I see in myself and Will.”
In GOAT, roarball is dominated by “bigs,” rhinos, leopards, giraffes, literal embodiments of physical superiority. The culture assumes size equals dominance. Smalls don’t ball. Will’s presence alone destabilizes that belief.
But the film’s sharpest move is refusing to make this just another plucky-underdog-wins story.
Jett Fillmore isn’t a villain. She’s the standard. The sneaker line. The face on the billboard. The player everyone else studies. Union plays her with layered intensity, exposing the pressure beneath the polish. “Greatness has to look one way. You got to be hard-nosed… I recognize now… learning different leadership styles. And Jett has a very similar journey,” Union explained.
Jett’s conflict isn’t about talent. It’s about evolution. When Will begins bending the game in unexpected directions, he forces her to confront something deeper than competition.
“His greatness does not look like Jett’s, and Jett’s greatness does not look like Will’s… They forced each other to play a little differently. To dig a little deeper.”
That dynamic becomes the emotional spine of the film.
Even Coach Dennis, voiced by Patton Oswalt, represents a system out of balance. Oswalt describes him as “an authority figure with zero authority.” A leader who lost control somewhere between ego and expectation. Through Will’s disruption, Dennis rediscovers a more expansive philosophy: “Everyone doesn’t have to play the same game. They have to figure out what is unique and amazing about them.”
Director Dillihay makes it clear this was never meant to be just about animated highlight reels. “Basketball is pop culture. It’s the sport that sits at the intersection of music, fashion, art, tech.” GOAT leans fully into that intersection. Tunnel walks feel cinematic. Sneaker culture is baked into character design. The arenas are immersive and volatile.
Yet for all its spectacle, GOAT lands on a surprisingly intimate note.
Union’s closing reflection feels less like promotion and more like a manifesto: “Your dreams don’t have to match anyone else’s for them to be valid and real and worthwhile… The only person standing in the way of your greatness is you.”
In an era obsessed with ranking and crowning singular legends, GOAT widens the lens. It suggests that greatness isn’t a throne to defend, it’s a standard to redefine.
GOAT is in theaters now.
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