The Best Transformers Movie That No One Watched Finds New Life on Streaming

Under director Michael Bay, Paramount built a billion-dollar franchise across five live-action Transformers movies. But after Bay's final turn behind the camera, 2017's Transformers: The Last Knight, the robots-in-disguise franchise started to go in unpredictable new directions. The 2018 prequel Bumblebee was, unlike Bay's films, a critical and commercial hit, though it didn't hit the billion-dollar highs of earlier films. 2023's Transformers: Rise of the Beasts failed to turn the franchise around the way Paramount hoped.

Paramount swerved in 2024 with one of the best Transformers movies to date, the animated prequel Transformers One. While it didn't light up the box office or please every Transformers fan, the origin story of Optimus Prime and Megatron is finding a new life on streaming.

Transformers fans missed out on 2024's excellent prequel

Transformers One was recently added to Netflix after a multiyear run on Paramount Plus. Netflix audiences are giving the animated feature another shot, according to streaming data from FlixPatrol. Transformers One quickly landed in the top 10 most-watched movies on Netflix this week, charting at No. 6 in the U.S. It's nestled between Twilight — it's officially "Hoa hoa hoa" season — and the animated comedy Ice Age.

Netflix viewers are right to give Transformers One the overdue attention it deserves. As we said in our review of the film, it's "sweet, occasionally heartbreaking, and utterly convincing in telling an origin story for friends-turned-foes Optimus Prime and Megatron. Thanks to its strong cast and a solid story buttressed by a classic hero’s journey, Transformers One has a spark that we’ve rarely seen in a Transformers flick..."

Transformers One’s story explores the early friendship of young Optimus and Megatron, when they were still on their homeworld of Cybertron and known as Orion Pax and D-16, respectively. Orion Pax (voiced by Chris Hemsworth) and D-16 (voiced by Brian Tyree Henry) are introduced in the film as cogs in a machine, low-class miners of the resource Energon. The two are established as lifelong, genuine friends who aspire to greater things, including the ability to transform — remarkably, something not every Cybertronian can do. Both put faith in Cybertron leader Sentinel Prime (Jon Hamm), who is searching for the Matrix of Leadership to restore the planet to its former glory.

Transformers One is full of Marvel stars

The animated feature is star-studded. Joining Hemsworth, Henry, and Hamm are Laurence Fishburne as Alpha Trion, Scarlett Johansson as Elita-1, and Keegan-Michael Key as B-127. While Transformers One can be dramatic and occasionally quite violent for an animated movie, it's also packed with plenty of humor. Almost all the jokes land, including nods to the 1986 film The Transformers: The Movie and even classic Key & Peele sketches.

Unfortunately for early adopters of Transformers One's charms, the film was a box office bomb. It grossed just $129 million at the global box office and sealed the fate of this planned spinoff franchise. Paramount is going back to the drawing board with Transformers, enlisting Steven Spielberg to "focus on all creative aspects of the next live-action Transformers film." The studio is also bringing back the franchise's most proven director, Michael Bay, to revive the brand.

Transformers One is now streaming on Netflix and Paramount Plus.