Every year there are tons of animation films that spotlight our furry friends. This year we got Zootopia, The Secret Life of Pets and Sing (if you can even tell the last two apart), not to mention Finding Dory and the motion-captured animals of The Jungle Book, voiced by a legion of A-listers, from Scarlett Johansson to Christopher Walken and Lupita Nyong’o. But we don’t really appreciate live animals in movies enough despite their ability to consistently surprise us with their acting talents.

In the outlandish and extremely reckless 1981 film Roar, which left 70 cast and crew members injured, director Noel Marshall—who also starred alongside his real family members Tippi Hedren and Melanie Griffith—gave co-writing and directing credits to the 100-plus(!!) live animals (which included lions, tigers, and all sorts of wild cats) because their actions dictated the narrative structure of the film. In 2016, none of the animals on this list have even been name-checked in the top bill (even though some definitely deserve it). So we decided it’s time to give these animals their due. If the Academy won’t recognize them, we certainly will. Here are the most iconic (live) animals in film this year.

Keanu in 'Keanu'

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Image via Warner Bros.

Movies have been nicer to the feline family this year than the canine crew, and the one to steal the spotlight (albeit a small one) is the tiny titular kitten in Keanu, Key and Peele’s first foray into film. In this action-comedy inspired by John Wick (get the Keanu Reeves name-check?), Jordan Peele stars as a recently-dumped, sad cat dad who gets Keanu taken away from him by dangerous gangsters. He must infiltrate the gang to rescue his catnapped kitty, and enlists the help of his friend (Keegan-Michael Key). A comedy of errors ensues, as the two have no experience in the tough guy department. But who wouldn’t risk their lives for such an adorable cat? Especially one that sports a du-rag and chains? When Keanu doesn’t have you loling, it’s sure to make you go “aww” every time its feline star appears on the screen.— Kristen Yoonsoo Kim

Black Phillip in 'The Witch'

This sideways jumping, heavy breathing goat wasn’t just a demonic presence in the film, but was also a demon on set. The real 210-pound goat sent the main actor who had to grabble with his horns, Ralph Ineson—who plays the patriarch of a Calvinist family that’s been cast out of the Puritan township for refusing to baptize his children—to the hospital with a dislodged tendon in his ribcage.

From our interview with director Robert Eggers, the goat, which was cast for its massive horns, took no direction and would run in takes where he was meant to be still and sit and pant in scenes where he was meant to be threatening. That manic and anarchic energy translates to the film because he’s the most unpredictable aspect of this film. Credit the editor, Louise Ford, for finding the right moments for Black Phillip and the sound department for finding the right hoof moments and disdainful breaths to give us a new horror movie icon. — Brian Formo

Bob the Dog in 'The Lobster'

So you probably know the absurd premise of The Lobster by now: In this dystopian society, single people are strictly forbidden. Everyone who’s not already booed up is forced to check into a hotel and find a mate in 45 days, or else they be turned into an animal of their choice for eternity. Colin Farrell stars as new hotel resident David, who checks in with his pet dog, a beautiful Shepherd Collie named Bob. This man-and-his-best-friend relationship becomes instantly more affecting and tragic when you find out the dog is actually David’s brother, who was unable to find a life partner and turned into an animal. He also serves as a shocking catalyst for the second half of the film, though we won’t spoil that here.— Kristen Yoonsoo Kim

Steven Seagull in 'The Shallows'

A seagull is the main co-star for Blake Lively in The Shallows. The shark who’s attacked her and left her stranded on that rock is CGI and the other surfers are just meat. It’s the seagull who hears her most meaningful dialogue, eats up the rock crab that Lively vomits back up and whose cracked wing that she places back in place that gives her an oomph of believe in herself that she can get out of this situation. Steven Seagull is the spirit animal of self-reliance. We get so attached to him, when Lively pushes him off on a cracked surfboard you cringe at the thought that he might be a mere misdirection snack. — Brian Formo

Abbie in 'In the Valley of Violence'

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Image via SXSW

Of all the heartless ways movies have treated dogs this year, this one definitely hurts the most. In Ti West’s Western, Ethan Hawke stars as a lone guy passing through the desert when the town’s local bad guys kill his one and only friend, an iconic dog named Abbie. Paul (Hawke), of course, goes full John Wick and avenges her death on the entire town. Abbie (played by a male dog named Jumpy in real life) is truly top-notch as far as movie pets go. He’s a YouTube star IRL and can be found doing all sorts of tricks, like skateboarding, on his channel. In the movie, Abbie closes saloon doors with her hind legs and tucks herself into bed by rolling into a blanket. I say this with no hint of irony: Jumpy is the breakout star of the year.— Kristen Yoonsoo Kim

Isabelle Huppert's Cat in 'Elle' and 'Things to Come'

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Image via Sony Pictures Classics

Isabelle Huppert is already one of the best actresses of all time, but she sure had a career year in 2016. Both her characters in Elle and Things to Come are delivered major traumatic events (a home invasion rape and a mother’s death in Elle and a dissolved three-decade marriage and a mother’s death in Things to Come) and both characters react to that trauma in very interesting and character distinct ways. Both have cats, of course, as any woman who lives alone must. In Elle her chubby black cat witnesses the rape and is briefly scolded for not coming at her attacker with claws out. In Things to Come it’s a chubby gray cat that kept her mother company and now keeps her company during her transition to a leftist commune in the French countryside.

The cats in each film are quality lazy cats. What makes their presence more felt is the obvious fact that Huppert loves cats. You can see it in how she handles them. Even when she scolds them, it comes from a place of feline love. — Brian Formo

The Energetic Corgi in 'Certain Women'

This corgi plays such a small role in Kelly Reichardt’s Certain Women, but he does appear in the most emotionally devastating vignette of the film—the final one, starring Kristen Stewart and Lily Gladstone. Gladstone plays a shy Montana farm girl who falls for her night school teacher (Stewart) but is left quietly destroyed with her longing glances unreciprocated, and affections unreturned. Somehow the appearance of this pet corgi—so short and stumpy yet trying his best to run alongside the horses and her tractor—is so adorably tragic. It’s like Kristen Stewart is the majestic horse running off far away and Lily Gladstone is the corgi, playing catch-up.— Kristen Yoonsoo Kim

Message-Delivering Sheepdog in Rams

As a breed, the dog in Rams is the same as Bob the Dog in The Lobster, a black sheepdog. But this fella has a trick. The quiet Icelandic film concerns two elderly brothers who operate separate sheep farms, whose boundary fences even touch, but who’ve not spoken a word to each other for 30 years. The sheepdog delivers hand-written aggressive messages back and forth between the houses. He gallops with a scrawl in his mouth like he’s delivering a message that will end a war. Too bad it’s to keep personal grudges going longer than ever. Of course, this dog will eventually do more assistance than passive aggressiveness, once one of the brothers suffers an accident. — Brian Formo

Wiener-Dog in 'Wiener-Dog'

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Image via IFC Films

Todd Solondz unleashes peak Todd Solondz-level disturbing on us in Wiener-Dog, which starts out cute and innocently enough for those uninitiated by the Welcome to the Dollhouse director. The movie follows, well, a wiener-dog, through several vignettes, as he gets passed off from one owner to the next, including Greta Gerwig, Danny Devito, and Ellen Burstyn. Along the way, he gets intense diarrhea (though shot oddly beautifully through Ed Lachman’s lens), kidnapped from a vet, strapped to a bomb, and meets an end that goes comi-tragically beyond. — Kristen Yoonsoo Kim

Marvin the Bulldog in 'Paterson'

This English bulldog hasn’t hit theaters yet, but when he does he’s gonna melt the hearts of arthouse fans. He’s already won the Dog d’Or (given to the best dog performance in a film at the Cannes Film Festival) and at the screening I attended at the New York Film Festival the audience full of poets and journalists let out gleeful giggles and awwwwws with every heavy pant or head tilt that Marvin bestowed upon Jim Jarmusch’s film.

Marvin gives his bus-driving poet owner (Adam Driver) his daily walk to the local pub. It’s a reprieve from the household where his girlfriend (Golshifteh Farahani) is constantly changing her artistic fancy, from painting portraits of Marvin, to learning to play the harlequin, to making up healthy recipes and painting their shower curtains black and white. The bus driver desires constancy from his artform and from his routine. His nightly walks with Marvin take him to his beer where he can observe local human behavior. And for that, he is glad. — Brian Formo