The Cat in the Hat (2026)

“With a female-led Latino family at its center, The Cat in the Hat leaves behind some of the biases that show up in a lot of other children’s movies.”

Title: The Cat in the Hat (2026)
Directors: Alessandro Carloni 👨🏼🇮🇹 and Erica Rivinoja 👩🏼🇺🇸
Writers: Screenplay by Alessandro Carloni 👨🏼🇮🇹 and Erica Rivinoja 👩🏼🇺🇸 based on the book by Dr. Seuss 👨🏼🇺🇸

Reviewed by Li 👩🏻🇺🇸

Technical: 2/5

Dr. Seuss’ beloved book character, the Cat in the Hat, has a reputation: He’s chaotic, mischievous, and makes quite a mess in his (always successful) efforts to cheer up kids. This latest film adaptation comes over 20 years after Mike Myers’ absurdist live-action foray in 2003. In this year’s The Cat in the Hat, viewers meet a surly teen, Gabby (voiced by Xochitl Gomez), and her upbeat younger brother, Sebastian (Tiago Martinez), as they and their single mom Carmen (America Ferrera) move to a new neighborhood—much to Gabby’s chagrin. Enter the Cat in the Hat (Bill Hader) to spruce things up.

Filmmakers Alessandro Carloni and Erica Rivinoja capture the original character’s spirit. Hader’s Cat is colorful, frantic, and all over the place. Unfortunately, those qualities extend to the screenplay, which bumps along on random misadventures like a lost child getting distracted by shiny mall displays.

Plotting tightens up in the second half, though, and Carloni and Rivinoja deliver a lovely denouement, propelled by catchy, trumpet-led band numbers. But with average animation and formulaic writing, the overall experience is forgettable.

Gender: 4.25/5
Does it pass the Bechdel Test? YES

Women are central to this story. The Cat in the Hat is led by Gabby, and her main emotional arc involves learning to understand her mom, Carmen. The other key characters are male: Sebastian, his pet fish Waffles (Matt Berry), and the titular Cat in the Hat.

Female characters also show up in supporting roles, notably as the rule-loving landlady, Patty (Paula Pell), who has a change of heart, and Cat in the Hat’s supportive best friend, Sherri from HR (Quinta Brunson). On the downside, all of the characters’ storylines read as gender-neutral and could be switched around without any impact to the movie. Mom could be Dad, and Gabby could be Gabriel, and the characters’ concerns and relationships wouldn’t change—rendering the gender representation shallow.

Race: 4.25/5

The central family is Latino, and it’s wonderful to see exceptional Latino talent—Gomez (Mexican American), Ferrera (Honduran American), and Martinez—voicing them. I appreciated that my 4-year-old got to watch main characters with brown skin, especially since I notice how much of his preschool-targeted viewing (Ms. Rachel, Blippi, and Trash Truck being a few examples) defaults to light-skinned people. Still, this representation can only go so far when the characters lack cultural specificity and could easily be swapped with white characters.

Mediaversity Grade: B- 3.50/5

The Cat in the Hat is standard family movie fare that might bore your kid with its aimlessness. Or, like my 4-year-old, your kid may not know whether they liked it—probably because it bounces around too much, showing surface-level pizzazz but without deep enough characters to grab onto. (In contrast, this year’s Forgotten Island compelled my son to rename his favorite stuffed animal after one of the main characters.) But with a female-led Latino family at its center, caregivers can at least rest assured that The Cat in the Hat doesn’t carry the white- and male-centric biases that show up in a lot of other children’s movies.

Like The Cat in the Hat? Try these other titles featuring girls of color.

Grade: BLiNovember 4, 2026Female/Nonbinary Creator