Madagascar is a 2005 American animated comedy film directed by Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath and written by Mark Burton, Billy Frolick, Darnell and McGrath. Produced by DreamWorks Animation and PDI/DreamWorks, the film stars the voices of Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer and Jada Pinkett Smith as a quartet of anthropomorphic animals from the Central Park Zoo who find themselves stranded on the island of Madagascar and must adjust to living in the wild. Sacha Baron Cohen, Cedric the Entertainer, and Andy Richter also voice supporting roles. The film features a musical score by Hans Zimmer, and also features a cover version by Baron Cohen of "I Like to Move It" by Reel 2 Real, which has since become a recurring theme song throughout the franchise.
Madagascar was released in the United States by DreamWorks Pictures on May 27, 2005. The film received mixed reviews from critics, who praised the animation, voice acting and visuals, but criticized the story and some of its humor. It was a success at the box office, grossing $558 million on a production budget of $75 million, becoming the sixth highest-grossing film of 2005. The success of Madagascar launched a multimedia franchise, which includes two sequels, a spin-off film, several short films, television series and specials and a number of video games, theme park attractions and live stage shows.
Plot In New York City, a lion named Alex lives in the Central Park Zoo as a star attraction known as the "King of New York" with his best friends, a zebra named Marty, a giraffe named Melman, and a hippopotamus named Gloria. Marty, having grown tired of his daily life in the zoo, desires to experience the wild. One evening on Marty's tenth birthday, Alex, Melman and Gloria attempt to cheer him up, but he remains unsatisfied. Having learned earlier that the zoo's four penguin spies, Skipper, Kowalski, Rico and Private, are trying to escape to Antarctica, Marty decides to follow them out of the zoo to fulfill his wish to be in the wild.
Marty heads towards the Grand Central Terminal to catch a train to nearby Connecticut. Alex, Melman and Gloria discover Marty's absence and pursue him, joined by the penguins and chimpanzee duo Mason and Phil at Grand Central, where an army of officers subdue them. Under pressure from animal rights activists, the zoo is forced to ship the escaped animals by sea to a nature reserve in Kenya. During the trip, the penguins manage to escape their crate and hijack the ship, setting course to Antarctica, inadvertently causing the crates carrying Alex and his friends to fall overboard.
Upon being washed ashore on the East African island of Madagascar, the quartet come across its lemur inhabitants, led by a ring-tailed lemur named King Julien XIII. The predatory fossa attack the lemurs, but are scared off by Alex's fearsome appearance. Feeling homesick, Alex angrily blames Marty for the group's predicament, and makes several attempts to be rescued, with no success. Marty finds life in Madagascar to be exactly what he wanted, with Gloria and Melman soon joining him. Without the raw steaks Alex was provided at the Central Park Zoo, his hunger sets in, triggering his predatory instincts.
The next morning, King Julien and the lemurs attempt to befriend the castaways in hopes that Alex's presence will keep the fossa at bay, despite protest about Alex's predatory nature from his adviser, Maurice the aye-aye. While entertaining the lemurs, Alex starts to hallucinate everyone as steaks, briefly loses his sanity and attempts to eat them, scaring them all. Alex flees to the fossa territory of the island to protect his friends from himself. Seeing what Alex has become, and how dangerous the wild can be, Marty regrets his decision of leaving the zoo.
Having found Antarctica to be inhospitable, the penguins decide to land the ship at Madagascar. Seeing the chance to finally return home to New York City, Marty tracks Alex's trail towards the fossas' territory where he tries to convince his friend of the ship's arrival, but Alex refuses out of fear, still not wanting to hurt anyone. However, Marty refuses to leave without him too, and starts singing to cheer him up. When Marty is suddenly ambushed by the fossas, Gloria, Melman, and the penguins come to the rescue, but they are far outnumbered. Alex, having overcome his predatory instincts, arrives and rescues his friends, scaring the fossas away from the lemur territory permanently.
The penguins satisfy Alex's hunger by feeding him sushi, which he finds better than steak. As the lemurs throw a farewell celebration for the group, the penguins decide not to tell them that the ship has run out of fuel, leaving them stranded on the island for the time being.
Voice cast
Ben Stiller as Alex, an African lion and Marty's best friend. Tom McGrath explained that "Ben Stiller was the first actor we asked to perform, and we knew we wanted his character, Alex, to be a big performing lion with a vulnerable side." Chris Rock as Marty, a plains zebra and Alex's best friend. McGrath explained the character: "Marty is a guy who thinks there might be more to life than what's in the zoo. We wanted his character to be energetic, so we listened to Chris Rock." David Schwimmer as Melman, a hypochondriac, earnest, and awkward reticulated giraffe and one of Alex's friends who has germ phobias. When they were looking for a voice actor for Melman, they listened to Schwimmer's voice on Friends and, according to McGrath, thought that it "sounded really neat". Jada Pinkett Smith as Gloria, a sassy common hippopotamus who is one of Alex's friends. McGrath said that they found all these traits in Pinkett Smith's voice when they listened to her. Sacha Baron Cohen as King Julien XIII, a ring-tailed lemur and the leader of Madagascar's lemur community. King Julien was initially meant to be a "two-line" character until auditioning Baron Cohen improvised eight minutes of dialogue in an Indian accent. Cedric the Entertainer as Maurice, an aye-aye and King Julien's royal advisor. Andy Richter as Mort, a Goodman's mouse lemur who is King Julien's biggest fan and Maurice's best friend. Tom McGrath as Skipper, a penguin who leads a commando unit consisting of himself and three other penguins. McGrath, who also co-wrote and co-directed the film, initially lent his voice to the temporary tracks. Growing up with films starring tough actors like John Wayne, Charlton Heston, and Robert Stack, it was the latter of whom McGrath wanted for the voice of Skipper. Stack was approached about voicing the character, but died two weeks before production on the animation began. After that, DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg decided to keep the temporary voice, with McGrath explaining: "People were used to me doing that voice. We knew it worked when we screened it." Many of the character's traits were based on Stack's work. McGrath especially emphasized The Untouchables, a 1959 television crime drama series starring Stack. Chris Miller as Kowalski, a penguin and Skipper's right-hand man and intelligence officer of the team. Jeffrey Katzenberg as Rico, a penguin who is the loose-cannon explosives expert and weapons supplier of Skipper's team who communicates through grunts and squeals. Mireille Soria, the film's producer, commented on Katzenberg's uncredited role: "The irony for us is that he's the one who doesn't talk. There's something very Dadaistic about that, isn't there?" Christopher Knights as Private, an English-accented penguin who is the mild-mannered eager rookie of Skipper's team. Knights was also an assistant editor on the film. Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath as the fossas. Elisa Gabrielli as Nana, an elderly Yiddish-accented New Yorker. Gabrielli provided some background voices until the directors and producer asked her and her fellow actors if they wanted to try their voices for the role. Upon seeing a black and white sketch of Nana, Gabrielli knew that she wanted to voice her. She modeled Nana's voice after her Russian and Hungarian grandmothers and her stepfather, though she did not think that her voice would be kept in the finished film at first. Bob Saget as Pal, a blue-and-yellow macaw. Conrad Vernon as Mason, a common chimpanzee (Phil, the other chimpanzee, is unvoiced, communicating to Mason via Sign Language. Phil is the one who can read whereas Mason cannot.) David Cowgill as a police horse. Stephen Apostolina as a police officer.
Production According to co-director Tom McGrath, the idea for Madagascar began as a one-sentence prompt, and it took two years of development for the idea to be refined to the point where the four main characters were finalized. In 1998, DreamWorks and PDI had started development on an animated film titled Rockumentary, which featured a Beatles-esque penguin rock band, and was to be directed by Eric Darnell, after he finished his work on Antz. The idea was scrapped in 2001, but after production on Madagascar started, Darnell decided to revive the penguins as a commando unit rather than a rock band.
"When Eric Darnell and I first met, he was working on Rockumentary, which was a spoof of A Hard Day's Night with four penguins: it had to be shelved because of problems with the music rights", McGrath commented. "When I was working on the storm at sea, Eric and I thought it would be funny if the penguins took over the ship and headed it for Antarctica. I was thinking S.W.A.T. with penguins, playing aggressiveness against their cuteness. As the film progressed, we used them to create a mirror story about animals trying to go back to where they think they belong."
The animation of the movie began in 2004 after finished the production of Shrek 2 and ended in 2005.
Casting Originally, Julien was intended to be a minor character with two lines. However, when Sacha Baron Cohen auditioned for the role, he improvised an Indian accent and eight minutes of dialogue for his recording. The filmmakers found Baron Cohen's performance so funny that they rewrote the script and made Julien a much more prominent character in the story as "King of the Lemurs" . Dana Carvey was originally offered a role but he turned it down as he was busy raising kids at the time.
Music
Madagascar (Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the soundtrack album featuring original score by Hans Zimmer and licensed and covered version of songs as featured in the film. It was released by DreamWorks Records, Geffen Records and UMG Soundtracks on May 24, 2005. Of particular critical note was the cover of "I Like to Move It" by Sacha Baron Cohen, which has since become a recurring theme song throughout the Madagascar franchise.
Release
Theatrical Madagascar had its original theatrical release in the United States by DreamWorks Pictures on May 27, 2005. In celebration of its twentieth anniversary, it was theatrically re-released in the United States by Universal Pictures on January 16, 2026.
Home media Madagascar was released on VHS and DVD on November 15, 2005. The DVD included a short animated film The Madagascar Penguins in a Christmas Caper, and a music video "I Like to Move It", featuring characters from the film dancing to the song.