Minions & Monsters vs Previous Films: How It Compares

Minions & Monsters continues the prequel timeline set up by Minions (2015) and Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022), but breaks from both by dropping Gru entirely and leaning harder into classic monster-movie homage.

Where does this one fit against its predecessors? 2015's Minions was largely set in 1968, and 2022's Minions: The Rise of Gru moved things to the mid-1970s - this new film jumps back further still, planting its flag in the silent-film era of the 1920s. It's the first mainline entry not built around Gru's origin story at all, instead introducing an entirely new tribe of ancestral Minions.

There's also a lineage joke buried in the title itself: the film shares its name with a 2021 short that aired on NBC and appeared on the DVD release of Minions: The Rise of Gru, though the feature tells an unrelated, expanded story.

Tonally, this instalment leans harder into film-history pastiche than any before it, with references scattered throughout to real early cinema, from The Horse in Motion to Lumiere brothers footage, a texture absent from the more straightforwardly slapstick earlier films.

For diaspora viewers who grew up on the franchise since 2010, that shift matters: this isn't just another Minions romp, it's Illumination using fifteen years of brand goodwill to slip in something closer to a genuine ode to cinema itself - which, for anyone raised on the ritual of the family trip to the pictures, is a theme that travels well.

Quick Facts

• Minions (2015): set in 1968

• Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022): set in the mid-1970s

• Minions & Monsters (2026): set in the 1920s

• First mainline film without Gru as the central figure

FAQ

Q: Does Gru appear in this film?

A: No - this instalment focuses on a separate Minion tribe with no Gru storyline.

Q: Is it connected to the 2021 short of the same name?

A: In title only; the plots are unrelated.