Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006)

Ice Age: The Meltdown is about three friends, Manny the mammoth, Sid the sloth and Diego the sabertooth, who have to cross a valley in three days before a flood destroys it. The story begins as the ice age starts to end, and the valley has turned into a paradise of water slides and play areas for the animals who live there. Then a vulture delivers bad news: the huge ice wall around the valley is really a dam, and a flood is coming.

The only way out is a boat at the far end of the valley, and the animals have about three days to reach it. Manny also carries a private worry into the journey, because he fears he may be the last mammoth alive. The herd of animals sets out together on the long trek, which gives the film the shape of a road movie in which the road is slowly disappearing under meltwater.

If you are new to the series, Ice Age (2002), directed by Chris Wedge, is where the trio first meet, and the ice age movies in order guide shows where this sequel sits among the others.

In full, the plot sends the herd on a three day trek toward a boat while the dam holds back a giant reservoir, and it ends with Manny finding both a family and proof that he is not alone. The vulture's warning sets the clock, and Manny, Sid and Diego join the migration with the rest of the valley's animals. Two prehistoric sea reptiles thaw out and start hunting the mammals as the water rises, so the trek has a real predator behind it as well as a ticking deadline.

Along the way the trio meet Ellie, a mammoth who was raised by possums and thinks she is one. Her possum brothers Crash and Eddie come along, and the group learns that Ellie was an orphaned calf adopted by their mother. Manny and Ellie grow close, but he hesitates because of the family he lost long ago. After a close call at a pond, the group splits over which route to take to the boat.

When the dam bursts, Ellie and her brothers are trapped in a cave, and Manny rescues Ellie. A falling boulder crushes the two predators. Meanwhile Scrat accidentally pokes a hole in the glacier wall, which opens a crack that drains the floodwater and washes him away. A herd of mammoths emerges through the crack, showing that Manny is not alone. With encouragement from Sid and Diego, Manny chooses to stay with Ellie.

The last gag belongs to Scrat, who has a vision of an acorn heaven, is revived by Sid, and then attacks Sid because he believes Sid took his acorn.

Ice Age: The Meltdown opened in US theaters on March 31, 2006, reached Australia on April 6 and the UK on April 7 of that year. The 20th anniversary of the US opening fell on March 31, 2026. Its first weekend in North America ran from March 31 to April 2, 2006, across 3,964 screens, which averaged $17,785 per screen according to Screen Daily.

The film went on to earn $667 million worldwide on an $80 million budget, according to Box Office Mojo, well above the worldwide total of Ice Age (2002). The ice age box office page compares every film in the series.

If you want to watch it tonight, here is where it stands as of November 3, 2026, based on JustWatch data on TMDB. In the US, it is included with Netflix, Disney Plus, Hulu and FXNow, and it can be rented or bought from Amazon Video, Apple TV Store, Google Play Movies, YouTube and Fandango At Home. In the UK, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney Plus carry it. In Australia, Netflix and Disney Plus carry it. Lineups change often, so the where to watch ice age page holds the latest table.

The ending of Ice Age: The Meltdown settles three questions at once: whether the valley survives, whether Manny is truly alone, and whether he stays with Ellie. In my opinion, the film handles all three in a single sequence, and it is tidier than most family sequels manage.

The valley survives because of Scrat, which is both the best joke in the film and its neatest piece of plotting. While the dam fails and Manny saves Ellie and her brothers from the flood, Scrat accidentally pokes a hole in the glacier wall, and the crack he opens drains the water and washes him away. It could be argued that this is a deliberate reversal, since Scrat is the character who causes disasters elsewhere in the series, from the split land in Ice Age: Continental Drift to the asteroids in Ice Age: Collision Course. Here his mess is what saves everyone.

Manny's question is answered by the same crack. A herd of mammoths comes through it, which shows he is not the last of his kind, and that matters because the fear has shadowed him since the vulture's warning. Perhaps the smartest choice comes next: Manny stays with Ellie because Sid and Diego encourage him, not because the other mammoths turned up. That reads as his own decision, and it is the emotional point of the film.

The choice has consequences you can see in the next film, which opens with Manny about to become a father. The closing beat then goes back to comedy: Scrat has a vision of acorn heaven, Sid revives him, and Scrat attacks Sid because he believes Sid took his acorn. It keeps the final image light after a very sincere scene.

Ice Age: The Meltdown was not filmed on location, because it is a computer animated feature made by the animators at Blue Sky Studios. The valley, the ice wall, the dam and the water park style play areas were all built digitally.

The one piece of real world filming mentioned in the director interview is reference footage: animators filmed squirrels in a park to study how Scrat should move. It is a small detail, and it fits the physical, scrambling way Scrat chases his acorn.

These are the production and release facts about Ice Age: The Meltdown that stand out most.

• Blue Sky Studios had 60 animators on the film, up from 35 on the first Ice Age (director interview, MovieWeb).
• Animators filmed squirrels in a park to study how Scrat should move (director interview, MovieWeb).
• The look moved to a warmer palette with many greens, to carry the story from spring toward summer (director interview, MovieWeb).
• Director Carlos Saldanha's daughters voice small parts in a water park scene (director interview, MovieWeb).
• Chris Wedge, a producer on the film, also voices Scrat (TMDB credits).
• Carlos Saldanha directed alone, with Chris Wedge as executive producer (TMDB credits).
• The film opened on 3,964 screens in North America and averaged $17,785 per screen in its first weekend (Screen Daily).
• Box Office Mojo lists a budget of $80 million, while The Numbers lists $75 million (Box Office Mojo, The Numbers).

For the sequel that follows, see ice age dawn of the dinosaurs, and for the newest chapter, read about ice age boiling point, which is set for February 5, 2027 in the US according to TheWrap.