The internet is a terrible place. A truly nasty garbage fire made of ones and zeroes that only gives us brief glimpses of happiness and joy.

I’m not one of those retro diehards who thinks our world would be better off without it, but I do feel like that however many years modern medicine has added to our lives have all been wiped away by being online over the last 18 months. It’s been rough. Really rough.

But you know what the internet has been consistently great for? Cats.

If the internet has been good for one thing and one thing only, it’s that our feline friends have finally gotten the respect they deserve. The much-maligned cat has long since stood in the shadow of slobbering, barking dogs; scorned and mocked by dog owners who overcompensate for cat owners lack of giving a damn with their own frothing, manic hatred of cats. Dog owners? THEY HAVE OPINIONS ABOUT CATS! It’s very bizarre.

But now? Cats have their own film festivals and museum exhibitions! My own anecdotal research (I looked at BuzzFeed and Tumblr for a few minutes this afternoon) shows cat memes, gifs and amateur cat videos outnumber those of dogs by a bazillion to one. A bazillion! And it looks like other mediums might finally be coming around to them too.

The War On Cats

Naturally, Hollywood has been disgracefully complicit in all of this. Under the foolish idea that dogs are superior to cats, filmmakers have spent literally decades demonising cats and making heroes of dogs. History is littered with heroic cats, but instead we get 11 Lassie movies, two Lassie radio plays, and 13 Lassie television series. Get over yourself, Lassie!

That’s only the start of it. There’s also the endless Shaggy Dog franchise, Turner and Hooch, K9, Eight Below, Max, the two Beethoven movies, Benji, Bolt, Iron Will, Balto… Remember when it was funny that ALF wanted to eat the pet cat? They’d never do that with a dog! At least we got two versions of That Darn Cat including one with Christina Ricci and Doug E. Doug.

Cats have always been the villain’s sidekick too. From Dr. Evil (based on James Bond’s Ernst Stavro Blofeld) and Cruella De Vil, to Doctor Claw in Inspector Gadget and Angelica from Rugrats. Lady Tremaine in Cinderella even names her wicked cat Lucifer! Cats & Dogs was an entire film about dogs saving the world from evil cats. And of course Red Dog had its own villainous cat — because deifying a pooch as all but a saint who cures cancer just wasn’t enough.

Felines have also been a favourite of the horror world. People thought Cat People was so good at representing how malicious cats are that they remade it 50 years later. Then there’s Strays (a film about a family harassed by killer cats), and The Black Cat based in part on Edgar Allen Poe’s story and about a cat who is mentally manipulated into killing. Yes, really.

Cats don’t get no Frankenweenie — Tim Burton’s film about a kid bringing his dead bull terrier back to life. Instead we get Pet Cemetery putting a zombie-cat on its book covers and movie posters. Brief respite from Hollywood’s blatant propaganda against cats comes at least from Cujo, a true-to-life quasi-documentary portrayal of a regular dog who literally wants to rip the faces off poor, innocent children.

The Good Guys?

A few years ago I attended Tribeca Film Festival in New York where I saw Lil Bub and Friendz. It was a puff piece documentary from Vice that barely reached feature-length. It was likely accepted into the festival because the chance to have festival co-founder Robert DeNiro holding the famous meme-friendly, tongue-wagging cat was too much to pass up. Audiences, naturally, loved it. It didn’t matter that the film was kind of garbage.

Now another famous cat is getting his big screen close-up and it’s a bit more legitimate. A Street Cat Named Bob is the true story of James Bowen, a homeless street-musician and Big Issue salesman who finds social media fame by sitting atop his owner’s guitar. His story was eventually sold and turned into eight (!) books and now a movie.

Now, Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire he certainly ain’t (obviously), but Bob does prove to be a natural alongside handsome Luke Treadaway as James, Ruta Gedmintas as a manic-pixie artist, Downton Abbey’s Joanne Froggatt as manic-pixie social worker, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Anthony Head as James’ disapproving, but secretly swell dad.

This is not a great movie. It’s directed less by Roger Spottiswoode (director of Tomorrow Never Dies and that insufferable dog flick Turner & Hooch) than it is by committee with the ravages of James’ drug addiction given a family-friendly gloss. But that doesn’t change the fact Bob is just about the cutest thing you’ve see in cinemas for quite some time.

He’s certainly the cutest since Keanu — the Key and Peele comedy about a do-rag wearing kitty that gets kidnapped to the smooth sounds of George Michael. He’s the most resourceful cat since the titular thief in A Cat in Paris, and offered the best close-ups since Isabelle Huppert’s award-winning and comically nonplussed pet cat in Elle. That cat’s inquisitive eye lingered over every awful decision her owner made and has since inspired critics to delve into the cinematic mechanics of having on screen kitty cats.

Bob is at least more entertaining than the terribly-reviewed Kevin Spacey comedy Nine Lives — the Shaggy Dog of cat movies. A Street Cat Named Bob is certainly the best story about a homeless cat (a small niche, I admit) since Kedi. That film, which only hit last year’s festival circuit, was about the lives of cats on the street of Istanbul as they roam about purring in and out of peoples’ lives. To quote its makers, it was “a love letter to cats”. And boy, is it nice to see more of them.

If filmmakers have finally cottoned on that cats are where it’s at then I say it’s about time! Dogs are the Superman of movies; they can do anything you ask and we’ve seen a lot of them. Cats, on the other hand, have no time for your bullshit and (if you believe animals can give a “performance” in the traditional sense) are more genuine on-screen presences.

Will anybody see A Street Cat Named Bob for any reason other than the cute cat? Doubtful. Is that enough reason to see it? Well, it’s better than Marley & Me…

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Glenn Dunks is a freelance film critic and culture writer from Melbourne. He is the author of three books and tweets too much at @glenndunks.