The best family movie of the year.

Wall-E and the Iron Giant, meet Rozzum.

Or Roz for short. She’s the latest practical creature to capture the imagination of moviegoers and the star of “The Wild Robot,” the best family movie of the year.

From DreamWorks Animation, “Robot” instantly joins the ranks of that studio’s most memorable properties, such as the wonderful “How to Train Your Dragon” and “Kung Fu Panda.”

When “Dragon” was released in 2010, I began to prefer DreamWorks over the critically adored Pixar and its cheerful Ivy League smears.

Like that cold-blooded but heartwarming adventure about a one-winged fire-breather, “Robot” doesn’t aim to be the class know-it-all who pats adults on the back with puns and overly clever “a-ha”s. . !”s.

Instead, writer-director Chris Sanders (of, you guessed it, “Dragon”) goes straight to his character’s souls… and ours.

Roz is a futuristic robotic assistant, like Alexa or Siri, who can walk, sit and help around the house. However, it’s not much use when your shipping package washes up on the shore of a distant island inhabited only by animals.

The android is nibbled, scratched, chased, attacked and rained upon. So Roz goes into a hibernation-like “learning mode,” trying to be the full Dr. Dolittle and understand why the furry rascals are squealing.

Your plan works. Too bad what opossums, beavers, porcupines and bears shout is “monster!” and “kill him!”

Roz is hated, all alone and wanting to leave until she accidentally crushes all but one of the eggs in a dormant nest.

As an assigned task, he becomes obsessed with helping the surviving baby bird grow. And from there, “Wild Robot” becomes a tearjerker about fatherhood, its ups and downs. Without saying it expressly, it is a wise and sweet ode to adoption.

The gosling, whom Roz names 0001 and later Brightbill (Kit Connor), believes the megametal is his mother.

“I’m not programmed to be a mother,” says Roz, voiced by Lupita Nyong’o.

But Fink (Pedro Pascal), a feisty fox, insists that all he has to do is teach the feathered boy to “eat, swim and fly in the fall.” This is when the herd heads south for the winter.

Coming of age, for a goose, only takes a few months. We get a montage of “Rocky” set to Billie Eilish.

That all sounds nice and cute, but Sanders doesn’t shy away from either the dangers of the wild outdoors (these violent beasts are not the woodland creatures from Sleeping Beauty) or the angst and confusion of adolescence.

Brightbill, a dwarf, wants to discover more about his kind, causing tantrums and resentment. Roz still sees it as her mission to help him fly the nest, so to speak. However, his goal (and his affection) evolve.

It’s no different than if Brent Spiner’s data from “Star Trek: The Next Generation” suddenly became maternal, if you can imagine that.

The situation becomes darker. There are also explosive action sequences and the occasional, if mild, acknowledgment of death that might scare younger viewers.

Whether it is the fireworks of fights or family, Sanders’ image is beautiful everywhere.

Being about both nature and machine, “Robot” doesn’t lean too visually toward either. It has neither the distancing elegance of an Apple commercial nor the magic-free photographic realism of “Planet Earth.”

Instead, the film chooses an uneven middle ground that produces unexpectedly sumptuous images, as when a kaleidoscope of butterflies leap from a tree or geese leap through the air. And Roz gradually and cunningly becomes one with her new mossy surroundings.

What I like most about “The Wild Robot,” though, is that it doesn’t employ the increasingly tired formula of “Here are some inside jokes for adults and some talking Tic Tacs for kids.” Everything in this movie is for everyone.

It’s an incredibly human film, about a bird and a robot.