Forget Everything You Know About Cinderella — Netflix’s Steps Is the Fairy Tale Reimagining Nobody Saw Coming

What if the real story wasn’t Cinderella’s — but her stepsisters’? That’s the bold, brilliant premise behind Steps, Netflix Animation Studios’ first landmark original feature film, and after an extensive deep-dive panel at the Annecy 2026 International Animation Film Festival, it’s clear this one is going to be something genuinely special.

Steps — Everything You Need to Know

A Cinderella Story, But Make It Subversive

Steps is short for stepsisters — the oft-maligned characters from the Cinderella story — but the title also stands for stepfamily, or any relationship where people weren’t together before, but are now. This film, six years in the making, flips the fairy tale entirely on its head.

The story centres on Lilith, an Asian immigrant to the Western fairy tale kingdom of Alouette, who finds she doesn’t fit in — unlike her stepsister Cinderella. When Lilith steals the fairy godmother’s wand and breaks the Cinderella story, the two opposites are forced to team up and venture into a wild world to save the kingdom. Think reluctant sisters-in-chaos energy, and you’re on the right track.

This is a story grounded firmly in the Cinderella fairy tale tradition — one of the most retold stories in history — but told from a perspective that’s never had the spotlight before.

The Voice Cast Is Stacked

Ali Wong brings protagonist Lilith to life as a “gothy, punk rebel” described as a charismatic truth-teller hiding a desperate need to belong behind her spiky exterior. Amanda Seyfried voices Cinderella as someone who has dealt with tremendous loss, cleaning and smiling through pain to make everyone feel comfortable. Stephanie Hsu plays Margo, the film’s moral compass who just wants her two sisters to love each other — and gets turned into a frog in the process. Nikki Glaser rounds out the cast as Priscilla, an ambitious, razor-sharp villain with a Marie Antoinette meets Paris Hilton aesthetic.

A Visual World Unlike Anything Else

The kingdom of Alouette is modelled after 18th-century French Rococo architecture, built with “tactile textures and elegant clutter” — including clocks made of taffy, pots made of flan, and trays made of chocolate, creating what the team calls a “delectable” dollhouse world. The animation team also proudly confirmed this is entirely human-made — director Alyce Tzue stating that thousands of artists worked on the film and that it is “very much a human, artist-driven movie.”

For more upcoming Netflix animated films and series worth watching, head to Technosports for all the latest streaming coverage.

FAQs