Shrek is the 2001 animated film featuring a donkey voiced by Eddie Murphy. Produced by DreamWorks Animation, the movie follows Shrek, a solitary ogre whose swamp is disrupted when fairy-tale characters are exiled there by Lord Farquaad. Shrek sets out to rescue Princess Fiona and is joined by the relentlessly talkative Donkey.
Murphy’s energetic voice performance made Donkey one of the film’s breakout characters. The character is not merely a comic animal companion: he becomes Shrek’s closest friend and helps challenge the ogre’s dislike of company. Donkey’s relationship with Dragon also becomes an important part of the later franchise.
Shrek premiered at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival and became the first animated film shown in competition there. It was based loosely on William Steig’s 1990 picture book, but its pop-culture humor, modern dialogue, and fairy-tale parody gave the film a distinctly contemporary style. Finding Nemo, Ice Age, and Madagascar are also computer-animated films, but they feature different characters and were released later or in different story worlds.