Directed by Pierre Coffin and Kyle Balda, produced by Chris Meledandri and Janet Healy, and written by Brian Lynch, Minions stars the voices of Coffin as the titular beings (including Kevin, Stuart, and Bob), Sandra Bullock, Jon Hamm, Michael Keaton, Allison Janney, Steve Coogan, Jennifer Saunders, and Geoffrey Rush as the narrator.

Minions are small, yellow pill-shaped creatures which have existed since the beginning of time, evolving from single-celled organisms into beings which exist only to serve history's most evil masters, but they accidentally end up killing all their masters: rolling a Tyrannosaurus into a volcano, letting a caveman get mauled by a bear, crushing a Pharaoh and his subjects with a pyramid, and exposing Count Dracula to sunlight.

They are driven into isolation after firing a cannon at Napoleon while in Russia and start a new life inside a cave, but after many years, the Minions become sad and unmotivated without a master to serve.

The three journey in 1968 to New York City and stay at a department store for the night, where they come across a hidden commercial broadcast advertising Villain-Con, an Orlando convention for all villains.

Scarlet plans to steal the Imperial State Crown from Queen Elizabeth II, promising to reward the Minions if they succeed, but also threatening to kill them if they fail.

Mistaking the accident for an assassination attempt, Scarlet angrily orders the trio's execution and has other villains chase them through the streets of London during a thunderstorm.

With the villains still searching for him, Kevin sneaks into Scarlet's castle to steal weapons and triggers a machine Herb was building, causing him to grow in size into a giant.

This shift was reportedly made in response to Universal's satisfaction with the successful release of Despicable Me 2 (2013) and desire to exploit fully the merchandising potential of Minions.

Physical copies contain behind-the-scenes featurettes; a deleted scene; an interactive world map; short films Cro Minion, Competition, and Binky Nelson Unpacified; and a trailer of The Secret Life of Pets (2016).

[32][33] On August 28, 2015, Minions passed the $1 billion mark at the worldwide box office, becoming the third animated film to cross that milestone after Toy Story 3 (2010) and Frozen (2013).

[34] Deadline Hollywood calculated the film's net profit as $502 million, accounting for production budgets, marketing, talent participations, and other costs; box office grosses and home media revenues placed it second on their list of 2015's "Most Valuable Blockbusters".

[35] Moreover, it had the largest opening weekend for a prequel, breaking the previous record held by Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005).

Its critical consensus reads, "The Minions' brightly colored brand of gibberish-fueled insanity stretches to feature length in their self-titled Despicable Me spinoff, with uneven but often hilarious results.

[51] Tom Russo of The Boston Globe gave the film two stars out of four, saying, "Impressive as it is that the filmmakers get so much comedic mileage out of their characters' half-intelligible prattling, the conventional dialogue is bafflingly flat".

[52] Manohla Dargis of The New York Times said, "While Minions explores nominally new narrative ground, it folds neatly into a series that now includes two features, various shorts, books, video games, sheet music and a theme park attraction.

[53] Tom Long of The Detroit News gave the film a B, saying "Minions is every bit as cute as it's supposed to be, a happily empty-headed animated frolic that rarely pauses to take a breath".

[55] Kerry Lengel of The Arizona Republic gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of five, saying, "Despite the dizzying pace of carefully calibrated incongruities, Minions somehow never generates more than the occasional chuckle".

[57] Liam Lacey of The Globe and Mail gave the film two stars out of four, saying, "With its episodic stream of slapstick gags, Minions has moments of piquant absurdity, but mostly its shrill-but-cutesy anarchy works as a visual sugar rush for the preschool set".

During his presentation for Best Picture, English comedian Sacha Baron Cohen called the characters "hard-working little yellow people with tiny dongs" in response to the lack of diversity.

[85][86][87] Coffin stated in 2024 that Minions's box-office take made successful through marketing rather than quality, but he expressed displeasure over the final film.

[80] That August, Renaud felt that Minions should not be remade into its live-action adaptation, which was considered to have a different take and could diminish the characters' popularity.