This is a nice example of using the JavaScript API of animate and the \mediabutton command of media9.
User Caramdir's excellent onimage package is used to place the buttons onto the animation. However, we have to patch onimage.sty in order to not use \includegraphics.
For the code below to compile, copy the example image files from package mwe into the current directory as
cp $TEXMF/tex/latex/mwe/example-image-a.png ./example-image-1.png
cp $TEXMF/tex/latex/mwe/example-image-b.png ./example-image-2.png
cp $TEXMF/tex/latex/mwe/example-image-c.png ./example-image-3.png
since we need numbered images for \animategraphics.

\documentclass{beamer}
\usepackage{animate}
\usepackage{media9} % buttons via \mediabutton
%get it from http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~tex-sx/tex-sx/development/view/head:/onimage.dtx
\usepackage{onimage}
%patch onimage.sty not to use \includegraphics
\makeatletter
\def\tikzonimage@opt[#1]#2{%
\begin{tikzpicture}
%\node[inner sep=0] (image) {\includegraphics[#1]{#2}};
\node[inner sep=0] (image) {#2};
\begin{tikzonnode}{image}%
}
\makeatother
\begin{document}
\begin{frame}
\begin{tikzonimage}{%
\animategraphics[method=ocg,label=myGUI,step,nomouse,width=0.8\linewidth]{1}{example-image-}{1}{3}
}[tsx/show help lines]
\node at (0.8 , 0.8) [anchor=south east, inner sep=0pt, outer sep=0pt] {
\mediabutton[
jsaction={try{anim.myGUI.frameNum--}catch(e){}}
]{\fbox{\small\strut back}}};
\node at (0.8 , 0.8) [anchor=south west, inner sep=0pt, outer sep=0pt] {
\mediabutton[
jsaction={try{anim.myGUI.frameNum++}catch(e){}}
]{\fbox{\small\strut next}}};
\end{tikzonimage}
\end{frame}
\end{document}