In the 23 years since the Best Animated Feature category was introduced at the Oscars, Pixar has dominated, racking up an impressive 11 wins from 18 nominations; its last victory was in 2021 for “Soul.” Walt Disney Studios has four trophies to show for its lucky 13 nominations while DreamWorks has gone 2 for 14, including the first-ever Oscar awarded for Best Animated Feature, which went to “Shrek.” Studio Ghibli also has a pair of prizes, and is the reigning champ with “The Boy and the Heron.” (Scroll down for the most up-to-date 2025 Oscar predictions for Best Animated Feature.)
That marked the second win for Japanese auteur Hayao Miyazaki, who had prevailed for “Spirited Away” 22 years earlier. He became the seventh two-time winner joining: Brad Bird (“The Incredibles,” “Ratatouille”), Byron Howard (“Zootopia,” “Encanto”), Jonas Rivera (“Inside Out,” “Toy Story 4”), Clark Spencer (“Zootopia,” “Encanto”), Andrew Stanton (“Finding Nemo,” “WALL-E”), and Lee Unkrich (“Toy Story 3,” “Coco”). Miyazaki is the oldest winner at 83 while Stanton is the youngest, being 38 at the time of “Finding Nemo.” They are all out-paced by Pete Docter who has three Oscars for “Up,” “Inside Out” and “Soul.”
Miyazaki crafted the only two hand-drawn movies to win this race. Two stop-motion flicks — “Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit” and “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” — have prevailed. The other 19 winners were all computer generated fare.
This marks the eight year that the entire membership of the academy can take part in the nomination stage of the Animated Feature Oscar race. Previously, only select members of the Short Films and Feature Animation Branch and invited members from the other branches could serve on the committee that decided the nominees. Collectively, the committee tended to favor traditional and stop-motion films over CG fare.
Mandatory attendance at screenings has been dropped and voters who want to be on the nominations committee need only attest to having seen all the contenders at theaters or screenings or by way of the the academy’s streaming site.
The method of determining the nominees has also changed. Gone is the system where voters scored a film from 6 (poor) to 10 (excellent) with only those movies meriting an average mark of at least 7.5 eligible for a nomination. That method has been replaced by the same preferential ballot used to determine the contenders in acting, directing, writing and the craft categories (except makeup/hairstyling and visual effects) for decades.
This system requires members to rank their top five choices and a multi-step system of counting winnows the various contenders down to the final nominees. The threshold for five nominees remains 16 entries; this year’s slate of contenders should number at least that by the time of the submission deadline in the fall.
UPDATED: July 18, 2024
LEADING CONTENDERS
“Inside Out 2” — Kelsey Mann (Walt Disney Studios)
“The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim” — Kenji Kamiyama (Warner Bros.)
“Memoir of a Snail” — Adam Elliot (Madman Entertainment)
“Moana 2” — David Derrick Jr. (Walt Disney Studios)
“The Most Precious of Cargoes” – Michel Hazanavicius (Studio Canal)
“That Christmas” — Simon Otto (Netflix)
“Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl” — Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham (Netflix)
“The Wild Robot” — Chris Sanders (Universal)
STRONG CONTENDERS
“Chicken for Linda!” — Chiara Malta and Sébastien Laudenbach (Gebeka Films)
“The Colors Within” – Naoko Yamada (GKIDS)
“Despicable Me 4” – Chris Renaud, Patrick Delage (Universal)
“Flow” — Gints Zilbalodis (UFO Distribution)
“The Imaginary” — Yoshiyuki Momose (Toho)
“Piece by Piece” — Morgan Neville (Focus Features/Universal)
“Spellbound” – Vicky Jenson (Netflix)
POSSIBLE CONTENDERS
“The Garfield Movie” – Mark Dindal (Sony)
“Kung Fu Panda 4” – Mike Mitchell (Universal)
“Mars Express” – Jérémie Périn (Gebeka Films)
“Orion and the Dark” – Sean Charmatz (Netflix)
“Thelma the Unicorn” – Jared Hess, Lynn Wang (Netflix)
“Transformers One” — Josh Cooley (Paramount)
“Ultraman: Rising” — Shannon Tindle (Netflix)
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