Who are the Oscar and Bafta frontrunners in the animation categories?

In 2023, Netflix’s stop-motion take on Pinocchio shook up the feature animation world by winning the Oscar and the Bafta in a category dominated for almost two decades by computer-animated films from Pixar, Disney and, occasionally, the other Hollywood studios.

This year, the category has frontrunners from the genre’s new wave of players and styles, and also from its pantheon of revered companies and filmmakers. In the remainder of the large field — 33 animated features are eligible for this year’s Oscar, compared to 27 last year — are a mega-hit, a gaggle of other studio contenders and a notably strong group of international films.

Exemplifying the mix of old and new, Spider-Man: Across The Spider-­Verse continues the fresh spin on a familiar property first hailed in 2019 Oscar and Bafta winner Spider-Man: Into The Spider-­Verse. For the sequel, a new team of directors — including original production designer Justin K Thompson and Soul co-director Kemp Powers — worked with original writer Phil Lord and his fellow producing partner Christopher Miller to take the teen title character into a string of parallel universes, with different animation styles employed for each domain.

Lauded by critics, and the second-­highest-grossing animated film of the year at the worldwide box office on $691m, Across The Spider-­Verse looks certain to give Sony Pictures Animation, which produced with Marvel, its fifth Oscar nomination.

Few filmmakers are more revered in animation than Hayao Miyazaki, and The Boy And The Heron has an extra sheen as the Japanese master’s first film since announcing his retirement from feature directing in 2013. The hand-drawn Studio Ghibli production is set during Japan’s Pacific War, with a semi-autobiographical story about a boy who enters a fantastical world with a talking heron. A summer hit in Japan — with mini­mal promotional support and under original title How Do You Live? — the film had an international premiere at last autumn’s Toronto Inter­national Film Festival (TIFF) and has been a strong performer around the world, with a $113m global gross at press time. GKids released in the US in December.

While the 82-year-old Miyazaki — a three-time Oscar nominee who won the statuette in 2003 for Spirited Away — may not be doing the awards season publicity rounds, his film will certainly earn the attention of voters, and was validated by the New York and Los Angeles critics, which both named it best animated feature.

Pixar — which has scored a remarkable 17 nominations and 11 wins over the 22-year existence of the animated feature Oscar — is in the running with Elemental, its computer-­animated tale of a world populated by characters made of fire, water, air and earth. Pixar veteran Peter Sohn, who previously directed the studio’s The Good Dinosaur, helmed the romantic comedy, praised by critics for its inventive environments and first- and second-­generation immigrant theme.

The animation, distributed by Pixar parent Disney, made its debut out of competition at Cannes and opened worldwide last summer. Though its early box-office performance was below Pixar’s usual levels, Elementalrecovered to become 2023’s third-biggest animated film, with $496m worldwide.

Pixar’s sister division Walt Disney Animation Studios — with an impressive 13 nominations and four wins over the Oscar category’s history — makes its latest awards bid with Wish, inspired by the Walt Disney Company’s centennial cele­bration in 2023. Frozen alumni Chris Buck (who directed with Fawn Veerasunthorn) and Jennifer Lee (who wrote the screenplay with

Allison Moore) lead the creative team on the tale of a young girl and a magic star in a fantasy kingdom.

Mixing computer animation with a hand-drawn look and a handful of songs (one of which should give it another shot at awards recognition), Wish made a disappointing start at the box office, with a North American opening 22% lower than that of Disney 2022 animated Oscar winner Encanto. Still, with a good audience rating and the Disney heritage behind it, Wish will undoubtedly have its supporters among awards voters. Global box office stands at $127m at press time.

Powerful IP

Mainstream studio- and streamer-­backed animation, often based on tried and tested IP, had a mixed year in 2023. But there is no denying the box-office appeal of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Universal’s spring release that became last year’s second-most-successful film in any genre with a worldwide gross of $1.36bn. Produced in France by Chris Meledandri’s Illumination (which up to now has claimed only a single Oscar nomination — for Despicable Me 2 — in spite of its huge commercial success), the adaptation of Nintendo’s classic video game could now add awards recognition to its box-office haul.

It might have company in the shape of Migration, Illumination and Universal’s late-December US release. The adventure comedy — about a family of ducks on vacation — should attract interest by virtue of its writer, The White Lotus creator Mike White, and director, French animator Benjamin Renner, known for 2014 Oscar nominee Ernest & Celestine.

Netflix has its own fowl contender in Chicken Run: Dawn Of The Nugget, from UK stop-motion expert Aardman Animations, maker of three previous Oscar nominees and 2006 winner Wallace & Gromit: Curse Of The Were-Rabbit, which it produced for DreamWorks Animation. The long-awaited sequel to 2000’s original Chicken Run — also made for DreamWorks — is directed by Sam Fell and had its world premiere at last October’s BFI London Film Festival.

Having confirmed its place in the animation universe with Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio, Netflix is this year looking to add to its tally of four Oscar nominations and one win in the category with a number of major competitors — including Nimona, made for the global streamer by Annapurna Pictures. Directed by Nick Bruno and Troy Quane, the graphic novel adaptation has been widely praised for its clever placement of a teen protagonist in a medieval fantasy plot with LGBTQ+ themes. It had its world premiere at Annecy International Animation Film Festival just before a summer streaming debut last year.

Also on the busy Netflix animation awards slate of six titles (see below for all the entries) is Leo, the well-liked comedy directed by Saturday Night Live (SNL) graduates Robert Marianetti, Robert Smigel and David Wachtenheim. Former SNL cast member Adam Sandler co-wrote the script and voices the title character — an ageing lizard kept as a classroom pet.

Paramount’s Nickelodeon Animation Studios, which won the Oscar and the Bafta in 2012 with Rango, surprised the animation world last year with its adventurous take on a comic book-based franchise with six previous film adaptations. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem provided the title characters with a new origin story, told with a blend of computer animation and 2D elements and screened as a work-in-progress at Annecy before its summer release last year.

Nickelodeon and Paramount had another box-office success with Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie, which significantly out-performed 2021 original Paw Patrol: The Movie. The superhero comedy, based on the pre-school TV series about a team of search-and-rescue dogs, was made in Canada by Spin Master Entertainment, and grossed $197m worldwide.

DreamWorks Animation — producer of 2002’s first ever animated feature Oscar winner Shrek as well as a slew of other nominees since — will be hoping that awards attention follows a relatively modest box-office take ($184m at press time) for Trolls Band Together. The third instalment of the jukebox musical comedy, distributed by parent Universal, again features the voices of Justin Timberlake and Anna Kendrick but did not match the commercial success of 2016 original Trolls ($347m lifetime).

DreamWorks and Universal’s other awards-eligible entry, Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken, told an original story of a shy high-schooler who finds her place as a powerful protector of the oceans. With a voice cast including Toni Collette and Jane Fonda, it had a world premiere at Annecy before its summer 2023 US release.

International competitors

The international contingent includes some of last year’s best work from western and central Europe and Asia. Spanish-French tragicomedy Robot Dreams, a first animation venture for writer/director Pablo Berger (known for prize-winning live-action fantasy Blancanieves), is a 2D adaptation of a US graphic novel about a dog and a robot in 1980s New York City. It premiered at Cannes, won the Contre­champ grand prize at Annecy, and screened at TIFF and the BFI London Film Festival. Neon has picked up rights for the US, with Curzon releasing in UK.

From Spanish directors Fernando Trueba (whose Belle Epoque won the international feature Oscar in 1994, back then known as best foreign-language film) and Javier Mariscal comes They Shot The Piano Player, a multilingual, jazz-themed docudrama set in Argentina that is also in the running for this year’s best documentary feature Oscar. Sony Pictures Classics has the film, which had a work-in-progress screening at Annecy, for the US and a number of international markets. Trueba and Mariscal jointly directed animated feature Chico & Rita with Tono Errando, picking up an Oscar nomination in 2012.

Polish period drama The Peasants, which Sony Pictures Classics has for North and Latin America and other markets and Vertigo released in the UK, is adapted from a classic novel by Nobel Prize-winning author Wladyslaw Reymont, and is also Poland’s submission for the best international feature Oscar. Directors DK Welchman and Hugh Welchman made the film — working with artists from war-torn Ukraine — using the same painted animation technique they employed on their 2018 Oscar nominee Loving Vincent.

Ernest & Celestine: A Trip To Gibberitia is a France-Luxembourg co‑production and the sequel to Oscar nominee Ernest & Celestine. The new adventure for the titular bear and mouse sees original animator Julien Chheng direct alongside Jean-Christophe Roger. GKids has the film, a best animated feature nominee at last year’s César awards in France, for the US.

Suzume is among a number of Japanese anime titles in the awards race. Inspired by the country’s 2011 earthquake and tsunami, the action adventure from writer/­director Makoto Shinkai, known outside his home market for Your Name, centres on a teenage girl and a mysterious young man who join forces to avert a string of natural disasters. A 2022 box-office hit in Japan for producer-­distributor Toho (and grossing $175m worldwide at press time), the film screened at last year’s Berlinale and got a spring release in the US through Crunchyroll.

Two more international films are up for this year’s animation Bafta but missed out on Oscar eligibility: The Old Man Movie: Lactopalypse!, a 2020 Annecy participant from Estonia, uses stop-motion to tell its adult comedy tale, while Puffin Rock And The New Friends is a spin-off from the Puffin Rock children’s TV series produced by Ireland’s Cartoon Saloon, the company behind 2021 Bafta and Oscar nominee Wolfwalkers. 

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