This Sunday is the 97th Academy Awards, aka my personal Super Bowl. I’m not someone who watches every single film nominated (maybe one day), but I do make an effort each year to watch all of the animated films nominated for Best Animated Feature.
As you can probably imagine, The Academy was hesitant for many years to create a singular category for animated films. The category of Best Animated Feature wasn’t established until the 74th Academy Awards in 2002, with Shrek taking home the inaugural statue. The category began by nominating three films for the first few years, eventually expanding to five.
The Academy has revised the rules for the category multiple times over the years, most recently in 2010. The current rule states, “An animated feature film is defined as a motion picture with a running time of greater than 40 minutes, in which movement and characters’ performances are created using a frame-by-frame technique. Motion capture by itself is not an animation technique. In addition, a significant number of the major characters must be animated, and animation must figure in no less than 75 percent of the picture’s running time.”
This year’s crop of nominees includes films by heavy-hitter studios like Disney and DreamWorks, former winners like Nick Park, director of the Wallace & Gromit franchise, and an array of production home countries, including Latvia and Australia.
Below is my personal ranking of the five films nominated for this year’s award.
The Wild Robot (streamed on Peacock)
If I were given a ballot for this year’s awards, I would cast my vote in this category for The Wild Robot. Directed by Chris Sanders and adapted from the book by Peter Brown, this film is everything I want in an animated feature. It stars a brilliant voice cast, led by Lupita Nyong’o, Pedro Pascal, and Kit Connor. You can feel the chemistry between their three characters. This film is all about a found family, reaching for the stars, and being adaptable to different situations. You don’t want to know how many times I cried watching Brightbill (Connor) and Roz (Nyong’o) connect and reconnect. The animation is absolutely stunning, especially the details drawn onto each individual animal. The film also features music by one of my favorite artists, Maren Morris. All in all, if you’re only going to watch one of the films on this list, make it this one. You won’t regret it.
4.5/5 ⭐
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (streamed on Netflix)
This one surprised me! These little claymation fellas wormed their way into my heart and into second place on this list. In this adventure, Wallace invents a “smart” gnome and Gromit, per usual, has to save this day. This time, he has to tackle artificial intelligence. Who would have thought that Wallace and Gromit would tackle AI before most of Hollywood? I watched this one with my mom and we both loved it. It features a small voice cast, with two major characters (Gromit and our villain, Feathers McGraw) communicating only with facial expressions. Clocking in at only 80 minutes, I highly recommend you put this on and have yourself a nice laugh during these hard times. You did good this year, Netflix.
4/5 ⭐
Inside Out 2 (watched in theaters – now available to stream on Disney+)
I wrote about this film last month as a part of my Top 10 Films of 2024 list, so I’ll keep this brief. This Pixas sequel is directed by Kelsey Mann, his feature-length debut. I really like the Inside Out universe – I’ve seen all of the shorts and even watched the limited series they released last December, Dream Productions. (It’s fine, I mostly watched it because I love Paula Pell.) I adore the voice cast that makes up this film, especially Amy Poehler as Joy. Maya Hawke as Anxiety is a fantastic foil to Joy. I laughed out loud many times while watching this and, of course, teared up. But I do think this sequel is a bit forgettable. While I loved getting to hang out with Riley and the emotions again, I don’t think I’ll find myself returning to this film as much as I have rewatched the original over the years. This film is worth watching, believe me, but I don’t think it deserves to win this year’s Academy Award.
4/5 ⭐
Memoir of a Snail (streamed on AMC+)
Trigger warnings for this film: homophobia, suicidal ideation, alcohol abuse, death of a parent, feeding fetish, child abuse, religious trauma, financial insecurity.
I had many thoughts after watching this film. Overall, I didn’t enjoy it. While it features lovely narration by Sarah Snook, Memoir of a Snail is genuinely one of the most depressing films I’ve ever seen. The animation design seems to be unsettling on purpose – you see boobs and butts at times when you don’t expect (or want!) to see boobs and butts. There are graphic sexual moments, non-consensual kink exploration, and numerous scenes that feature child abuse. I tried to eat lunch while watching this film and had to stop because I felt unsettled.
This movie is definitely for somebody, but it wasn’t for me. I admire the ambition, though.
3/5 ⭐
Flow (available to stream on Max)
I have to be honest, at the time of writing this post, I haven’t seen this film and I don’t know if I ever will. Not because I think I’d hate it, but because I don’t know if I could emotionally get through it. The description according to Letterboxd is, “A solitary cat, displaced by a great flood, finds refuge on a boat with various species and must navigate the challenges of adapting to a transformed world together.” Not to be all “I’m an empath” but watching animals in peril, especially animated ones, makes me incredibly distressed. Y’all are lucky you weren’t in the same theater as me when I watched Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. I may change my mind as Sunday approaches, but as of today, I can’t weigh in on how this film is.
Who are you rooting for to win Oscar gold this Sunday? You can see all of the films I’ve watched for this year’s awards and my ratings of them here.
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