Academy Award for Best Animated Feature

For much of the Academy Awards' history, AMPAS was resistant to the idea of a regular Oscar for animated features, considering there were simply too few produced to justify such consideration.[5] Instead, the Academy occasionally bestowed special Oscars for exceptional productions, usually for Walt Disney Pictures, such as for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1938,[6] and the Special Achievement Academy Award for the live action/animated hybrid Who Framed Roger Rabbit in 1988[7] and Toy Story in 1995.[8] In fact, prior to the creation of the award, only one animated film was nominated for Best Picture: 1991's Beauty and the Beast, also by Walt Disney Pictures.[9][10]

By 2001, the rise of sustained competitors to Disney in the feature animated film market, such as DreamWorks Animation (founded by former Disney executive Jeffrey Katzenberg), created an increase of film releases of significant annual number enough for AMPAS to reconsider.[11] The Academy Award for Best Animated Feature was first given out at the 74th Academy Awards,[12] held on March 24, 2002.[13] The Academy included a rule that stated that the award would not be presented in a year in which fewer than eight eligible films opened in theaters.[14] It recently got rid of that rule on April 23, 2019, to make voting for animated films more acceptable.[15] People in the animation industry and fans expressed hope that the prestige from this award and the resulting boost to the box office would encourage the increased production of animated features.

In 2009, when the nominee slots for Best Picture were doubled to ten, Up was nominated for both Best Animated Feature and Best Picture at the 82nd Academy Awards, the first film to do so since the inception of the Animated Feature category. This feat was repeated the following year by Toy Story 3.

Some members and fans have criticized the award, however, saying it is only intended to prevent animated films from having a chance of winning Best Picture. DreamWorks had advertised heavily during the holiday 2001 season for Shrek, but was disappointed when the rumored Best Picture nomination did not materialize, though it was nominated for and ultimately won the inaugural Best Animated Feature award.[1]

The criticism surrounding the Best Animated Feature category was particularly prominent at the 81st Academy Awards, in which WALL-E won the award but was not nominated for Best Picture despite receiving widespread acclaim from critics and audiences alike and being generally considered to be one of the best films of 2008.[16][17][18][19] This sparked controversy over whether the film was deliberately snubbed of such nomination by the Academy. Film critic Peter Travers commented that "If there was ever a time where an animated feature deserved to be nominated for Best Picture, it's WALL-E." However, official Academy Award regulations state that any film nominated for this category can still be nominated for Best Picture.[4]

From 2010 onward, with the increasing competitiveness of the Animated Feature category, Pixar (a perennial nominee) did not receive nominations for several recent films due to the more mixed critical response and comparatively low box-office receipts, while Pixar's sister studio Disney Animation won their first three awards.[20] In 2010, the Academy enacted a new rule regarding the motion capture technique employed in films such as A Christmas Carol (2009) and The Adventures of Tintin (2011), and how they might not be eligible in this category in the future. This rule was possibly made to prevent nominations of live-action films that rely heavily on motion capture, such as Avatar (2009).

• Pixar has the most wins with 11 and the most nominations with 15 films of any company.
• Laika has the most nominations without a win of any company with 6.
• Almost all the winners have been computer-animated. Spirited Away is the only Japanese hand-drawn and non-English-language animated film to win the category, and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is the only stop motion animated film to win.
• Pete Docter has the most wins and nominations of any individual, winning three awards for Up, Inside Out, and Soul. His only nomination without a win was for Monsters, Inc.
• Disney and Pixar's Toy Story is the only franchise with multiple wins, due to Toy Story 3 (2010) and Toy Story 4 (2019).
• Shrek (with one win), Wallace and Gromit (with one win), How to Train Your Dragon, and Cartoon Saloon's "Irish Folklore Trilogy" (consisting of The Secret of Kells, Song of the Sea, and Wolfwalkers) are the most-nominated franchises, with three films each.
• Of the ten adult animated films nominated, seven of them, The Triplets of Belleville, Persepolis, The Wind Rises, My Life as a Zucchini, The Breadwinner, Loving Vincent, and Isle of Dogs were each rated PG-13. The only R-rated animated film to be nominated in this category is Anomalisa. The remaining two films, Chico and Rita and I Lost My Body, were not rated by the MPAA.
• There have been years when multiple animated films from the same studio were nominated. They are:
  • 2002. Disney's Lilo & Stitch and Treasure Planet
  • 2004. DreamWorks Animation’s Shark Tale and Shrek 2
  • 2011. DreamWorks Animation's Puss in Boots and Kung Fu Panda 2
  • 2012. Walt Disney Pictures's Frankenweenie and Wreck-It Ralph
  • 2016. Disney's Zootopia and Moana
  • 2020. Pixar's Onward and Soul.[40]
• Up (2009) and Toy Story 3 (2010) are the first two films winning this category with Best Picture nominations after the Academy expanded the number of nominees from five to ten.
• Shrek is the only non-Disney/Pixar animated film to be nominated for a screenwriting category, Best Adapted Screenplay, while winning the inaugural Best Animated Feature film category.[41][42]
• Studio Ghibli (Japan) and Aardman (UK) have the most wins for a non-US studio with one win each.
• Studio Ghibli has the most nominations for a non-US studio with six films (winning one with Spirited Away).
• Dean DeBlois (Canada) has the most nominations for a non-US individual with three films.
• Hayao Miyazaki (Japan), Nick Park & Steve Box (both UK) and George Miller (Australia) have the most wins for non-US individuals with one film winning each.
• Ron Clements, Dean DeBlois, Travis Knight, Tomm Moore and Chris Sanders are tied for receiving the most nominations without winning, with 3 nominations each.
• Peter Ramsey is the first African-American to win in this category.
• Brenda Chapman is the first woman to win in this category.

• List of animation awards
• Lists of animated feature films
• List of animated feature films nominated for Academy Awards
• List of submissions for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature
• Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film
• Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film
• Annie Award for Best Animated Feature
• Annie Award for Best Animated Feature — Independent
• Producers Guild of America Award for Best Animated Motion Picture
• BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film
• Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Animated Feature
• Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Animated Film
• Saturn Award for Best Animated Film
• Japan Media Arts Festival
• Animation Kobe
• Tokyo Anime Award

• Academy Awards Database – AMPAS
• Academy Award WInning Feature Films Archived 2014-06-02 at archive.today at BCDB
• Best Animated Picture Submissions for 2011 Oscars